I think one of the most valuable insights and skills is understanding that whenever your mood

is low, that the way that you think about yourself and the way that you think about life

is deeply influenced by that.

And so if we look at the general ecosystem of our emotional life and spectrum,

you know, our emotional world is always expanding and contracting. So if you look at your

own life from a bird's eye view, zoom out a little bit, as I like to say, you can think about

it kind of pulses.

It almost breathes.

And there will be, you know, days or weeks where you feel good and you feel light and positive.

And then there'll be days or weeks where you'll feel down and somewhat more pessimistic or just kind of blue a little bit or some type of negative emotional.

I mean, negative is an interesting word.

Perhaps somewhat of a painful emotional state.

And so if you think about those patterns, it just kind of goes back and forth.

And of course there is a crossover period, you know, and using the breathing analogy, it's the space between breaths.

You know, one of my favorite meditative techniques that I use is just the pure simplicity.

And I've shared this practice many times before, but essentially whenever you breathe in, you think rising, whenever you breathe out,

you think falling, and the space between breaths, you think sitting.

A nice, very useful mantra.

And the emotional world works in the same way.

You know, there's this period of expansion and happiness and optimism.

Then there'll be a period of kind of contraction where you might feel a little bit more tired

or burned out or down and low. And there's a period in between where you might feel a little bit more tired or burned out or down and low.

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