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.
Today we are back with another installment of our loving kindness meditation.
I'm so excited to be back for another week in doing to practice and share my loving kindness practice because I truly believe it will make the world a better place.
And so I hope you enjoy this week's version or session.
You know,
I'm really kind of enjoying the nuances in each week describing the same practice but in new ways with new analogies with new experiences in my life.
So thank you again for joining me for this week's installment of my loving kindness meditation.
So for the next 30 minutes we will start to finish practice together.
No prior experiences needed.
I will walk you through the entire thing word for word.
And so what is the first step in our loving kindness meditation today?
And that will be to find a comfortable position.
I normally suggest sitting on your meditation cushion possibly lying down.
But I do often find that it is fun to do meditations with my eyes open.
So maybe today you play with that suggestion as a way in which we can bring our practice off our mat by practicing more of a real life experiences while on it.
So possibly keeping your eyes open while we practice our loving kindness meditation for today.
There are two main pieces to our loving kindness meditation practice.
The first is the set of phrases that we will send or repeat silently to ourselves.
So the set of phrases I will use today are,
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
Please feel free to select your own phrases.
I promise the rhythm comes in time but these are the phrases that I will use for my example today.
So we will repeat these phrases to ourselves silently.
You definitely can say them out loud but you know,
May not be practical for all situations.
So we practice in silence but may be fine one day as we open our eyes.
Maybe we also speak them out loud in time.
So the first part of our practice is centered around our phrases and then the second part of our practice is we send these phrases to five different groups of people.
So I've said send the phrases a lot in my introduction here but we're kind of using these phrases and these group of people to come together in order to cultivate more compassion,
More loving kindness.
Right,
Gladdening the mind,
Making our neuro pathways into more positive outcomes.
So we send our phrases to five different groups of people.
We will spend five minutes on each group and we start with ourselves.
So the first group we will send our phrases to will be ourselves,
To center,
Because that's the first step,
Right?
We must fill up our own cup before we move on to others.
The second group of people is a loving relationship.
We will send our loving kindness phrases to a loving relationship in our life.
Current,
Past,
Dog,
Human,
Mentor,
Family,
Friend,
Whoever you want to cherish and really experience the joy of your loving kindness relationship today with our loving relationship,
Our second group of people.
Third we move to our neutral relationship.
I often describe this as a member of the public but we will really go on a journey through sending our loving kindness phrases to different groups of people,
Right?
Ourselves,
A loving relationship and now a neutral relationship is that third group as we find balance and hopefully cultivate more compassion in all of our relationships and interactions.
The fourth group is a difficult relationship.
Difficult relationship.
So I never quite suggest picking off the most difficult relationship you have in your life but if that is the only one that comes to mind today through time I promise you will find a new perspective on even the most difficult of relationships.
Then we round out our practice with the fifth group,
All beings everywhere.
So we really come full circle in our loving kindness phrases,
Sending to five different groups of people,
Ourselves,
A loving relationship,
A neutral relationship,
A difficult relationship and then finally all beings everywhere.
But that's it.
Those are all that we need to know about our loving kindness practice in order to give it a try for the first time.
So we will jump into sending our loving kindness phrases to ourselves.
I hope you found the comfortable position that you hope to take with you today and we will start in our loving kindness phrases to the self,
Filling up our cup,
Being so grateful for taking this time for ourselves today.
I promise it is truly worth it.
I hope soon enough you will see the first fruits of your loving kindness practice and coming back week after week with me.
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.
You You Often feel so selfish When starting out with myself and this loving kindness practice as I truly don't think I'm enough Through my conditioning as a child as well as societal pressures there's a Fundament of flaw that I believe in myself that I am NOT enough But I promise you you are it is fear and hate That keeps us in the state of I'm not enough But I believe with lots of loving kindness meditation We can find the most extreme faith right faith In our practice,
But I also believe faith in ourselves So I encourage you to keep going keep coming back to our practice as we continue with our loving kindness 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 You you you you And without my dear friends it is time to move to our second group of individuals for today I Promise you the guilt will subside one second of of no shame multiplies.
I promise.
And so our second group of individuals,
Our loving relationship for today,
Who are you going to cherish and feel fully the fruits of joy in our life that come from these many loving relationships,
Our many threads and connections,
The light that we've finally seen reflected back in another.
And with that,
We start in on our loving kindness phrases to our loving relationship for 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 live with ease.
May you be safe.
Today,
I'm thinking of a mentor from my past.
One,
I don't talk to very often,
But it was just her birthday.
That's kind of our tradition now is to send birthday wishes.
Because I don't wish to hold her down into the deep trauma that we went through together.
But through that drama,
We made a deep connection on that I cherish for years to come.
And I hope she will see that,
Too.
So I always love cherishing my mentorship,
No matter how long ago in the past,
It was.
Because it was a true connection.
She loved me truly.
And so I cherish that relationship today by sending my 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.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
May you be healthy.
Thank you.
And with that,
My dear friends,
It is time to transition away from our loving relationship.
But I hope you will bring this joy,
This compassion,
This lightness possibly that you feel now into the rest of our practice today.
But hopefully also into the rest of your days,
Maybe channel and find more love,
More lightness always.
And with that,
It is on to our third group of individuals for today,
Our neutral relationship,
Our possible member of the public.
The person who checked you out at the grocery store in front of you in the car.
Next to you on the train,
We find balance in all by sending to these many groups of people in our loving kindness relationship.
And so we send our phrases.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
And 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.
When I'm thinking about my neutral relationship this week,
It is voting time currently where I am in this journey through time.
And what I have to say about that is that you cannot force anybody to do anything.
As much as I cannot force you to do my loving kindness meditation and I cannot force myself to stay focused without getting distracted by their thoughts throughout my loving kindness meditation,
You cannot force others to do anything.
Family,
Friends,
Members of the public.
How would you react differently to them if you knew you could not force them to do anything if you had to win over,
Gain trust?
How would you go about your life differently?
Move on this week as we send our loving kindness phrases to our neutral relationship.
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.
With that,
My dear friends,
Two thirds of our practice is already over.
We transition away from our neutral relationship.
And we select for this week what difficult relationship we may want to start thinking about differently.
Cultivating more compassion for.
Maybe just taking a new perspective.
Forgiving instead of holding on.
We find this balance and I believe no matter what,
These loving kindness phrases do shift our mindset.
No matter how difficult it may feel,
It is working.
And so we continue on even when it is hard.
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.
Live with ease.
Live with ease.
I do often by myself only able to think of my most difficult relationship during this section of the practice.
Even as much as I try,
It is still such a huge mountain in my mind.
Lots of fear.
Lots of anger.
I often think,
How could you do that to somebody else?
How could you live just bulldozing others around you?
And I encourage you not to hold on to that piece of the hurt,
The pain.
I encourage you to think about it in the ways in which has been helpful for me.
As in,
I learned this is who I don't want to be.
I'm very grateful that through my most difficult relationship,
I learned exactly who I did not want to be very early on.
And that has been a wonderful way to steer myself into more positive,
Into more life sustaining practices.
That's what brought me here today.
So continue on.
We can learn about ourselves,
Even if it is painful.
And then we can find some balance through our many practices like today.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
Make you be safe.
Make you live with ease.
Make you be happy,
Make you be healthy and 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.
And without my dear friends it is time to transition to our final group today.
Away from the difficult,
Or difficult relationship.
Can you possibly still recall that joy,
That lightness from when we were cherishing our loving relationship for today?
Luckily it is time to open up to all beings everywhere.
We can let go and take a big breath.
Let go.
Even if it feels hard still,
Even if it's only the smallest of slivers of letting go.
You did it.
Wonderful job.
Now we get to cherish the many connections,
This beautiful planet in which we find ourselves on,
The mystery of the universe.
I find it so awe-striking to think about all those billions and trillions of connections that ever-expanding universe.
So fascinating.
So unreal.
But yet,
I'm as much a part of it as it is a part of me.
So we send 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 healthy.
Been thinking about all beings everywhere.
I get reminded of the stories that my partner tells me from their many sci-fi books about space.
Discovering planets like Earth that have vastly different societies and ecologies and all of those beautiful things that make up a living being.
Could you imagine what the life would be like,
What the world could be like,
Right?
Different society,
Different structures,
Different development,
Different history,
Billions and trillions of years in the future.
Do you see all the billions of possibilities,
The unlimited changes that you can make in your life?
It is possible.
May we continue to send our loving kindness phrases to cherish those all encompassing possibilities.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
And you live with ease and you be happy you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you live with Yves.
May you be happy.
Maybe healthy.
Maybe safe.
May live with ease.
With ease.
.
.
And with that my friends we have made it to the end of our practice today.
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