Hi there,
My name's Gareth and I'm going to be guiding you through this meditation on developing and cultivating compassion.
This is a deep sense of compassion for yourself and for others as well.
I want you to start by finding a comfortable seat,
You can even do this one lying down on your back,
Just make yourself as comfortable as you can.
Take your time.
Get rid of any wiggles,
Itches,
Scratches,
Anything that's going to grab your attention away.
Feel free to light a candle and find a really quiet space for the next ten minutes or so.
I want you to start once you're comfortable by taking a few deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
You can really over exaggerate these exhales,
Maybe even letting them turn into a big sigh.
Now when we try and develop compassion or loving kindness,
The first recipient always has to be ourself.
Once we can find love and a deep sense of compassion for ourselves,
That can radiate out into people who you might find it quite difficult to be around,
Or challenging,
Or maybe even radiating out just into the whole world,
Maybe even to every little element of what you do.
Letting love seep into every last little thing,
Every last little act,
Every word that you speak can be a difficult thing to muster and to accomplish.
But when we close our hearts,
We are the ones who suffer.
We are the ones who get caught in this sorrow and in this suffering.
So we work on ourselves to change the dynamic of our relationship with ourselves,
To leave some room for openness,
Some compassion,
Some patience.
We learn to be with ourselves and in turn we learn to tolerate the difficulties of others,
Including the difficulties of ourselves.
Now I want you to take a few more deep breaths,
Big exhales,
And think about that softness that comes with each exhale.
That soft quality that is with every single exhale is going to be really important.
We want to be able to feel the difference between the spaciousness of the inhale and that soft relaxing quality of each exhale.
Now just let your breath do as it needs to do.
Let it flow naturally,
Smoothly,
Evenly in and out through the nostrils.
Now to help facilitate this practice,
We're going to use a few affirmations.
The first one we're going to use is very simple,
It's very straightforward,
And you're just going to repeat it over and over again in your head.
All I want you to repeat for now is may I find peace.
May I find peace.
May I find peace.
Leaving a little bit of a room between each one for that spacious and relaxing quality of the breath to seep in.
And then just returning back to your affirmation,
May I find peace.
May I find peace.
May I find peace.
Let your body be soft and relaxed,
Your shoulders and your back light and weightless.
And just repeating in your head,
May I find peace.
I want you to remain open and curious with any sensations through the body and any narrative that might pop up in the mind.
And just observe them and then let them go.
Returning back to your affirmation,
May I find peace.
And now,
Changing the affirmation,
Keeping that softness,
Maybe taking a nice big inhale,
Releasing a nice big sigh.
And repeating after me,
May I live with ease.
May I live with ease.
May I live with ease.
Once again,
Still leaving space in between each affirmation for that relaxing and soft quality of the breath.
May I live with ease.
May I live with ease.
May I live with ease.
Now I just want you to repeat your affirmation three more times and then take a big relaxing exhale.
Now I want you to notice if at any point you resisted what you offered yourself.
I want you to notice if you judged yourself or if you found some part of repeating that affirmation to yourself quite challenging.
And now what I want us to do is wish that same goodness that we just wished for ourselves onto someone else.
And I want you to bring into mind someone who you might have difficulty with.
Someone who might bring you trouble or you just find it difficult to be around them for whatever reason.
Now I want you to wish them to live with peace.
May they find peace.
May they find peace.
May they find peace.
And just repeating over and over while remaining open and curious to what comes up.
Any judgments or narratives that come through the mind or any sensations that come through the body.
And just repeating over and over.
May they find peace.
May they find peace.
May they find peace.
A few more repetitions.
A few more deep breaths.
And then when you're ready repeating after me.
May they live with ease.
May they live with ease.
May they live with ease.
May they live with ease.
May they live with ease.
May they live with ease.
And repeating a few more times in your head.
And then when you're ready taking a big big inhale filling up the lungs as much as you possibly can and emptying them out with a big sigh.
I want you to sit in this space,
This accumulation.
Knowing that finding kindness and finding compassion in today's world is not easy.
Especially when we experience difficulty from ourselves or from life or from another person.
Practices like this can be so meaningful.
They can have such a strong ripple effect.
And in wishing well of others we can notice how that can affect our own feelings of kindness towards ourselves as well.
And vice versa.
Kindness towards all living beings,
Towards nature,
Vibrating out of ourselves and into the rest of the universe.
And at times we can be tested.
Life can get hard.
It can feel like we're experiencing challenge after challenge.
But if we can dig deep and find some compassion,
Find some kindness,
Find some peace,
That's really gonna help us on our journeys.
It's gonna help us to act out of a more wholesome place than to just react.
And with that you're welcome to stay in this space for as long as you feel like you want to.
And see how you get on.
Try to infuse some kindness or some compassion into your daily life.
Maybe even just a few moments when you're making a coffee in the morning or before you're going to bed.
Taking a few moments to find peace and to live with ease.
Thank you and enjoy the rest of your day.
