Rediscover How Simple Life Can Be

Come back to the immediacy of your experience.

Notice how your mind is constantly commenting on everything: you, other people, your situation. For example, you could be:

• lying on a beautiful beach and worrying about work

• taking a shower and mentally rehearsing each part of the day ahead

• ready to drift off to sleep and suddenly a dozen thoughts fill your mind

All that noise can make it easy to mistake mental events for something more substantive, as if the world is exactly what your mind says it is.

When you release unhelpful mental stories, you can connect with the immediacy of your experience. I usually think of “immediate” as meaning “right now”—the present-focus that mindfulness practice often emphasizes.

But it can also mean “with nothing in between,” as in “un-mediated” (as my friend Pat recently pointed out).

When you’re in your immediate experience, you clear the mental haze created by the your mind’s unending commentary. You’re closer to raw sensations and basic perceptions, without the judgments that mediate between you and reality.

See what it’s like when you make a point to mind your mind. You might create reminders (such as a sticky note or an alarm on your phone) to check in on what you’re telling yourself.

As you develop the habit of seeing what your mind is doing, you’ll be less swayed by the thoughts it invents. You’ll be quicker to say: Aha—that’s a story my mind is telling me. You’ll be able to wipe away the grime from the windshield of your mind, so you can see more clearly what’s in front of you.

Look for one story today that isn’t helping you. Let it go as you take a slow breath in and out. Feel the lightness that is already here when you reconnect with the immediacy of this moment.

Reduce Anxiety & Manage Stress Every Day of the Year

Today’s theme is taken from my new book, Your Daily Reset, which is coming out on October 21, 2025. It offers 366 daily exercises to help you rewire your thinking patterns.

Here’s the practice for today’s date:

With love,

Seth