Welcome to episode 2782 of the Daily Meditation Podcast. I'm Mary Mechley, and I welcome you to day 7, the final episode in the series you've been exploring all week long on mental strength.

If you are just joining us, you are in the right place. Each episode offers you a meditation with a different technique that is focused on a weekly theme.

You can join in at any point during any series.

If you've been listening to every single episode of this series, I congratulate you, and I hope that you enjoyed the challenge this week where every day you were encouraged to honor yourself in some way.

When you honor yourself, noticing your best qualities and also meeting your needs, knowing what you need in your life, this helps to develop your mental strength.

Each day this week, you have discovered a different insight to help you improve your mental strength.

You start it off with a visualization for positive outcomes. When you visualize positive outcomes, especially when you're going through a stressful situation, this helps to strengthen you mentally.

On day 2 of the series, you discovered how important it is to reframe your experiences so that you can retrain your brain again to focus on what is working or if something is difficult or you're struggling, how you need help, how you can support yourself.

On day 3, you were introduced to the importance of trying new things, being constantly curious. This helps you to become flexible, and it helps to improve your mental strength.

On day 4, you learned the importance of externalizing how you feel, naming your emotions, and acknowledging when you're going through a difficult time and also acknowledging when you did things well and celebrating yourself.

You often don't do this. On day 5, you discovered how important injecting happiness and joy into your days is to your mental strength.

On day 6, you discovered how important it is to feel love, whether that's for a person in a romantic relationship,

or a familial relationship, or even a friend and a passion. You might love sharing your passion with the world. Maybe you help animals, maybe you help the environment, maybe you teach people, and this is a passion of yours.

This is so vital for your mental strength and stamina. Today, in the final episode, your final insight is reflection.

And that, in fact, is what you're guided to do in the final episode of every series. When you reflect on your life, you learn from your life. You learn how to improve your actions.

You learn what's bothering you and to acknowledge it. You also learn what's going well so that you can repeat it.

So as you settle yourself down and get ready to meditate, straighten your spine and close your eyes gently elevating it ever so slightly upwards.

Begin to tune into your breath with each inhale and exhale through your nose. Allow yourself time to breathe at your own pace, not forcing your breath in any way.

Mentally affirm the affirmation this week, I am free to be me. I am free to be me.

In fact, life demands you to freely share yourself. As you reflect back over your week, think of the times this week when you felt compassion for yourself or someone else.

Think about a time this week when you shared joy with someone. Did you share love with someone?

Were you curious? Did you try something new?

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