Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about building the dream home of your mind. So I watched this video recently about this $500 million house in LA and it randomly popped up on my YouTube channel. And I was curious. There was a compelling caption, and I never heard of a $500 million house.

So I watched the whole tour. It was pretty incredible. You can imagine what a $500 million house might look like. All the different rooms and the glamour and the luxury of it. It was certainly compelling.

Not necessarily something I would want to live in, but to visit, I, I could see the part of me that was like, whoa, this is, this is glamorous. And I could see how a lot of people could be compelled by trying to get to a place in life where this could be a possibility. You know, the, the allure of the luxury of it and everything it represents is really compelling. And I was also reflecting on the fact that, you know, you can have something like this and you could still be miserable. You could still feel bound internally.

You could still feel like you're suffering in your mind or not know how to work with difficult thoughts or be so caught up in yourself that you disconnect with the rest of the world. It's quite possible that this could become available to you and you could be miserable while you're in it. And it just made me think about like, you know, well, what is a path that you can take that is more full-proof? And it reminded me of why I got into this work to begin with. You know, there was a bit of a disillusionment early on for me when I was in college, seeing that I was going to go down a, a certain kind of path and I was like very interested in finance and then just the recognition of might not actually lead to my wellbeing. What could I do in a way that I, I know progress in that direction would also have dividends on my fulfillment.

Then that's actually what inspired me to go down this path of mindfulness, meditation, positive psychology, and just asking the question of what it means to live well. And so there was bringing that back up for me. And it's a reminder and something I want to offer you as well as like there's a lot of things out there that are going to feel compelling, but there is not a direct relationship between having them, between pursuing them and having them and your wellbeing. However, the work that we are doing here is much more of a direct relationship. The work of cultivating an internal sense of self-compassion, the work of cultivating a presence, the work of cultivating a spaciousness within you that can allow experience to come and go without extra tension, the work of cultivating internal forgiveness, self-love, compassion for others.

These things lead to a happier, clearer, brighter, and joyful mind. And the effort and energy you put into developing that will have those dividends. You can trust that. So maybe instead of trying to attain the $500 million home, we can work to attain the $500 million mind. What would it look like to cultivate a mind that we are so excited to live in, that we know is bringing us joy and wellbeing, and also having that impact for others around us? Just something to contemplate and hopefully something to continue to motivate you on the journey that you're already on.

Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.