Loving Kindness Meditation - Relationships(30 Mins) 12.19.22
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.
Today I'm finally back with another installment of my weekly loving kindness meditation.
I've been through the ringer over the last month and haven't been,
I've had to skip.
So I'm so excited to be back in a place that really feels comforting for me and hopefully one day will be comforting for others.
And so over the next 30 minutes we will complete a loving kindness meditation from start to finish.
No prior experience necessary.
Anybody can complete this particular loving kindness meditation.
I will walk you through the entire process over the next 30 minutes.
And the first step in our process is to find a comfortable position.
So I'm sitting in my meditation cushion on my coffee table desk in my yoga room as I normally am,
But I do really enjoy practicing this meditation while lying down also and sneakily in public,
But hopefully one day you'll understand and maybe you'll give it a try.
And so as you find your way to your comfortable seat today,
We will dive into the other parts of our meditation.
So there are two main sections of our meditation.
The first is our phrases.
So the act of the loving kindness or metta meditation is we will repeat a short set of phrases to ourselves silently.
So the phrases that I will be using today are,
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
You may choose your own phrases.
I promise the rhythm comes with time,
But these are the small short phrases I will be using as my example for today.
That is the first part of our meditation,
Our repeating of these phrases to ourselves.
The second part of our meditation is we will send these phrases to five different groups of people.
We spend five minutes on each group,
Repeating our phrases,
And we will hold these groups kind of,
I don't know,
In our intention and our hearts.
However,
You might like to relate to these different relationships that we're going to send our loving kindness phrases to.
I hope you'll be able to find your own definition and feeling for what that is.
And hopefully,
What I hope you notice is the repeating or the changing of these feelings.
Sometimes it will feel always the same,
And sometimes it will change.
And maybe,
Just maybe we can start recognizing those times in which they change.
So who are our five groups?
Our five groups,
We start with ourselves.
So we will first send our loving kindness phrases to ourselves,
Filling up our cup before we go on the journey through the rest of our relationships,
Which the second is a loving relationship.
So after ourselves,
We will turn to a loving,
Hopefully easy,
Relationship in our life,
And we will send our loving kindness phrases to that relationship,
Hopefully finding some more kindness,
Really feeling that joy,
And hopefully some lightness.
As we transition into the rest of our practice,
Which the third group is a neutral relationship.
I often describe this as a member of the public,
A neutral relationship,
You know,
Somebody you see maybe regularly at the grocery store,
On the train,
But you don't know,
Right?
It's just another member of your community,
But right,
We are all connected.
And so we will send third to a neutral or a member of the public.
Fourth is our difficult relationship.
I said many times that difficult relationship is my least favorite part of this practice,
But we must find balance and hopefully,
Gladden the mind and find more perspective when inevitably,
We are in a difficult relationship.
And last but not least,
We open up to all beings everywhere.
So we round it out,
Hopefully,
Feeling our small place in this huge universe,
All beings everywhere is our fifth and final group.
And so that's it.
That's all the instruction I have for you today.
I hope you have found your way to your comfortable seat,
As it is time to dive into our first group,
Which is as you remember,
Ourselves,
Ourselves.
So comfortable seat.
I often like to think of myself sitting in my future self's lap with my younger self in my lap,
You know,
Kind of this nesting doll of Abby's if you will.
And we will start into our loving kindness phrases really cherishing this time being grateful for this time with ourselves.
So may I be happy,
May I be 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 continue on your own.
When our mind inevitably wanders and our meditations,
We simply start again.
When I think about myself this week,
As I mentioned earlier,
I've been through a lot in the last month or so.
And I'm so grateful to finally be feeling like I can take a breath.
Things are finally slowing down,
Settling into this holiday season or new moon that is approaching.
And I'm so grateful I get this simple five minutes to cherish this relationship,
Ever changing that I have with myself,
Because I am so powerful and I do so many things,
Even though it feels like it was a triumph.
But isn't it amazing?
What a beautiful life we live.
And so we continue with 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.
Thank you,
Dear friends,
For taking this time for yourself.
As we transition to our second group of individuals this week,
Our loving relationship.
We move gently as we shift our minds from ourselves to our loving relationship for this week.
Hopefully an uncomplicated,
Beautiful love.
I very much hope that each of you has one of these in your lives.
But I promise you my dogs have also gotten these loving kindness phrases a lot when there was not maybe somebody in my life for them.
And if you want to send my dogs some loving kindness phrases,
I promise you they are as much sugar as they are spice,
But very adorable while doing it.
So we hold our loving relationship in our hearts and we start into our phrases cherishing this relationship,
Having it motivate us when times seem dark.
May you be happy,
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.
So many things on my mind today,
Maybe just maybe you're feeling the same way.
But when we get lost,
Maybe even notice it for a while,
Enjoy the drama of the internal monologue,
The internal feelings,
The wave.
And when it's time,
I believe,
You will naturally let go and start again.
Because that is our tendency,
That is our coming back.
We will always start again.
Maybe if we just got off our own ways to let this loving relationship really settle into our practice and shine more light into the dark places.
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.
And with that,
My dear friends,
It is time to transition to our third group this week,
Our neutral relationship.
Yeah,
Doesn't that time go by fast?
Halfway already.
We bring into our neutral relationship this week,
Maybe our member of the public,
That sweet,
Sweet goodness of the small acts of kindness.
Really believe drive the world,
Drive us all.
Really make a difference when we care about the others in our communities.
Maybe your community online,
Maybe your community in real life.
Community in what way?
How could you support those you find in community?
And so we send 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.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
Feel grateful to the sound that just brought me back into this house as the world around me has been so windy today.
Maybe I can channel this wind to blow something out of my mind that's been stuck maybe.
As I ruminate on all sorts of things as the year comes to an end,
About this neutral relationship,
My relationship to community,
Maybe next year,
Maybe starting today.
We can find a new perspective,
Maybe one that's more compassionate,
Full of love,
Full of light.
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 be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
With that my dear friends,
It is time to transition away from our neutral relationship this week and into our difficult relationship for this week.
I don't have a shortage of ones to choose from today but maybe we can take a more light-hearted approach.
Laugh at the confusion made by miscommunication and unconscious bias and see all the people anew as we send our loving kindness phrases to our difficult relationship this week.
Finding more perspective,
More compassion for all around us.
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.
It's a given for me to find work to be a difficult relationship.
So much going on there,
I never know what is right but when I turn the mirror on it and I have these difficult relationships at work,
The hard truth that I have to face is the my contribution of being avoidant of this difficult relationship,
Right?
Not liking somebody else but still needing to work with them.
How does me avoiding this particular relationship cause me more pain?
And that's something that I have to struggle with when dealing with these difficult relationships.
Maybe you have to too,
Maybe you have to too,
Then at least we can work on it together and I appreciate your partnership and accountability and not being a perfect person but promising to keep practicing.
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 my dear friends it is time to transition to our final group this week,
All beings everywhere.
So be gentle as we transition,
Taking deep breaths,
Relaxing,
Safe space here.
Nothing can go wrong,
We will get up,
Be who we are in the end.
Opening ourselves up to all beings everywhere,
Sending our loving kindness phrases to round out our practice this week,
Cherishing our relationship to all who share this beautiful planet in this ever expanding universe.
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 told you they're as spicy as they are sweet,
Silly doggies.
But maybe that's how I want to see the world,
Spicy but sweet.
As I find my spiritual practice often leads me back to living on this kind of knife's edge,
This extreme balancing act between good and bad,
Right,
Between which my life flows.
It's kind of forever teetering between the two,
Teetering between the two,
Which when I'm experiencing it feels quite violent and all over the place.
But yet the experience I'm having are so subtle,
Barely there.
And yet to me,
It feels like the tsunami of all tsunamis.
How does that feel for you?
Maybe we can take a new perspective on our waves,
Allowing them to gently subside,
Because pressuring them does not work.
And with that,
We continue 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,
Our practice is over.
Wow,
How fast do those 30 minutes go?
Feels like a blink of an eye to me.
And I'm so grateful you chose to spend this last 30 minutes with me.
Your presence is known and felt.
I cherish it so.
And I hope practicing together will bring a bit more compassion and love into your life.
Until next time,
My friends,
With love,
Namaste.
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
