Welcome to Community Mindfulness Project's guided empathetic joy meditation.
So taking your meditation posture,
Whether it's lying down,
Sitting,
Standing,
And taking a moment now to fully arrive in this moment.
Maybe taking a moment to tune into the sounds in the body and the sounds in the room near you.
Using them to help anchor you to this moment.
Just here allowing for a letting go of all the momentum that led up to now and letting go of the tendency to lean into what might come next.
Just resting in this moment.
If you haven't already,
Allowing the eyelids to slide down over the eyes,
Or if maybe you're feeling a little sleepy,
Keeping the eyes slightly open.
If you're seated,
Taking a posture that allows you to be alert but relaxed.
Picturing that string attached to the top of the head,
Tugging gently upwards,
Allowing the chin to tuck just slightly,
Taking the strain off the back of the neck.
Allowing the shoulders to hang down away from the ears,
The shoulder blades to slide down the back a bit,
Sensing into the support of whatever is beneath you.
Now taking a moment to invite openness and relaxation into the body.
We're starting at the top of the body,
Allowing for the muscles across the forehead to be relaxed.
Maybe creating a sense of expansiveness there in the forehead,
Around the eyes,
Softening along the jaw,
Around the mouth.
Maybe with each exhalation,
Allowing for a little bit more of that softening.
Continuing down into the neck and the shoulders.
Maybe lifting the shoulders just a little bit and then allowing them to fall.
Maybe exploring if there can be a softening around the heart area.
Allowing for the belly to be soft and round and the lower back to be relaxed.
Checking in on the muscles in the legs and the feet and seeing if there can be some loosening there.
Maybe just a little bit more on each exhale.
Now at your own pace,
Taking three deep belly expanding breaths,
Paying close attention to the sensations that arise from breathing all the way through the breath cycle.
Letting go of any need now to control the breath and just allowing it to find its own natural rhythm.
Maybe exploring with curiosity what that might be in this moment.
It can often take several breaths to really let go of the need to control the breath and trust that the body can breathe perfectly fine on its own.
And placing your bare attention just on the sensations of breathing.
Not what you think it should feel like,
But what it really does feel like.
And just letting go of the need to control the breath and just allowing it to find its own natural rhythm.
Letting go of any need now to control the breath and just allowing it to find its own natural rhythm.
Letting go of any need now to control the breath and just allowing it to find its own natural rhythm.
Letting go of any need now to control the breath and just allowing it to find its own natural rhythm.
Now that we've taken some time to cultivate some openness in the body and then settle the mind,
We can begin the formal practice of empathetic joy.
So inviting you now to bring an image of yourself to mind from any stage in your life,
The present,
When you were a child,
Any time at all,
When you were experiencing joy.
Maybe it was just witnessing a beautiful moment in nature or celebrating a milestone in your life,
Joy for something small or something large.
So just seeing now if you can evoke that same sensation of joy now at that memory,
Exploring what that feels like.
Maybe it's a warmth or an expanding sensation around the heart area.
Whatever it is for you,
Just staying with that sensation and resting in that sensation for a few moments.
Letting go of any need now to control the breath and just allowing it to find its own natural rhythm.
So we're just becoming familiar with what joy feels like in our body.
And if the mind wanders,
Just knowing it's a great time to practice bringing it back to what we're doing now in this moment.
So now inviting you to bring to mind a dear loved one who has experienced something positive recently.
Whomever comes to mind first,
Letting go of the need to select someone,
Just allowing someone to come to mind.
And no matter whether their positive experience is big or small in scale,
Allowing for an upwelling of that same sense of joy for their good fortune that you felt when you remembered your own good fortune.
And you can do this gently,
Allowing the sensation of joy to blossom gradually.
So sensing into the joy that we can feel for this dear loved one's good fortune.
Seeing if it has a home in the same place in the body that joy for our own good fortune had.
Maybe it does,
Maybe it doesn't.
This experience is all yours.
And if you like extending maybe a wish to this dear loved one,
May you have continued good fortune.
May joy be abundant in your life,
Whatever suits.
If you find that your mind is getting involved in any way,
Maybe analyzing the other's good fortune or your response to their good fortune.
Just bringing this practice back down into the body,
Maybe around the heart area or wherever you might feel it.
And just exploring what it feels like to wish for the good fortune of this person and to share in their existing good fortune,
To share that joy that they may be feeling.
So now allowing for the sense of that loved one's presence or their image to fade just a little bit.
And bringing to mind someone whom you don't know very well,
Someone whom you have a neutral feeling towards.
And maybe you saw somebody get a wonderful hug from a friend on the street or you read about someone winning a prize in the paper.
But in some way this neutral person has experienced some good fortune.
Large or small,
Could just be somebody that looked happy as they walked their dog this morning.
Sitting in recognition of that person's good fortune.
And we need to explore if it's possible to feel a sense of joy for their good fortune,
Almost as if it were our own good fortune.
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And if at any point in the practice you notice yourself maybe struggling to cultivate the depth of feeling that you feel you should have,
Know that this just happens to be your experience in the practice in this moment and nothing more.
And now perhaps for this neutral person if you'd like to extend a wish for their continued well-being using whatever words work for you.
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If you find that the mind has taken over,
Just coming back down into the experience in the body.
Now if you'd like to take a moment to extend your breath,
Just take a moment to relax.
Extend a wish for the continuation of this person's good fortune.
May there be continued joy in their life.
Noticing what arises as you extend that wish.
Now if you like allowing their image to fade slightly and bringing to mind whomever you please at all.
Whoever's joy you would like to share in,
Whomever you would like to wish continued good fortune to.
Pausing with each person that you bring to mind and allowing for a felt sense in the body of joy to arise and the wish emanate from the heart.
Now if you'd like to take a moment to extend your breath,
Just take a moment to relax.
And now allowing all those images to fade and allowing yourself to come back and place your attention back on the sensations of the breath.
Maybe the abdomen,
Maybe just beneath the nose.
Just attending to the breath for a bit.
Have a nice day.
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Now bringing your attention back into the room broadly,
Beginning to invite movement into your fingers and your toes,
Maybe raising and lowering the shoulders a bit,
Circling the wrists and the knees.
And if you like,
Taking a few moments just to do some mental journaling about what might have arisen during the meditation.
And wishing you a beautiful rest of your day.
Thank you.
