Welcome to episode 1,820 of the Daily Meditation podcast. I'm Mary Meckley and I honor you for showing up for yourself today

as you give yourself a little more peace, energy, and clarity as you meditate.

In today's episode, we continue along with our theme we're exploring this week,

which is all about confidence.

I'm often told by people who are new to meditation and they may have

been meditating for a few months or even a few weeks and they'll inevitably tell me that one of the

most surprising benefits from from consistently meditating, even for 10 or 15 minutes

at a time, even by doing the techniques without actually sitting down in stillness. People tell me they feel more

confident. And that is because when you calm your mind and body, you allow yourself to relax. You actually begin to activate a different part

of your brain, your prefrontal lobes, which are right in the front part of your brain.

This is the part of your brain that helps you to have more rational thinking.

It helps you to manage your reaction to stress much better.

You will still experience stress. but as you meditate and calm your mind

and body more consistently, you become better and better at managing that stress. And this helps

you to feel more confident. So as you've been better, you've been to feel more confident.

So as you've gone through this series,

you've discovered different meditation techniques in each series

to help calm your mind and your body.

And you've also had a challenge.

That challenge for this week is to listen to your heart.

And this means allowing yourself to notice the meaning behind your words or to tune into your

emotions. Maybe those are emotions that you have become numbed out to

...