Loving Kindness Meditation - Relationships(30 Mins) 1.9.23
by Abbey Harmon
Thank you so much for joining me here today. We are taking 30 minutes to complete a traditional Loving Kindness or Metta meditation as I know it. We repeat phrases to ourselves, sending them to different groups of people. I use the phrases: May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you live with ease. I believe with these practices we can change the world together. With Love, Namaste - Abbey
Transcript
Hello and welcome.
Thank you so much for joining me here today.
My name is Abby and I'm a Salesforce engineer,
Yogi and creator of Consider Volunteering,
My personal brand of community empowerment.
And today I'm back with another installment of my loving kindness meditation.
This has been my practice to show up each Monday to record a session of loving kindness meditation.
I hope to share with you what's authentically going on in my heart at the time in which I capture right in this recording.
And so this week's loving kindness meditation will be influenced by the state of me at this particular time.
And I hope that,
I don't know,
Some of these things that come up for me may resonate for you.
And so over the next 30 minutes,
We will complete a loving kindness meditation from start to finish.
I have learned this technique from Sharon Salzberg and I encourage you to go check out my source,
Learn directly from my source as I think you will find her beautiful as well.
And so the first step in our loving kindness meditation for this week is to find your way to a comfortable seat.
So a comfortable seat is the first step to our loving kindness meditation.
Here today,
I'm sitting on my meditation cushion in my office here as I usually do.
But you know,
Lying down is always fun.
And then hopefully one day taking things off our mats and into the world and testing things out.
Because our own lived experience really is the best tester of all of these perspectives.
So finding our way to our comfortable seat.
As our loving kindness meditation is not very complex,
There are two portions of the practice.
We'll divide the instruction into two portions.
And so the first step to finding your comfortable seat is our set of phrases that we will be saying silently to ourselves.
So the act of our loving kindness meditation is we will repeat this set of phrases silently to ourselves.
And we let them soak in,
Right?
We hold these phrases in our heart,
We kind of use them as our intention for the meditation.
And we repeat them silently to ourselves,
Letting them soak in because the sample phrases I will be using today are,
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe,
May I live with ease.
Totally pick your own phrases in time.
But these are the ones I will be using as examples for today.
Right?
You kind of see where I'm coming from as we hold them in our heart and send them as in,
Right?
The second part of our practice is then sending these phrases to five particular groups of people.
So we send these short phrases,
Either mine or the ones that you come up with,
Two or five different groups of people.
And we start with ourselves.
So the first group in our loving kindness meditation that we send our phrases to is ourselves.
We try to fill up our cup before moving on and into other,
I don't know,
I call it a journey that we go on throughout our practice today,
Our loving kindness meditation journey through these different groups of people sending our phrases.
First ourselves,
And then we move on to a loving relationship.
Hopefully something easy,
Something I say my dogs as they were just fighting in the other room.
But in theory,
Right,
The loving relationship as we move from the self into really cherishing how this loving relationship makes us feel full,
How we desire to have more of these loving relationships in time.
After our loving relationship,
We will do a neutral relationship.
I often describe this as a member of the public,
Somebody you don't know well,
But you interact with on a regular basis,
A member of our community.
Fourth will be then a difficult relationship.
So this is where the rub comes,
Maybe a bit uncomfortable in this section,
But we really do balance all things by cherishing our difficult relationship.
Last but not least,
We open up to all beings everywhere.
So we send our phrases to the last group,
All beings everywhere to cherish the connection we have on this lovely planet.
And with that,
That's it.
No more instruction necessary.
We will dive right into our practice today.
Starting with the self,
We will be sending our phrases to the self,
We will be sending our phrases to the self.
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe.
May I live with ease.
You will silently repeat these with me to yourself.
We continue for the next five minutes.
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe.
May I live with ease.
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe.
May I live with ease.
Letting the breath come in whatever rhythm is natural.
Repeating our phrases.
Trust me,
Of all people,
I know the depths of self-hatred.
Negative talk about the self is definitely something I've struggled with for ever.
I'm certain many will understand.
And it does feel like a large mountain to get past,
Right?
How do I get past this ingrained negative self-talk,
Right,
Forever?
But I believe these loving-kindness practices slowly break down that mentality as we cherish the self.
It's a subtle change from,
Right,
The worst self-talk you have into something a little lighter.
And then we'll get to the next one.
And then a little lighter.
For me,
It was the first time looking in the mirror and not picking apart every flaw right away.
Kind of for once pausing and enjoying just me,
The presence of me.
So I encourage you to continue on with your phrases.
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe.
May I live with ease.
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe.
May I live with ease.
And with that,
Dear friends,
It's time to let down the self,
Take a deep breath,
And transition gently into our loving relationship for this week.
I often encourage the first relationship that comes to mind.
I think that one works great,
Right,
Most natural,
Hopefully not having to work so hard for this loving relationship that we will now send our loving-kindness phrases to for the next five minutes,
Cherishing,
So that we can call on this love when times are tough.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
As a suspected neurotypical person,
I find relationships to be terrifying.
How do you find friends in this day and age when I never leave this room?
And relationships have always been hard for me.
I'm the weird girl,
Right?
I don't think the same way as other people,
So I've always kind of stood out,
But in this more subtle way.
I look fine on the outside,
But on the inside,
It's like,
What's going on in there?
But over time,
I found,
As terrifying as it is,
The more I let my true self shine out,
The more the people who love me,
The people who love me no matter what,
Come through.
Even if it's light and casual way as co-workers who you actually can tolerate.
But you never know which of those relationships tumble easily into more,
And we don't want to stifle those opportunities before they come.
So no matter how light this loving relationship may be,
How scant you may feel as though they're in your life,
They are there.
And I believe this five minutes does great good to help them grow.
And so we continue with our phrases.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
And with that,
Dear friends,
It's time to transition away from our loving relationship to our neutral relationship.
Slow,
Thoughtful thoughts coming up about our member of the community.
I know I hate to let go of that tenderness of our loving relationships,
But right,
This is a journey that we go on in our loving kindness meditations each week,
Shifting into our neutral,
Our member of the community.
Now that we are loved,
We now are able to share that love with those in the community that maybe don't have it for themselves,
Or hopefully,
Right,
More love multiplies more love.
So we send our loving kindness phrases to our neutral relationship this week.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
This week,
I recall a lovely conversation I had with a lady while shopping.
How great that may have been.
She asked me an endearing question,
And I gave her my honest response,
And she seemed to know what I was talking about,
Which was yoga stuff,
Of course.
She must have been a yoga teacher herself,
Because she did seem to understand.
But it was so strange feeling at the time to really feel like you instantly connect with a total stranger in a public place.
But it was a beautiful connection,
One that I'm so grateful to have had.
But can you imagine if that happened more often in your life?
Just by simply letting your light shine out some more,
Drawing these other open and interesting people towards you?
What kind of conversations could you have?
What kind of ideas could be created?
What love,
What magnitudes,
What whiprals will you make?
I look forward to finding out.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
Now that,
Dear friends,
It is time to move from our neutral relationship this week.
How interesting all of those connections can be when we shift into our difficult relationship for this week.
If you cannot take on the biggest mountain in your life during this section,
I amend you.
But if the only thing on your mind is that largest of pebbles or whatever is there,
I'm with you in the struggle and the pain that may rise during this few moments.
But I promise together we will emerge on the other side and for the better with a new perspective and hopefully more compassion for ourselves when times are tough.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
A small part of me believes that from pain,
Love can grow.
And I'm hoping some love for the self,
But what I'm referring to is the idea of being touched,
Like touched in the heart,
Or,
You know,
In theory,
When you see like a baby or something really lovely,
Right?
The most falling in love,
Right?
Love at first sight,
The life joys,
That idea of being touched in the heart is so painful for me.
And yet somehow I believe my heart has to be growing bigger in those times.
I couldn't take it.
And yet somehow you do because you feel how precious this particular moment,
This particular essence is,
This feeling so profound and painful,
And yet so lovely.
How does that make you feel this week?
Can we cherish it,
Even if it's painful?
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
And with that,
Dear friends,
It is time to let go of our difficult relationship this week.
Deep breath,
Sigh it out for that one.
And we move into all beings everywhere for our last five minutes,
Just five more minutes for all beings everywhere.
Wash away any stress,
Opening up to the divine that is greater than ourselves.
We cannot personally fathom what is out there.
May all beings,
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
I'm thinking of the late night comedy shows,
Those political ones,
About how we're always so quick to poke fun at the other party when things aren't going away or seeming a bit ridiculous.
But in the realm of politics,
I find all things to be ridiculous.
To me,
It's a farce.
That's my two cents.
But what would it be?
It'd be so different if those late night political shows,
I don't know,
Showed one modicum of compassion,
Some solace for the other guy being in a bad position.
Because I find that our perspectives are only degrees apart.
And maybe just maybe one act of compassion could grow into two.
Maybe if it's just a subtle way of seeing something more from the other,
Seeing yourself in the other,
Maybe we can cherish our relationship truly to all beings.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
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Howard
April 20, 2023
I appreciate your honesty and focus on impacting your inner and outer world through the merit of your practice. Thank you for for sharing 🙏