Hey, welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Muscara, and in today's episode we're going to talk about calming the mind.

More to come on that in a moment first.

Let's settle in together with the sound of the bells. Okay, so if you've been following along for the last week or two,

okay, so if you've been following along for the last week or two, you know that for some reason I am on some sort of poetry kick.

Been reading a lot of poems and quotes and excerpts on, well, to start off the

podcast and today is no exception. This is an excerpt from Bob Sharples,

meditation, calming the mind.

And as I read this little passage, similar to all the poetry or anything I read. Yes, you're

listening to it and you're processing it maybe cognitively but really try to feel it. See how it lands for you and the place within

you that is more ineffable that you might not have words for, but instead there's just a feeling, a sense.

So Bob says, don't meditate to fix yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself.

Rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship to yourself.

In this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement, for the

endless guilt of not doing enough. It offers the possibility

of an end to the ceaseless round of trying so hard that wraps so many people's lives in a knot.

Instead, there is now meditation as an act of love.

How endlessly delightful and encouraging.

Hmm. There's one line in that. Let me see if I could find it in particular that I really like

It's the second one in this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement.

Oh, man.

Is that not something I just want to put on a plaque

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