Loving Kindness Meditation
Whatever feelings we may be experiencing from someone who we feel have hurt us (this can include ourselves), the next step in bringing resolution and release to those emotions is often forgiveness or compassion. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things for me. When you experience pain from someone else, even if you understand where they may be coming from, we are hurt. It’s not necessarily a fun feeling to experience, especially when it can show up so powerfully in our bodies. The person I often find myself needing to forgive is myself. I’m definitely the hardest on myself when I feel I’ve made a mistake. I would hear and read constantly to ‘just forgive, forgive, forgive’ but never knew what the heck that meant or how the hell I would accomplish it.
Until I found and practiced this meditation. You may have heard of it already, but I can’t stress enough the power that can come from it when practiced over a period of time. Doing it just once or twice may bring results but I have found the longer we do it the more powerful we can access those experiences of forgiveness and compassion.
Metta Meditation or Loving Kindness Meditation
1) Find yourself in a comfortable position. You may be seated or laying down. I love to do this meditation with legs up the wall to help take me into a more relaxed state - ideally in a space that you will not be disrupted for a few minutes. Focus on taking several deep breaths to help bring you into the moment.
2) Begin to think of someone or something you can easily access a lot of love for. Imagine them in front of you. As you allow these feelings of kindness and love surface within you begin to send them loving words. These will be the mantras you will use throughout this whole meditation. Find the words that resonate with you most but it can be simple such as:
May you be healthy
May you be happy
May you be safe
May you live your life with ease
Say this several times in your mind to them, genuinely sending these loving kindness mantras to them.
3) Begin to now think of someone or something you are experiencing challenges with. Now repeat those same loving kindness mantras to them several times. It may not be as easy to access these same positive feelings towards them but over time this will change, so for now just observe how you feel as you extend this kindness to someone you have been hurt or challenged by.
May you be healthy
May you be happy
May you be safe
May you live your life with ease
4) Now turn your attention to the world, extending this same kindness to everyone for several rounds:
May you be healthy,
May you be happy
May you be safe
May you life your life with ease
5) Final step, turn your attention to yourself. I like to place my hands over my heart as I now say these same words to myself:
May I be healthy
May I be happy
May I be safe
May I live my life with ease
I absolutely love how this meditation ends with us loving on ourselves. We need and deserve our own loving kindness as much as anyone else around us that we send it to.
This is just my version of this meditation. There are multiple versions and you are free to modify it to whatever works best for you. As always, I’d love to hear about your experiences.
Namaste,
Laura
