Today is *CYBER MONDAY* here in the States-- which is the biggest shopping day of the year-- And one of my favorite annual rituals.
Bizarre, I know.
But before I explain I want to nip any expectation in the bud that I am planning to sell you something. I’m not.

📣 I definitely do not want to sell you anything today. 📣

And didn’t your inbox breathe a little easier just hearing that?
Maybe the “DELETE” key on your laptop just relaxed some of the tension it’s been holding while cutting through advertisements all day.
(Our "delete" keys really work super hard to preserve our digital sanity, your know?)

Because if your inbox has been anything like mine this weekend, it’s been a deluge of Black Friday through Cyber Monday promotions, sales, and marketing that is trying to capture your eyeballs and convert your clicks into credit card sales.

Which — can be really tiresome. Getting your attention grabbed at all the time by people who want something from you. (aka- yr money, honey.)
*Forbes recently estimated that Americans are exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements A DAY.
Gahhh. How? This blew my mind.

So, while this isn't a mediation practice per se, I want to invite you to participate in my annual Cyber Monday ritual — which is to consecrate your inbox as holy ground by unsubscribing from every single junky, salesey, does-not-spark-joy email that you receive today.

All of the 30% off furniture, skincare and sweaters that you are never going to buy?
Unsubscribe. 👋🏾
That yoga studio you visited once in Boston that is having a sale?
Goodbye for good. 👋🏿
Those digital Groupon, Ebay, Amazon and Overstock dot-com flyers?
Sayonara. UN.SUB.SCRIBE. 👋🏽

Which seems simple enough -- and can also be a powerful practice of setting healthy boundaries and preserving our sanity.
"Unsubscribe Monday" (I just made this up) -- much like meditation-- is a practice of subtly proclaiming that your attention is valuable, and worth something to you too. That you are actively choosing who and what gets invited into your mental space and digital home-- lets face it, we live in our inboxes-- not to mention reclaiming the psychic energy that gets spilled when we spend our mornings wading through junk mail.

Also-- if everything is considered useable, workable, and sacred on the path of meditation, why not compost a shopping "holiday" like Cyber Monday into an annual ritual of cleansing our digital space?

I think of this Unsubscribe-a-palooza as the email equivalent of the famous Ghandi quote:
"I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet."
Here, here.

I personally just unsubscribed from upwards of 25 sales-y email lists this weekend -- which, I'm surprised I was subscribed to so many!
But that's the fun part of about ritualizing the inbox cleanse today : every business that has your email address comes out of the woodwork today. Its like petting fish in a barrel. 🐟

I only hang on the ones that I find educational or uplifting in some way -- and I've gotta say, I look forward to waking up in the morning to a reset, well curated inbox. No clutter. Spacious and sane.
Spared from the regular tap..tap..tap on the "delete" key to save my mind from junky adverts.

Which reminds me -- there's one more thing I'd like to invite you to : for 30% today only! Just kidding. Have a beautiful Unsubscribe Monday.