Loving Kindness Meditation - Relationships (30 Mins) 5.29.23
by Abbey Harmon
Thank you so much for joining me here today. We take the next 30 minutes to complete a traditional Loving Kindness or Metta meditation as I know it. We repeat phrases silently to ourselves, sending them to different groups of people or relationships. I use the phrases: May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you live with ease. We send these phrases to 5 groups of people spending roughly 5 minutes sending our phrases to each group; first ourselves, then a loving relationship, followed by someone in the public or a neutral relationship, then a difficult relationship, and lastly all beings everywhere. This is not your average 'relaxing' meditation. I complete Loving Kindness mediations to change myself intentionally; to look at myself in the mirror and question the places I have been stuck or unaware. I believe together with this practice, we make the world a better place for all. With Love, Namaste - Abbey
Transcript
Hello and welcome.
Thank you so much for joining me here today.
My name is Abbey and I'm a yogi,
Salesforce engineer,
And creator of Consider Volunteering,
My personal brand of community empowerment.
And today I'm back with Meditation Monday.
So over the next 30 minutes we will be completing a loving kindness meditation from start to finish.
No prior experience necessary.
I will walk you through the entire process.
So find your way to a comfortable seat that you can sustain for the next 30 minutes as that is the place in which we will start today's meditation.
I greatly appreciate you joining me as you could be doing lots of things here on your Monday afternoon but I hope that this particular time if you'd like we can be accountability partners making sure that we revisit these practices that I believe truly make the world a better place each and every week.
And so we come together for a short 30 minutes but also for ourselves in order to reprogram those negative thoughts that run rampant way too often in my brain and maybe just maybe run through yours.
And so together of the next 30 minutes we will complete a loving kindness meditation practice my favorite kind of meditation.
The one I hope to share with the world.
And so as you find your way to a comfortable seat I will explain the two parts to this particular meditation.
So there are two main parts to this meditation.
First being the set of phrases that we will repeat silently to ourselves.
So the set of phrases I will be using today are may you be happy,
May you be healthy,
May you be safe,
May you live with ease.
Please do feel free to select your own phrases but these are the ones that I will be using today.
I learned them from my teacher Sharon Salzberg and I do very much encourage you to find your way to Sharon's material as she does still teach today.
I myself will be going to the Insight Meditation Center in August hopefully for my first silent retreat.
I'm only doing a weekend because being silent is quite a stretch.
So we'll see how it goes.
Wish me luck.
So the set of phrases will be our first part of the practice.
We repeat these silently in our heads to ourselves.
You could definitely say them out loud but people might look at you funny so in your heads is how we practice this as I very much enjoy taking this practice off the mat.
You know when I'm standing in the security line and I'm looking for something better to do than scrolling on my cell phone I pull out these phrases.
That is the first part of our practice.
As the second part of our practice is we send these phrases to five different groups of people.
So I call them relationships.
So we will use five relationships in which we send our phrases to.
We use these phrases to set our intention as we start with the self.
So the first group we send our phrases to is the self.
Filling up our cup at the beginning of our week as we go on a pure journey through our meditation practice.
And so we focus on the self first.
Then we move to a loving relationship.
Hopefully this nice loving relationship that I like to think I could call on when times are tough.
And so second we cherish a loving relationship by sending our phrases.
Third is a neutral relationship.
I would describe this as a member of our community.
Somebody we see regularly but don't know very well.
At the grocery store.
Next to us on the train.
In the car in front of us.
We send our phrases.
Third to a member of our community.
A neutral relationship.
Fourth is a difficult relationship.
So we send our phrases to a difficult relationship.
Fourth maybe not the most difficult but we'll do our best a difficult relationship.
As then we end fifth and finally with all beings everywhere cherishing our connection to the whole remembering we are not alone.
We are one of many trillion possibilities.
We will keep our minds open to it and do our best.
I know it can be daunting but together we can find this relationship with life,
With ourselves,
With others.
And so we will at least practice for 30 minutes in hopes to have a better outcome in the future.
So that's that.
We start into our practice.
I hope you found your way to a comfortable seat.
Bring the self to mind.
I'm so glad I've taken this 30 minutes for myself today.
I hope you feel similarly or if not maybe we can understand why we'd want to feel grateful for taking 30 minutes for the self because I know I spent way too long neglecting the self and so now is my chance of redemption.
So 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.
Today I'd like to think about the times in my life in which I've truly embraced my loving relationship with the self as I'm wearing my Motomami shirt for today where I took a trip to Houston and Austin in order to see Rosalia in person as she was not coming to my local area but also to take some yoga teacher training with my foundational teacher Yoga With Adriene and so it was such a trip that I came back a new person that I took and I planned all to pour some love into myself and contradict into all these years in which I've been shaming and hating on the self.
So I know it can be a lot of monetary value but I'm grateful to have this flexibility and I hope that my abundance through this channel will spill on to others.
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 of how you've shifted your energy since pouring into the self as we transition to our loving relationship for this week.
What loving relationship would we like to cherish in the short five minutes of our loving kindness practice.
May they feel this connection we have no matter what length of time it has been since we have truly connected in person.
I do like to think that these connections do last,
Do linger.
Can you imagine all the strings that we have throughout this beautiful world.
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.
It was so fun this week to hear my therapist encourage me to rebel against this shame,
These second arrows that I so often refer to,
The self-hate that comes back when I am actively moving about my day but yet my mind is thinking it's not good enough.
I am good enough just by existing and so in these short five minutes and our loving relationship we lean in to what it truly means to put meaning to our live through these loving connections and how that truly makes the world a better place and it's never a waste of time.
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 And with that dear friends it is time to take one last notice of how our energy has shifted since our last segment as we transition into our neutral relationship for this week,
Our member of the community,
Our person in the public,
How life is not an easy thing but man we don't need to make it harder on ourselves and how I find in corporate America it is truly ourselves in our own way.
We hold ourselves back from achieving those project goals,
Those project timelines.
If only we could move out of our own ways and so we 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.
What is a good life?
I'm not asking you for one right answer.
I also don't believe there is one right answer to this question.
I'm asking you though to ask yourself this question.
Do not let the molding of others define your life.
Are you happy in this moment?
What is happiness for you?
How does your life cultivate a happy life?
I just think we all reach for way too much that we don't really want and so may the things that we truly need and truly make the world a better place come to us with more 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 we take one last notice of how our energy has shifted in our neutral relationship as we transition into our difficult relationship for this week.
This is so much my least favorite part of the practice and I'm feeling so fatigued today that I know my heart is going to hurt.
So if your heart hurts with me today,
Know you are not alone.
Together we shall be better,
More compassionate people after this short 30 minutes.
Together we can finish this one breath at a time.
I appreciate your effort as well.
May our difficult 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.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you live with ease.
Difficult relationships can be so off by so few degrees.
By just the smallest differences in opinion can we have the truly most difficult relationship.
As I'm thinking of my current one where we agree on the tactics and approaches of agile methodologies and development but what I'm frustrated with is the timing.
I've been waiting for six weeks or more for the same actions to be happening and so I'm frustrated that I've communicated the same thing multiple times when generally we agree.
And so how frustrating can this smallest of misunderstandings make in my life and for such a long time,
Months,
All of 2023 in fact.
And so today we let that go and we shift into a different perspective as we can move forward past these difficult relationships.
Maybe together.
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 we take one final notice of how our energy has shifted during our difficult relationship focus.
As we transition into our final section,
Fifth and final,
All beings everywhere.
So we take this last section to remember our connection with all,
All beings everywhere,
This ever-expanding universe,
So many stars and galaxies that I couldn't possibly imagine.
Can you feel the space around you?
The never-ending space.
And then what am I in that space?
And so in this section we send our phrases to all beings everywhere,
Relishing that connection.
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 have faith in the innumerable possibilities in this world because I could have never imagined being in this place in which I exist in today.
I have far exceeded the goals I set for myself.
Granted I really tore myself down along the way and caused myself trauma,
You know,
Made some bad decisions.
But I am really grateful to have found a small slice of peace,
To be able to say that I am happy in my current life.
This is an amazing milestone for me to achieve and I want you to feel as though you can achieve it too,
As I do still live a very normal life,
I'd like to think.
Please know there are more options,
There is another life to be led if this one does not find satisfaction.
I wish it on to you.
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,
We take one final notice of how our energy has shifted in our final section to all beings everywhere,
How our energy has shifted in our loving kindness practice for today.
I'm so grateful to have you have connected with me.
I'm your humble guide through this session,
Through this last 30 minutes of your life.
So grateful that you chose me to be on this journey as I am as grateful to be on yours.
And with that I will see you next week.
I wish you all the best.
Until next time,
With love,
Namaste.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
