Welcome to first this, a short mindfulness practice and message for any time.

I'm Catherine Nikolai. Okay, let's settle in. As always, any position is fine. There is no hierarchy of postures here.

Just be comfortable enough that you can be mostly still for the next few minutes.

Then breathe in deep and sigh it out in through the nose and out.

In through the nose and out the mouth. Good.

So lips together now.

And just a natural breath through your nose.

If it's deep, let it be. If it's shallow, let it be. Just observe it. When you realize you've wandered

elsewhere, no frustration or disappointment. It's actually a really helpful and

useful moment in this, the moment when you get to practice starting over. So hey, well done.

You just begin again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thinking today about the stories we tell ourselves, that can get ingrained into how we think.

Meditation is a time when we can observe our thoughts with some perspective, or maybe spot

some that are not helpful or not true. Thank you. A few years ago, a friend asked me about my plans for something.

The specifics don't really matter.

She just said, you know, did I intend to X, Y, Z?

And without thinking, I opened my mouth and repeated something I'd heard my seventh grade teacher say about me when I was 13 years old.

In all the years in between, I'd been repeating her words.

I'd been saying, oh, I can't do X, Y, Z because, and filled in the blank.

I'd heard it said, taken it as undeniably true, and lived according to it for decades.

Love it. to it for decades. Luckily, my friend is a wise person, and she just paused and slowly nodded her head and said,

the stories we tell ourselves, right?

It wasn't awakening for me.

...