LOVING KINDNESS MEDITATION

What does loving kindness FEEL like? 

Here is an exercise I enjoyed today that I will offer to you.

Bring yourself into a state of meditation. Find a comfortable way to be seated or lying down. Focus on slowing your breath and deepening each inspiration. When you feel like you have come to the end of the breath, pause for a moment and see if a little more air can come into your lungs. Feel the expansion of your ribs and the softening of the muscles on the side body. Creating more flexibility and opening for your lungs. As you exhale, do so even more slowly than you inhaled so your exhalation is longer than your inhalation. Continue this for two or three breaths, and then allow yourself two or three soft, easy breaths.

Bring the focus of your mind completely on monitoring your breathing. Focus your breath into any areas of tension in your body and feel them melt into a state of relaxation as you inhale and moving into complete relaxation as you exhale. Take a moment to find good alignment in your spine so your muscles don’t have to work to support you. If this is a difficult in a sitting position, feel free to lie down so you can completely relax. if a thought enters your mind, just observe it and let it pass. You can think of your thoughts like clouds in the sky, gently shifting, and moving on, then return the focus of your mind back to your breathing and monitoring your senses. Feel the temperature of the air and if there’s a breeze on your skin, hear the sounds in the room. Let them just be sounds without interpreting what they are. Notice any smells in the room again without interpretation.

Now take a moment to allow your mind to engage with the concept of loving kindness. Take a moment to think of someone who is very easy for you to access the feeling of unconditional love with… Yes, it’s fine if this is your dog, cat or other animal or plant friend. Any being that you can easily feel a loving kindness towards. Allow yourself to feel that experience of being in unconditional love for that being. Really allow yourself to soak it up, soak in it and be in it. Observe how your body FEELS (without the mind, engaging or creating interpretations or stories) as you’re in the state of loving kindness. Don’t rush. Give yourself at least five minutes to enjoy and experience and feel all of the parts of your body as well as your body as a wholeness in this experience of loving kindness. We will create a muscle memory of loving kindness to access in the future when we are meeting challenging experiences. Don’t think of that goal. Just allow yourself to be in it in the moment.

Now, turn your attention to yourself and engage with yourself with unconditional love, and the same loving kindness that you were sharing with the other being. Experience how it feels in your body to be in loving kindness with yourself. Seeing yourself as the perfect being that you are. No judgment, no shame, no anger – just the experience that you are a perfect being worthy of unconditional love and feeling this in your body as you allow yourself to fill yourself with loving kindness towards yourself. 

You can end the exercise there, slowly return your breathing to a soft and easy breath, bringing your mind’s focus on setting your intention for the rest of the day. And allow yourself once again to enter state of focusing the mind completely on your breathing and monitoring the senses. Stay there for a few more minutes - however long feels right for you. Then gently wiggle your fingers and toes rub your hands and feet together, stretch, take some deeper breaths and gently bring yourself back into your day.

When you feel so inclined, you can add the step of thinking of someone who can be more challenging for you. Feel how that feels in your body and the difference between how it felt when you thought of the first individual. Allow yourself to think of the first individual who is very easy for you to access unconditional love with. Then, gently bring into your consciousness, the more challenging individual or situation. See if you can access your body‘s feeling of being in loving kindness with ease and relaxation while you allow yourself to gently consider a challenging situation. Pick a mildly challenging situation, nothing too much. See if you can bring your body feeling back into that state of complete loving kindness and unconditional love. Allow yourself to go into your state of unease and bring yourself back to your state of ease. 

Practicing this with repetition allows you in times of challenges to access more of your state of ease. Try as much as possible to let this be the body feeling of being in loving kindness and ease that you experienced, rather than the mental thoughts or stories around the loving kindness or unconditional love. If we can access the muscle memory of being at ease, while we are meeting challenges, we can make better decisions, have more productive conversations and move through our challenges with less strife and collateral damage. It is nice to give yourself many experiences of doing this exercise where you only experience the easy loving kindness. Creating that muscle memory is more important than challenging yourself with thinking/feeling about more difficult situations or individuals.

Most important is to allow the exercise to be food for your loving kindness and unconditional love for yourself, while allowing that to naturally grow in expansion for a greater number of others. Having the experience be enjoyable, and one that you look forward to experiencing will allow you to have the most peace and improvement from it. Enjoy your state of ease and knowing how beautiful you are today. And know that I am thinking of you as I do this exercise as well. Seeing you as the perfect being that you are and seeing the divine light that shines within you.

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There's no better way to help than to get out and experience nature for yourself.

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