Welcome to this heartwarming meditation.
To begin,
Find a comfortable position to sit,
Stand,
Or lay down.
If it helps you tune inward to the sensations inside your body,
Closing your eyes can be helpful,
Or you can just maintain a soft focused gaze in front of you.
And as you begin to tune your awareness internally,
Let's just start with the breath.
If you can,
Breathing in and out through the nose is going to help that feeling of warmth through the body.
Noticing how your body moves with the breath,
The expansion on the inhale,
The softening on the exhale.
And if you can,
Allow that expansion on the inhalation to drop down towards your belly.
Softening any tension out of your shoulders,
Your neck,
Your jaw,
Your throat.
Letting your mouth rest with the lips together but your teeth slightly apart.
Maybe even the tip of the tongue resting at the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth.
Allowing the breath to slow down and to find a nice comfortable rhythm.
If it's helpful,
You can place one hand at your heart center,
At your sternum,
Your breastbone right at the center of your chest,
Or you can just bring your awareness to that area.
If your hand is placed there,
It's a nice way to feel just that little exchange of warmth.
The warmth of the palm of your hand,
The warmth from your heart,
And allowing the two to warm each other.
And that feeling of warmth might start to grow a little.
It might start to spread.
Softening any tension through the neck,
The shoulders,
The upper back.
And now you're gonna call to mind the idea of someone,
A person,
A pet,
Someone in your life who's easy to love.
Someone for whom you feel genuine and heartfelt love and connection in a way that's uncomplicated.
And as you bring those feelings to mind,
Notice how that changes the feeling at your heart center.
Maybe feeling that warmth from the heart starting to spread now beyond just the neck,
The shoulders,
The upper back.
Now maybe feeling it all the way down to the lower back or the belly or infusing through your hands,
Your arms.
That feeling of warmth,
That feeling of easy love pulsating through your whole body with every breath.
As you breathe and drink in this sensation,
Maybe you can even imagine that your body is like this little love heater,
That it's radiating out this warmth and this sense of genuine loving kindness out towards the world around you.
And as that love and that warmth shines outward,
Maybe you can also feel it be reflected back into you,
Bathing in the light and the heat of that sense of love directed outward and reflected back inward.
Maybe calling to mind the sensation of lying on a tropical beach and the feeling of the sunlight sinking into your body.
That's what we want.
We want that feeling of the love that is out there in the world sinking into our skin,
Our pores,
Into our tissues,
Into our heart,
Into our deepest sense of self.
The breath is a great tool for this.
You can imagine that that heat is flowing outward on the exhales.
It's drawing inward on the inhales.
And at times of stress or chaos in your daily life,
Maybe you want to take just a little mental snapshot of this tropical beach in your mind,
This feeling of love and warmth spreading through your body.
And know that it's always there for you,
Even if it's just for a breath or two throughout your day to come back to the beach,
Come back to this heartwarming breath and back to the feeling of sending and receiving altruistic love outward and inward.
