Loving Kindness Meditation - Relationships(30 Mins) 9.19.22

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 word 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.

I'm back with you today here a Monday with a loving kindness meditation.

So this has been my practice each Monday coming and sharing a loving kindness meditation with the world in hopes to combat those negative thoughts,

Gladden all of our minds,

And hopefully my general purpose is to find that inner peace that I've always been looking for.

And so I'm greatly thankful that you are here today to join me in this week's version of my loving kindness meditation.

And so there is no practice necessary,

No previous experience required for our session today.

I will walk you through each step,

Rest assured,

And we're not doing anything physical.

What we are coming to is a comfortable seated position.

So I myself am seated today on my meditation cushion,

But I do very much enjoy lying down as well.

Whatever you feel comfortable for the next 30 minutes would be nice for you and you know,

Maybe just maybe that includes the sofa recliner today and as well.

Sounds wonderful.

So once we find our way to our comfortable position,

Our loving kindness meditation consists of two main parts.

And the first part of our loving kindness meditation is the set of phrases that we will be repeating to ourselves in silence.

So the example phrases that I'll be using today are,

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be safe,

May you live with ease.

I totally invite you to create your own phrases,

But these are the ones that I will be using for my examples today.

I promise you the rhythm of the phrases comes with time.

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

And then the second part of our practice revolves around five different groups of people.

So we hold these people a lot of times I'll say in our hearts,

Right in our minds,

We kind of set our intention into these different groups of people and then we repeat our phrases,

You know,

Kind of sending these phrases to this particular person that we are focusing on during that five minutes of our practice.

So the five groups are,

We first start with ourselves.

We must fill up our cup before we can move on to the journey of the rest of our practice today.

So the first group,

We will send our loving kindness phrases to ourselves.

Second,

We will send our phrases to a loving relationship.

So pick your juicy loving relationship for today.

And we will start in for our second group of our loving relationships and our loving kindness phrases.

Third is our neutral relationship.

I often describe this as a member of the public,

Somebody you don't necessarily have a positive or negative relationship with,

Like that person in the grocery store,

Maybe in front of you in the car ahead,

The next car on the train,

Somebody,

Right,

That neutral relationship as we are truly connected to all.

So we take this opportunity to reflect that connection in this particular neutral relationship type way.

The fourth group is our difficult relationship.

We must find balance,

Right?

As you can see us walking through these different groups of people.

And so we send our phrases to our fourth group,

Our difficult relationship in hopes of finding more compassion when times do become difficult because we know they are possible and they happen every day.

So wouldn't it be lovely to show up more fully during those difficult relationships?

Last but not least,

We open up to all beings everywhere,

Which is our fifth group,

Sending our loving kindness phrases to all beings everywhere.

So we kind of come full circle in these next 30 minutes.

And so I hope right within this last few moments you've been able to find your comfortable position and that's all our loving kindness phrase,

Our loving kindness meditation consists of,

Our phrases and our intention.

Last but not least,

We are going to jump in.

So here we are setting our intention on our first group of individuals,

Ourselves.

So no matter how you're feeling about yourself today,

We take our first five minutes of our practice to send our loving kindness phrases to ourself,

To cherish and nourish that connection that we have not only to our past self,

But our future self.

And I like to think that this moment gives me strength when times are tough.

And so I'm grateful for this time I take for myself.

And so we start with the self and sending our loving kindness phrases.

Start in like 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?

And continue on your own.

I am so grateful for you participating in my loving kindness meditation today.

Starting with the self I know can be really tough as I was just very much struggling to learn something new on Illustrator to deepen my relationship with this personal business and brand that I'm trying to create.

And it's tough because things aren't so easy.

It's new lingo,

New ways of going about things.

And so I found the negative thoughts creep in way too quickly.

And so I am grateful that I come here each and every week with you and with myself to think strength and the endurance,

The motivation to keep going because I can take on everything and everything I need is already within me.

And so we continue to send our loving kindness phrases to ourself.

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 May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live with ease.

You you you I hope one day soon you'll be able to see the benefits that I've seen from the section of our loving kindness meditation.

Finally looking in the mirror getting a small second of respite from those negative thoughts immediately coming to mind.

And with that we shift to our second group of individuals in which we will send our loving kindness phrases.

Our loving relationship.

So like ourselves who this week would you like to be grateful for?

Cherish a little deeper a relationship.

Hopefully a loving relationship.

No matter what that love comes in the form of.

Teachers,

Friends,

Mentors,

Dogs.

We're grateful for these relationships as they hold us through and so we send our loving kindness phrases to them.

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 No matter the unrelated thoughts that may come up during your practice today we simply notice and start over with our loving kindness phrases as that moment of remembering.

It's truly the most crucial as I've heard many a time.

And I promise you these unrelated connections we will slowly see how this river of connections really runs as small threads even in the simplest of connections.

And so we cherish when they get deeper and with that we send our loving kindness phrases to this loving relationship in our life 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 happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be safe,

May you live with needs.

You you you I hope with these practices you will realize that you are also on the receiving end of this loving relationship.

There are so many connections in which you would be the receiver of these loving kindness phrases.

And may we ponder on that for today.

But at this juncture,

It is time to move to our third group of individuals,

Our neutral relationship,

Our member of the public.

So often for me,

This image is a faceless member or has many faces,

As all those individuals that I pass by in my community.

But I cherish our ability to come together and live in this local area and be a community.

And so I take this moment to cherish that connection.

And so I send my loving kindness phrases to this neutral relationship or a member of the public.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be safe,

May you live with ease,

May worldview feel Liz mentioned two of your develops and in your freezer and as local members of the public.

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 Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And so I choose to live on the side of wanting the relationship.

To go about my relationship with the community in an intentional way.

The main reason behind Consider Volunteering is because there's so much more to this world.

If only we participate.

If only we try.

That's all I can really ask of you.

And so together we come and we try and we practice.

We continue to 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.

Live with ease.

Live with ease.

I'm forever amazed at how fragile this world seems.

And from my profession,

It's corporate America is held together by Excel sheets.

Very fragile.

That's why we must find strength.

I never really realized you had to be an Olympic athlete just to,

I don't know,

Move and lift boxes from house to house or,

You know,

Live your life.

And so I'm glad that I even find strength in these mental ways.

And so with that,

We shift to our fourth group of individuals,

Our difficult relationship for this week.

We practice,

Right,

That strength because life is tough.

We sign up for this endless suffering,

But true beauty can be found.

I hope you may feel it with our time together.

And so we practice even when it is tough.

We send our loving kindness phrases to our difficult relationship.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy,

Maybe safe.

They will live with the baby happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live with me.

Maybe happy.

Maybe healthy.

Maybe safe.

May you be safe.

May you live with ease.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

May you be safe.

And so we take and we practice because it's a lot of work.

With that we shift to our fifth group of individuals this week.

We let go of all the difficulty and we open up to all beings everywhere.

We cherish this unintentional connection we all have.

For all that it is worth,

Good and bad.

And so we send our loving kindness phrases in hopes of making it more good.

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 ease,

May all beings everywhere be happy.

May all beings be safe,

May all beings be healthy.

May all beings live with ease.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I may never be able to understand your struggles.

And I may not be able to understand your joys in the same manner that you cannot exactly understand mine.

But I hope together we can find joy and purpose in the sharing of those griefs and happinesses.

Because I believe that sharing is what gives us purpose in life.

Or guides us to the purpose in life.

And so,

Please don't dampen your light because of fear,

Because of anger.

Whatever it may be.

I believe the more you shine it,

The more your purpose will come to you.

And so,

With my light fully shining,

We continue to 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.

And with that,

Dear friends,

We're coming to the end of our loving kindness meditation.

I'm so grateful you've taken this opportunity to connect with me and I hope you found the value that I find coming here and practicing.

I hope to see you again.

And with that,

May the best be with you in this coming week.

With love,

Namaste.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live with ease.