Hey, welcome back to Practicing Human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little

better at life.

I'm your host, Cory 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, you know that for some

reason, I am on some sort of poetry kick, I've been reading a lot of poems and quotes

and excerpts on all to start off the podcast, and today is no exception.

This is an excerpt from Bob Sharples, meditation, calming the mind.

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 in the place within you that is more ineffable, that you might

not have words for, but instead there's just a feeling, a sense.

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.

...