Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session we're going to talk about integrity. Integrity can sometimes be an overlooked factor in our journey to wellbeing. We often put it in the category of, uh, morality or ethics, which we know to be important, but we don't always think about it when it comes to feeling happy. But there's something about living in alignment with the person you most appreciate yourself to be, the person you most respect yourself to be that actually leads to a profound sense of peace, the peace and the joy of non-remorse.

I think this first became most vivid to me during my time living as a monk in Burma. I went through this period where all of my past regrets just came roaring into my awareness. I don't know how it happened or why it happened, but my mind just started going through all the past things that, uh, felt out of alignment for me. And there were bigger things, but even just little things. I remember this one time.

It was nine years old. Um, my brother and I were playing on the front lawn. And my mom asked us to take out the trash and I didn't want to do it so I pretended to fall and get hurt so that my brother would have to do it. A little simple thing that you could totally forgive umm, an innocent child for doing. But even that stuck with me, it, it imprinted or ingrained in me a sense of not being a good person.

And I, I felt it deeply in my awareness as my mind was just becoming more clear and, um, you could even say there was a purification that was happening as I was, I was being more present and more aligned with myself. And, and there was this period of having to work through this impression of myself, of, of not being a good person. But after I went through that, there was this, uh, uh, a new appreciation for living in alignment with myself, a new appreciation for having a sense of what my integrity is and making sure I adhere to it. Not in a way of like, you need to do this, you need to be a good person, but, but for my own sake, my, my own sense of peace and goodness. At the end of the day, you know, you can lie to other people about who you are, but you can't lie to your heart.

You have to go to bed with yourself, your mind, your heart every night. And so, uh, taking this seriously and getting sense of, of what does it mean to live in integrity for you and, and to practice being in integrity is a powerful mindfulness practice in itself, and a powerful part of developing a life of fulfillment, goodness and contentment. So I hope this gives you something to think about as you continue your journey. And what meditation does that I really appreciate is it, it attunes us to a sensitivity to when we're in alignment with ourselves and when we're out of alignment. So as we go into our meditation, you can, you can see it as a factor in your journey of cultivating more integrity and alignment with integrity.

As always thank you for your practice. And let's settle in for our meditation today.