Loving Kindness Meditation - Relationships(30 Mins) 10.03.22

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.

I'm a Yogi Salesforce engineer and creator of Consider Volunteering,

My personal brand of community empowerment.

I'm back with you today for another installment of my loving kindness meditation.

So we've been coming together on a weekly basis to share on this practice together because I truly believe it will make the world a better place and when we all like the world to be a better place.

This is my attempt,

You know,

Can't knock a girl for trying.

But we try because I must hold hope,

You know,

That deepest faith and all things that,

You know,

Good will win over evil.

We're holding on.

We're holding on hope.

So we practice and we're here for our loving kindness practice today.

Where you need no previous experience,

I will walk you through the entire process from start to finish.

No worries there.

Our practice will take 30 minutes.

30 minutes we will spend in our loving kindness practice together today.

And the first step is to find your comfortable position.

So however you want to come into today's practice,

Whether that's sitting down or like myself on my meditation cushion here in my yoga office coffee table room.

And we will conduct our loving kindness meditation on this Monday.

Our loving kindness meditation after finding our comfortable seat does mainly consist of two parts.

So we have two parts of our loving kindness meditation.

The first is our group of phrases.

So the main portion of our loving kindness practice is we repeat a set of phrases to ourselves silently.

So the phrases I use today are,

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be safe,

May you live with ease.

So these are my example phrases but please do feel free to select ones that feel good for you.

You see where I'm going with these small phrases that you can repeat to yourself and the rhythm does come with time.

So no need to force the way in which you say the phrases or follow my rhythm.

I promise you it will come in time,

Whatever feels and works best for your loving kindness practice.

And then my favorite part is then it changes from week to week.

I really do enjoy watching those changes,

That growth from within.

So the first part of our practice is this repeating of the phrases.

The second half of our practice is that we send these phrases to different groups of people.

So there's five different groups of people that we will send our loving kindness phrases to today.

The first group of people is yourself.

We will start by sending our loving kindness phrases to ourself,

Right?

Hold yourself in your heart,

You know,

Set that intention upon the self.

In this vein of,

Right,

We must fill up our cup before we can run us over and fill up others.

So we start our loving kindness practice by sending our phrases to ourself.

The second group is a loving relationship in your life.

So we're trying to find some balance and we go on a journey during our practice.

So we start with the self and then we move on to a loving relationship in order to find that light when things get dark.

So we cherish that loving relationship in our life to really feel the love penetrate through every cell,

Remind us of that deep loving connection that we can have with people so that when things maybe turn as we see the rest of our practice go,

We can always find this light and these loving relationships.

Third,

We move to our neutral relationship.

So right,

We're trying to find this balance and within that balance is a neutral relationship,

Which I often describe as the member of the public.

So third,

We send our loving kindness phrases to a neutral or member of the public relationship.

Fourth,

My least favorite part is our difficult relationship,

Right?

We've went up,

We've come down and we send our loving kindness phrases to our difficult relationship in order to create more compassion.

Right,

Shining that light in the dark places in hopes of finding more light.

Last but not least,

We shake everything off and we let go and we send our loving kindness phrases to all beings everywhere.

So we end our practice as hopefully a light open,

Very expansive,

All those possibilities by sending our loving kindness phrases to all beings everywhere.

So that's it.

That is how our practice comes together.

We are in our comfortable seat.

We will send our loving kindness phrases to five different groups of individuals and we start with ourselves.

So we are going to jump in,

Bring ourselves to mind.

Definitely thoughts of my day flash through my mind,

But we will settle in by sending our loving kindness phrases to ourself today first.

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.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live with ease.

May I be happy.

May be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live with ye.

Utilized Alright,

Will do.

I'm working very hard to embrace the season of change.

And what comes to mind is how do you love yourself while you're changing?

As I have more and more started to see every interaction in my life as a way in which I change as a person.

Because how do you define what changes you deeply?

I find that oftentimes we don't get to choose those times they find us.

And so I'm embracing all of those things in the season of change as I myself change.

And I want to encourage you to look forward to that change as I myself am trying to do.

And I believe this loving kindness practice sending these phrases to ourselves will do just that.

Love ourselves during the change.

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.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

We ride the wave of energy through life.

The wave of the seasons,

The changes within ourselves.

And I'm grateful for these changes as they are inevitable.

So let's embrace them instead of resisting.

And with that we switch to our second group of individuals this week,

Our loving relationship.

For me for sure it is my dogs that are coming to mind today as we just took a trip to the vet this morning and that's always a trip that brings us together.

Right?

It's always nice to have support from these loving relationships when you must do something strange and unfamiliar.

And so this week we will cherish that loving relationship by sending our loving kindness phrases to them so we may recall this love when things are not so easy.

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 happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be safe,

May you live with ease.

You There's no shame in feeling the depths of these loving relationships.

I myself feel the edge of tears most of the time when I'm talking to you about these loving relationships.

I don't find my vulnerability,

This sappiness that you may feel with this loving relationship to be a bad thing.

I find the vulnerability of humanity to be its greatest strength.

And so maybe,

Maybe today you find a little bit of that little strength in this vulnerability of your loving relationship.

We continue on,

Because we will always continue on.

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.

Thank you.

May this rain wash away the sorrowful side of this love you may feel,

So that the true strength,

The truest purest light can shine through,

Because it is there.

It is only the second arrow that applies the shame,

And we can remove the second arrow.

So we continue on with our practice.

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 it is time to turn to our third group of individuals for this week,

Which is our neutral relationship,

Our member of the public sphere on this journey together,

Finding the balance in life.

I find the smallest interactions really do make the world a better place.

I find these small interactions often come when I am in the public,

The grocery store,

The doctor's office.

On the train,

Some kind of transit.

Together,

Our vulnerability is our strength.

And so we cherish that moment here with our neutral relationship,

Getting used to what is.

And so we continue to send 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.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be safe,

May you live with ease.

Thank you.

If these practices of cherishing the other are still very difficult for you.

If this is still very triggering for you this particular section.

I encourage you to continue on to challenge your status quo to continue to look at your biases.

As there is no other.

That is the true illusion that we are separate.

And so,

Can you find the light that shines within all of us,

Can you see the mirror of yourself and me.

And the challenge for me is to see the light and you also.

I know it can be tough,

But I promise it is possible.

And when we do that together.

We are unstoppable.

And so we continue our practice.

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.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Being a divided human race,

Maybe the downfall of us all.

Please,

Please continue to try to look for the light,

Because it is there.

We can heal,

Even from the deepest of wounds,

And together I believe we make the world a better place.

So it is time my friends to shift onto our fourth group of individuals for this week,

We will send our loving kindness phrases to a difficult relationship in your life.

My brain goes deep,

But I am your partner and your confidant.

We can get through this together.

As I myself have done many a time sitting here in my loving kindness meditation.

Isn't it beautiful how each week is different.

Even if this loving or this difficult relationship has been one in which we have sent our loving kindness phrases to before.

I have been thinking about this week numerous times in order to shift this difficult relationship into something different.

And to finally sing through the pain to something else to something deeper to maybe that mirror of the light from the other person,

Even if the relationship is difficult,

Can be done.

We can continue to practice by sending our loving kindness phrases.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be happy,

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be happy,

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

Thank you.

My difficult relationship this week may be the difficult relationship of the unknown,

Or maybe a yet to happen difficult relationship.

As I put my true thoughts out into the world,

I deeply fear the reactions of others.

Will they not like what I say?

Will they disagree?

And I have no control over what you feel about what I say.

But I hope my intentions are pure,

And I hope you can feel that.

So even though this difficult relationship may be one of your deepest fears.

We can continue to tango and find this balance and journey through life.

Finding a flow even when it is difficult,

And I believe that these loving kindness practices will help us be able to do that better and more often.

So please keep trying,

Please keep sending your phrases.

May you be happy.

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be happy,

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be happy,

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you live with ease.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

We have made it to our final group within today's practice,

Our fifth and final group of all beings everywhere.

We will shake up and open our hearts to the widest expanse that you could possibly feel today.

We will share our phrases to all beings everywhere sharing this connection that we all undoubtedly share together,

Isn't it a beautiful crazy interconnected world.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be healthy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings live with ease.

May you be happy,

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be happy,

Maybe healthy,

Maybe safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Today I'm looking forward to the connection that all beings everywhere have in the future,

Possibly the connection that have with you all in the future.

I'm looking forward to cultivating those things maybe more intentionally as we move into this holiday transition like season.

Start to evaluate how the last year went.

And I hope that we can all be more open to the connections for the future,

About how we may continue to tread on this earth as all beings interconnected.

And I hope maybe just maybe this loving kindness meditation may be part of your new practices to make the world a better place.

May you be healthy,

Maybe safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Excellent job my dear friends we are come to the end of our practice today.

I know that you take your time,

Getting up.

My legs are notorious for falling asleep.

But it's going to be a good week as the moon comes back from us,

The new moon is over the full moon is just around the corner.

We do love its moon energy but man does it make things chaotic sometimes,

But we love the balance in life.

So until next time my friends,

I hope you're well.

Namaste.

May you be healthy,

Maybe say,

May you live with ease.