Headspace Studios.

Hi, welcome to Radio Headspace Space. It's Dora.

So I spent my most recent birthday in my favorite forest. No plans, no celebration dinner waiting for me, just me, the trees, and the sound of my footsteps on the ground.

I was walking slowly, letting myself wander, noticing how the light move through the branches.

And there's something about being in a forest that immediately shifts your nervous system.

The pace changes, your body softens, and you remember that you belong to something much older than your to-do list.

As I walked, I found myself thinking about the trees as ancestors.

Some of them had clearly been there long before me.

Some would still be there long after.

And then a question surfaced.

Have I been a good ancestor? Not in terms of like legacy or achievement, but in the everyday sense. How am I spending my time while I'm here? And that

question stopped me. I began reflecting on the last 33 years of my life.

The choices I remember, the seasons I move through, the ways in which I've grown, stumbled,

learned, and tried again.

It was an honest reflection, and honest reflection takes courage.

Mindfulness teaches us that reflection is not meant to pull us into regret.

It's meant to help us arrive more fully into the present moment.

When we reflect with care, we're not asking, what did I do wrong. We're asking, how do I want to live from here?

Our relationship with time begins to shift when we realize that we're not here to outrun it. We're here to fully inhabit it.

I've been thinking a lot about how strange time has felt since 2020.

It feels like I've lived many different lives since then.

Entire chapters, major transitions.

...