Loving-Kindness Practice

A Loving-Kindness practice helps you feel more loving and kind to yourself and others. Learning to cultivate such thoughts and feelings, and realizing that you have more control over your compassion than you thought, gives you access to moving through life in a more appreciative and connected way.

Transcript

Welcome to the loving kindness guided meditation with Dr.

Jen Gonzalez.

Settle into a comfortable seated position with your back and neck upright.

Try to sit in a dignified stance,

But make sure you're still comfortable.

Close your eyes and just take a few deep breaths to realize you're in this moment.

I'll ring the mindfulness bell three times to initiate this meditation,

So just listen.

Now I'd like you to visualize someone close to you who you love unconditionally.

This could be a parent,

Partner,

Child,

Friend,

Or even a pet.

What are their positive qualities?

Reflect on how you appreciate these.

Feel yourself opening to gratitude for their presence in your life.

Notice the warmth spreading in your chest and any other places where you feel this in your body.

Sit with this feeling of love.

Direct these warm feelings towards yourself.

Move to a state of self-appreciation.

Sometimes people struggle with this and that's okay.

Please know that you are deserving and worthy of this love and kindness.

Surround yourself with the gratitude and love you felt for another and bring it into your body.

Sit with these feelings for a moment,

Feelings of gratitude,

Love,

And acceptance.

Now expand these feelings to your family and friends.

Imagine those you love and respect.

Send to them and surround them with your love and kindness.

Think about this process if you notice emotions like sadness,

Fear,

Or even irritation.

That's totally normal.

Just observe those emotions and have compassion for yourself.

Now take that love and kindness to your family and friends and extend those feelings to your community.

Visualize your love and caring expanding to envelop your community,

Whether a local community or a community with whom you identify.

Now extend these feelings to your country.

Broaden your love,

Compassion,

And caring to include all the people in your country.

And now extend these feelings to the world.

Surround the earth with your expanding kindness and love,

Blanketing the globe with your warmth and gratitude.

Now you may complete your meditation here if you like.

As a challenge to stretch yourself though,

I suggest you also visualize someone you dislike,

Someone who has hurt you,

Wronged you,

Or has done a disservice of sorts.

Can you extend your love and kindness to include them?

This may be tough and that's okay.

Send your compassion and open-heartedness to them.

This is definitely a practice in altruistic love.

I'll now ring the mindfulness bell three times to signify the end of this formal meditation.

Return to this guided meditation as often as you like to develop your mindfulness skills and cultivate love,

Compassion,

Kindness,

And gratitude in your heart and life.

And be kind to yourself.

Reviews

Wonderful-thank you! 🙏☀️

Thank you. I truly liked it

Full of effective meditation ! Thank you!
I know there was some who felt the sound needed fixing but I enjoyed the reverberant tones ! It helped penetrate my mind

Wonderful, thank you 🙏

Thanks. Prefer the more formal meditations where one is actively saying the phrases. More effective for me - less mind wandering, I suppose..

So great! I wanted to do a short meditation on loving kindness before I went to sleep tonight because I was so angry at some of the national news and one "leader" in particular. This meditation helped so much! Thank you💕❤💕.

Very pleasant voice

I benefited from your kind, clear, and soothing voice. The music was icing on the cake. Perfect for setting the basis gor my personal meditation. Thank you.