Loving Kindness Meditation - Relationships(30 Mins) 11.14.22
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 Yogi Salesforce Engineer and creator of Consider Volunteering,
My personal brand of community empowerment.
It is luckily Monday again and so I'm back for another installment of my loving kindness meditation,
The practice that I'm hopefully sharing with everybody weekly in hopes to make the world a better place.
So thank you for joining me for this week's session of our loving kindness meditation.
I'm so grateful I get to connect with you and share this time and space for all of us.
And so over the next 30 minutes we will complete a loving kindness or Metta meditation from start to finish,
Walk you through the whole process no prior practice is needed.
But the first step is to find a comfortable position.
So find your way to a comfortable position right for the next 30 minutes.
We will be working through our loving kindness meditation.
So I'm sitting on my meditation cushion here in my office yoga room as I normally do while I often enjoy lying down also for this practice.
Our practice consists of two main parts.
First will be the set of phrases.
So a short set of phrases the ones I will use today are,
May I be happy,
May I be healthy,
May I be safe,
May I live with ease.
So these are the phrases I will use today.
Please do feel free to select your own if something feels better to you.
I promise the rhythm does come with time.
The second part of our practice is the people or the groups of individuals that we will send our phrases to.
So the loving kindness practice we go on a journey hopefully working to create compassion within ourselves,
Gladdening the mind.
And so we send these short loving kindness phrases to different groups of people in order to you know cherish the relationships we have amongst ourselves.
Working to combat negative thoughts,
Find a new perspective,
You know hopefully having short but subtle breakthroughs consistently helping us move forward in our journeys.
And so there are five different groups of people we will send our loving kindness phrases to today.
First is the self.
We start with ourself filling up our cup being grateful for the time we take for today's practice.
The second group will be our loving relationship.
So we get to select a loving relationship and really cherish that time,
That connection we have for our second group in our meditation today.
Third is a neutral relationship.
So I often describe this as a member of the public,
Somebody that you don't really know too well but you interact with on a regular basis because right we are all connected and so we will select a neutral relationship for our third group today during our meditation.
Fourth is our difficult relationship.
So forever my least favorite part of the practice but right we're finding balance and hopefully have made good foundation throughout our first two groups of our meditation practice.
But fourth we will send our loving kindness phrases to a difficult relationship in our life.
Fifth we send all beings everywhere.
So we cherish this singular planet that we live on here with all of the beautiful organisms that we share it with.
We will send our loving kindness phrases to all beings everywhere to remind us that we are one fractal of light of the whole.
And so that is how we will conduct our loving kindness practice for today for this week.
This particular implementation of our loving kindness practice.
Sending our phrases to five different groups of people,
Ourselves,
A loving relationship,
A neutral relationship,
The difficult relationship and then finally all beings everywhere.
So that concludes it and I hope you found your way to your comfortable position today as we will dive in to our first group which is if you recall ourselves.
So we will take ourselves and our mind.
I have this recurring image of my current self sitting in my future selves lap.
You know they're a little larger than me.
They take up more energetic space with my past self nicely nestled in my lap as my smaller appy.
My smaller version and so I find this connection with myself finding this deep faith that I will always get through every obstacle in this lifetime because that is what I meant to do.
That's what we're all meant to do.
And so we will start off by sending our phrases to ourselves.
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.
Continue on your own my friends.
You you When the mind wanders as it inevitably will we take that critical moment of realizing it has wandered without any judgment which of course is the hardest part.
We start again into our phrases sending them to ourselves being so grateful for this time we're taking to gladden the mind combat those negative thoughts and hopefully sign myself I'm currently working on cultivating that deepest faith in the self because times are hard but I know I will always have my back forever and always through every situation and so we continue our 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 may I be happy may I be healthy may I be safe may I live with ease you you you you With that my dear friends it is time to transition to our second group in this week's loving kindness meditation our loving relationship our loving relationship so who do you want to cherish this week right truly feeling the pure joy that comes from connecting on a deep level with the humans around us and it may not have to be humans as my lovely dogs play my loving relationship many of times we've been through a lot together ten years blue has many stories but I really enjoy this particular moment in our loving kindness meditation as we cherish this loving relationship so we started on 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 you you as the moon energy slips away from us this month the full moon has already passed I can't help but think of the sadder side of loving relationships which is losing them but what gets me through those hardest of times when the loving relationships inevitably and as we are in permanent beings on this beautiful planet it would still be worth it to have those loving relationships to take the time to cultivate them and to truly enjoy their joy while we live this one precious lifetime and so cherish it deeply here in this short five minutes in today's practice and hopefully it will drive you to come back to practice again 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 live with ease.
And with that my dear friends,
It is time to take one last sip of our loving relationship as we gently transition to our third relationship for this week,
This loving kindness meditation,
Our neutral relationship.
Our neutral relationship to often describe as our member of the public,
Somebody I see at the grocery store,
Beside you on the train.
Because even when the world seems so overwhelming,
I like to believe our small acts of kindness is what truly shifts,
What truly brings hope to the world.
And so I encourage you in this next round to think of how your connection to this neutral relationship could make the world a better place.
So we start in on 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.
May you be healthy.
Today when thinking what comes up is book fairies.
You've never heard of book fairies,
Give it a Google.
But I've only ever found one book fairy book in my life,
Even though I've said a few,
Luckily,
Now.
The book was called This Book Will Save Your Life.
Of all books to find me in my moment of darkness,
Of course,
It would be called The Book to Save Your Life.
So I hope through my practice,
More of those chance happenings will come into my life.
So I have seen time and time again,
Now many years later,
I hope for you,
Embrace the joy the first time you see the small act of kindness turn into something more.
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.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
And without my dear friends,
It is time to transition away from our neutral relationship and into our difficult relationship for this week.
How fast does 20 minutes go by?
When thinking of a difficult relationship,
I often suggest maybe not picking the most difficult relationship.
My mountain is always something with work,
As I have a very tumultuous idea of work.
And so sometimes this difficult relationship comes not in the form of a face,
But maybe a concept.
And so today,
What difficult relationship would you like to take on if by chance the person with that highest difficulty is not quite on the palette?
There are still many areas of my life I find that new perspectives are helpful,
And I find this a very safe place to explore,
Even though it may be painful.
I promise I have seen new perspectives bloom,
And I hope you do too.
So we start in on 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 healthy.
May you be safe.
There are no need for any second arrows when you think about your difficult relationship.
I myself know the heavy blanket that shame can bring and how much more difficult it can make already difficult scenarios.
And so when you're thinking about your difficult relationship this week,
There's no need to add our additional self shame or second arrow as Tar Brock would say on top of it.
We suffer once and we learn to let go and now is the perfect time to continue to practice it.
So I know it has been a very difficult perspective to take.
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.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be safe.
And with that,
My dear friends,
It is time to transition to our last group for today.
I can't believe the time has went by so fast,
But time is an illusion.
So the freeness I feel already from the short practice when time has not controlled my actions.
And with that,
We transition to our fifth group today,
All beings everywhere,
Cherishing this beautiful connection as we can truly see ourselves in everything around us.
If it doesn't seem so relevant,
I'm thinking of fantasy and all of their mere metaphors.
It's poetic justice.
We seek new perspectives.
At least we try.
And with that we our loving kindness phrases to all beings everywhere.
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.
You You I Can't quite let go of my mirror allergy my mirror analogy for this week as I often describe Meditation practice as turning the arrow Back on the self right pointing the arrow back at the self right as we all contribute to what happens around us And that I can think of I can visualize as a mirror But if I know anything about the physics or whatever you call that behind how a mirror works Right the reflection is reversed it is Refracted and not actually a true image of you It is just a likeness of you,
And so I'm wondering when we turn this finger back on ourselves What likeness of us can you see those distortions that are happening through the many perspectives and conditioning and Layers of all those factors that have come to make you you Do you see which ones you want to hold on to and which ones you want to let go Maybe This is a practice we can come back to in order to find some more discernment between What we hold on to and what we let go It's a fun thought anyway But we can cultivate more compassion,
And I believe that helps so we sign our loving kindness 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?
You You And that does bring us to the end of our practice today my dear friends,
Thank you so much for this Time that we spent together it sure does mean a lot to me And I hope you see the benefits as I truly believe this practice will make the world a better place So I wish you all the best until next time.
I hope there will be next time With love namaste May you be happy may you be healthy may you be safe?
May you be safe may you live with ease?
