Welcome everybody,
This is Chris Norris.
Thank you for joining me today for this meditation practice.
This is a practice of loving kindness for ourselves.
Loving kindness,
Also known as metta.
So if you'd like to find a comfortable way to sit,
Or perhaps lie down,
And it feels safe to do so,
Perhaps you can close your eyes,
Or just shift your gaze gently downward.
Let us begin with a few deep breaths to settle in.
So let us breathe out of our mouths,
Push all your air out,
Push all your air out.
Now in through your nose,
All the way down into your belly,
And release.
Good.
Again,
In through your nose,
Hold,
And now release.
One more.
In through the nose,
All the way down into your belly.
Hold,
And release.
And perhaps it feels welcoming and comforting,
You can place a hand over your heart,
Or anywhere that it's comforting and soothing to you.
And this is a reminder to not only bring awareness to us,
But bring loving awareness to us.
Bringing loving awareness to our experience,
And to ourselves.
And now we just focus on that touch,
That warmth.
Focus on our breath moving in,
And out of our body.
Perhaps we feel a slight expansion on the in breath,
And a relaxation on the out breath.
Just noticing the breath where we most easily can notice it.
That might be at the nostrils,
That may be in the rising and falling of the belly,
Could be at the expansion of the chest.
Notice where you feel the breath most fully,
And maintain a soft focus there.
Feeling the gentle rhythm of breathing,
And when your attention wanders,
It's okay.
You can smile,
Be grateful for that wonderful thinking mind,
And return your focus back to your breath.
Now we can gently release our focus on the breath,
Allowing it to dissolve into the background,
As we begin to offer ourselves words of kindness and compassion.
Words that we need to hear,
Words that we can savor.
If you already have phrases that are meaningful to you,
Please use those.
And if you're new to meditating with phrases and mantras,
Please just try to open your heart and open your mind to what you hear.
These words of wisdom and compassion,
They may be speaking to you in a deep way.
So allow us to recite some words of loving kindness for ourselves.
And perhaps the words could sound like this.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
Repeat these phrases over and over again,
Allowing them to encircle us,
Surrounding us,
These words of love and compassion.
Repeating the phrases over and over.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
And if it feels right,
We absorb these words.
We let them fill our being.
We allow these words to resonate into every cell of our body.
And when our thoughts drift,
We bring it back to the mantra.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
There's nothing to do.
There's nowhere to go.
We're just bathing ourselves in these kind words,
Soaking them in these words,
These words that we need to hear.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
Whenever you notice your mind is wandered,
You can refresh your aim by offering yourself that soothing touch or this feeling,
The sensations in your body,
Perhaps bringing your focus back to your body,
The sit bones on the chair,
The cushion,
The feet on the floor,
The weight,
The heaviness of the body.
Come home to this body,
Then we offer ourselves the words.
We come home to kindness.
May I be happy.
May I be at ease.
May I be free from suffering.
As this meditation comes to a close,
Perhaps we can invite some movement into our body.
We can begin to wiggle our toes and wiggle our fingers some.
We can bring our arms up overhead,
Reaching to the sky and bringing them down in front of us,
Perhaps into a position of prayer in front of our heart.
We can look to the left.
We can look to the right.
We can look up and we can look down.
We can look straight ahead.
And when we're ready,
If we close our eyes,
We can flutter them open,
Perhaps just shift your gaze gently upwards.
