Nourished Metta

This Metta Meditation is an opportunity to bathe in our own loving kindness. In a culture where energy is sometimes given or exchanged from a place of deep depletion, this practice encourages our bodies to cycle and receive deep nourishment from our own loving hands.

Transcript

Hello!

Welcome!

Today I was gonna spend a little bit of time doing metameditation and my version of metameditation was a little bit different than the traditional one that I was taught.

However,

I thought I'd like to share with you the way that I prefer to do it and I think that this is just such a wonderful opportunity to really bathe in our own loving kindness and generosity.

Before we physically attempt at sharing that with anyone outside of ourselves and in our culture,

I don't know about you but for me I'm living in California so we just have this very busy outward outward energy all the time giving giving or working or moving and lots of traffic and so on and so forth so it's really nourishing to be able to take a step back from that and just allow your body to receive through your own loving kindness and generosity.

So if you feel open to that today,

I'd like you to go ahead and get comfortable.

It will take about 10 or 15 minutes here to explore and so yeah go ahead and find a comfortable seated position or you may lie down if that's better for you and really just take a few moments to kind of wiggle it out a little bit so we're gonna move the shoulders around and the core of our body and our hips and our tailbone and our feet and legs and just find wherever you're gonna be most comfortable but we do want to have the back in alignment so we do want the spine to be relatively straight as we can and yeah just make sure you're gonna have some uninterrupted time here to yourself and we'll go ahead and get started with a body scan.

So we're gonna start with our attention at the top of the head right at the crown of the skull there.

Just bringing your attention there we'll begin to scan down the body so we'll move our awareness gently down moving towards the ears and the forehead and the area just between the eyes letting that soften and bringing the attention down the sides of the face and into the jaw releasing relaxing through the jaw and the muscles of the neck.

You can place your tongue on the roof of the mouth just behind the front teeth and just apply a little bit of pressure there.

Finding your breath just as it is taking that awareness down the body into the shoulders and the arms down through the tips of the fingers and the hands Softly bringing our attention to the heart space and the area behind the heart.

If you can take a big deep breath into the back of the heart space letting out any audible sounds or sighs.

This is our way our body's way of releasing tension and stress so always feel free to let out any audible sounds.

Mmm.

Beautiful.

Continue to work your way down the body bringing your attention through your chest and your torso your solar plexus in the middle of the back the navel center and the tailbone and the root of your body allowing it to soften maybe open letting any roots come down and out into Mother Earth breathing in her nourishment up from the roots into the body taking your attention towards your hips and your thighs and the knees the shins and the calves all the way down to your heels the bottoms of your feet and your toes and the tops of your feet letting yourself really rest inside of your body and gently when you're ready we'll bring our hands together in front of our chest just tucking those thumbs into the space between the rib cage right next to the heart just allowing yourself to feel that containment that you're creating there it's closed circuit breathing in and breathing out you so so I'm going to take the attention back up to the area between the eyes,

To your third eye.

And on your in-breath,

Just bringing energy in,

Bringing,

Reeling all of yourself back home here.

So reeling yourself in on the in-breath and resting on the out-breath,

Resting down and back.

Fully rooted,

Fully connected and contained inside your own body.

Letting the belly be full and round.

Taking note of any part of your body that can soften.

What parts of you can soften more?

Maybe your fingertips,

Are you pressing them tightly close together?

Let the fingertips and the wrists soften.

Check in with the jaw and the muscles of the neck,

Shoulders,

And the hips.

And then gently bring your attention to your heart space once again.

Trying to circulate that energy from the heart down through the arms and into the hands.

Maybe imagining it coming back into the heart through the thumbs that are tucked into your chest.

So we're using the very same principle that we were before in that on your in-breath,

You're breathing in and circulating that energy down through the arms.

And then on your out-breath,

You're really just letting yourself receive through the thumbs and into the heart space down and back.

So we're using the very same principle that we were before in that on your out-breath.

As my in-breath grows deep,

My out-breath grows slow.

As my in-breath grows deep,

My out-breath grows slow.

One can repeat these words with your in-breath and your out-breath.

One can repeat these words with your in-breath.

One can repeat these words with your out-breath.

One can repeat these words with your out-breath.

Beautiful.

Maybe you can begin to feel the pressure on your fingertips,

The energy beginning to circulate.

And we'll begin,

May I be happy and may I be well.

So on the in-breath,

May I be happy and on the out-breath,

May I be well.

Still letting your body nourish from the root as you breathe in as well so you can combine these with cycling the energy in the chest and the heart with just absorbing and letting yourself be nourished at the root at the same time.

May I be happy.

And on the out-breath,

May I be well.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

And really letting yourself feel all the way up.

And release all the way out.

Letting your breath be slow and rhythmic.

May I be happy.

May I be well.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

I'm gonna begin to just slightly move those fingers in and out.

Rub the hands together really quickly here.

And once you get them nice and good and warm,

Go ahead and place the palms of your hands over the eyes and let the back of the head rest down.

Letting the body be heavy and soft.

Maybe you can hear your heartbeat or feel the pulse in your hands.

Continuing to draw nourishment from your root.

And relax on the out-breath and gently slide those hands down the body and give yourself a squeeze.

Maybe letting the eyes flutter open when you're ready.

Letting the hands soften and release.

Knowing that you can come back to this practice at any time.

Namaste.