Loving Kindness Meditation

Hi, namaste, I'm so glad you're here today. Showing up again and again to heal the pain and the suffering that come with trauma can be really exhausting and overwhelming, and it actually takes a lot of kindness and a lot of love and a lot of compassion to do that. And now compassion or showing non-judgmental attention, kindness, and understanding to just basic human suffering, like our vulnerabilities or shames or fears, that is actually learned in relationship, in and between people, and so I'm very grateful to have my friend Alex here with me today to do this practice and strengthen our practice together. We're going to begin now by doing less, by actually cultivating more of a sense of effortlessness. So I want you to get as comfortable as you can in whatever position you're in.

Now if you're really slumping down, it might actually be helpful to allow your spine to elongate just so your lungs have the capacity to move and spread as they need, but otherwise sense how you know you're actually feeling comfortable, maybe wiggle into your seat a little bit, and then in that no big deal kind of a way, allow your eyes to just kind of take in the room or do what they want to do. So for some of you it might mean closing the eyes, for others it's just kind of glancing around letting the head and the neck turn, and just see what you are aware of without any effort. You're probably aware of my voice, you're probably aware of the temperature wherever you're at, you might be aware of what you're sitting on, just effortlessly noticing what you notice, and your eyes now might be drawn to something else. Your awareness might move around a little bit, let's see if we can make that okay, just that non-judgmental exploration, yeah. Great, now I'm going to invite you back to something more specific that you may have seen as you were scanning the space, or if you have your eyes closed and you're visualizing something in that visualization that is really pleasant to look at.

Let your eyes anchor there, let your mind's awareness anchor there, and just see how you know this is pleasant. The body, is the weight getting a little heavier or more connected to earth, is the belly expanding. You might notice that your inner pace, your inner rhythm is slowing down a little bit. You get really curious about this object, any colors that you're noticing, does have a shape, yeah, great, and just back to how you're aware that it's actually okay or pleasant or interesting. Now we're going to take this a little bit further, and you might find that closing your eyes at this point is helpful, if not just keep them lightly anchored on a point.

But visualize an experience with another person that allowed you to feel that sense of like okay-ness, that sense of calm that the object you just connected to kind of does. So this might be an interaction with a person where you really could feel them extending their kindness or their care in your direction. So try to bring to mind the general feeling or even the specific expression that they offered to you. Was it a smile, was it a widening of the eyes? And as they offer you or communicate this sense of caring kindness in your direction, notice what gestures may have been a part of that.

And tune into what your response to that kind experience was. Yeah, it did allow your heart to get warm, it might have made you smile in return. Uh-huh, was there a little flutter in your heart or in your belly, was there a widening and deepening, a settling somewhere? And see if you can really become aware of the overall sense of what it's like to have kindness or caring being offered to you. And now if you could touch into this and think of someone in your life you'd like to offer that to, I want you to imagine that person, someone you would like to offer kindness, caring, compassion to, and just think about sending it in their direction.

How would you hold your body for it? How would you soften your face or move your face for it? And remembering that you are not here to fix, change, or take responsibility for any other being, you're just here to offer kindness, compassion, and attention. And you might imagine just saying to them, may you know peace, and just extending that offering of may you know kindness, may you know a sense of safety, may you know love. And again, just visualizing yourself offering this, may you know peace, may you know kindness, may you know safety, and may you know love.

Now if there's any part of you that feels touched by this, feels authentic to you, you might offer those same words back to yourself, may I know peace, may I know kindness, may I know a sense of safety, may I know love, may I know peace, may my heart, my body, my mind know kindness, may my heart, my body, my mind know a sense of safety, and may my heart and my body and my mind know love, and just notice that, how is that for you to receive. And again, if you're not quite there to allow that in for yourself, just know that there might be a window in offering it to others, yeah, and again if this feels authentic to you, we're just gonna take it one step further, maybe envisioning the circle of your community that might be your family, that might be your friends, the people you connect with that you know, just offering, may you all know peace, may you all know kindness, and may you all know love. Notice what that's like in your own system to offer that out. And lastly, and you may be here and you may not be here, but just holding the possibility that we might offer the same wish to all beings, may all of us know peace, may all of us know kindness, may all of us know a sense of safety, and may all of us know love. Just pausing with that, knowing that these wishes of well-being ripple out into our lives.

Yeah, and as you're ready, we'll take a breath in, let it go, bring your hands together, just rub the hands, place the hands over the eyes, let your hands move just down the face to the neck, and then come together at the heart, let the eyes open, and then just bowing into yourself, into your other, into others. Thank you, namaste.