Cultivating Loving-Kindness & Self-Compassion

You’re kind and polite and giving to everyone else. But what about giving to yourself? The meditation helps you to stop and give back to yourself, to cultivate loving-kindness and self-compassion just for you. It's gently energising and will bring a softness to your day. This practice is a featured meditation from my 'Emotional Equilibrium Meditation Collection'. If you loved this meditation, you'll love the full collection more!

Transcript

! ! Welcome to this loving kindness meditation for yourself. This practice is a beautiful way to cultivate kindness for yourself and is particularly helpful if you've been critical, Mean or unforgiving of yourself. We're going to start by taking a few moments to extend our breath deeply inhaling through the nose fully exhaling through the nose or the mouth breathing in inhale breathing out exhale continue to breathe deeply and extend your breath as you start to settle your nervous system calm your emotions and we ask the mind to set aside for the next little while whatever is going on in your life we'll come back to it later anything you have to do anyone you have to be we'll come back to in a few moments but for now send your awareness through your breath to the center of your body moving your belly out as you inhale letting the belly sink down and pull towards your spine as you breathe out fully extend your breath a little more each time making sure that they're even and full and smooth and as we start to ground ourselves in this experience allow a moment or two for all of the sounds around you to come into your awareness allow the sounds become a little noisier a little more present there will always be noise around us in this room and in life but through meditation we learn to let it simply be in the background returning your awareness to your physical body time and time again as we become more in tune with the body relax your face shoulders belly legs feet become conscious of your weight in the chair or the floor just allow the body to become as heavy and as weightless as possible fully aware of your body front and back side to side top to toes and now that we're feeling more settled I'm going to invite you to specifically call in to your awareness and emotion that you have difficulty with this may be anger grief overwhelm heartbreak sadness guilt even happiness just choose one emotion that you'd like to work on today bring that emotion to mind something that completely overwhelms your mind your body your spirit your life raise its awareness and allow that emotion to simply be in the heart space notice any other parts of the body where you feel this emotion has effects on you notice the patterns or the shapes that this emotion makes in the body notice how you feel this emotion in different ways and in different parts of the body or perhaps it's stuck to one solid part of you that feels lodged or immovable scan the body in great detail to find every little place that this emotion hides becoming very clear with this picture in your mind of where this emotion rises causes you discomfort and where it sits in the body and it's important to do this without going into the story of what triggers this emotion all the thoughts you have when this emotion appears in the body leave any negative self-talk or stories or memories you have around this emotion simply be with the feeling in the body notice how when you tune into this emotion and the places that it is it may become more uncomfortable for you at first use your breath as your anchor breathe yourself through this experience if it becomes difficult and now I'm going to invite you to scan your body in a different way scanning your body now to look for all of the different parts of the body where you don't feel this emotion this may be your hands your feet the back of your body or your legs just explore and become aware of the parts of the body that aren't as affected by this overwhelming emotion or experience now choose one of these places in your body where you don't feel this overwhelming distress and just rest here for a few moments if you could pretend to be the part of the body where you are if you could hide here or rest here knowing that it's safe and without the distressing emotion doing your best to embody or feel what it feels like to be here without that intense emotion you'll notice that your mind wants to bring you back to that intense emotion or the story around it but in the spirit of trying something new and challenging that mind continue to find a safe place within your body a quiet place a neutral place and even though it's new and unfamiliar or may feel strange see if you can rest here and find reprieve in this part of the body that is not affected or touched at all by your emotion and now you're feeling calmer and more confident to allow this emotion to be in the body we're going to raise our awareness back towards our breath once again and I'm going to invite you to use your exhalation to breathe out this particularly difficult emotion breathing in a sense of calm and peace breathe out the negative difficult dark emotion breathing in light stillness and neutrality breathing out anything that feels dark or smoky coloured or difficult exhale that difficult emotion whatever it may be for you exhale your attachment to this exhale the story around this exhale your fear around being without this emotion exhale the familiarity of this emotion breathing in something cool and neutral and light-hearted creating space and peace and stillness in the body doing your best to let go and let out all of those things that hold you down or make your life heavy or small or complicated breathing out all of those things that keep you hooked or triggered or confined let it leave your body now breathing in and becoming familiar now with what you'd like to manifest in your life and in your body whether you'd like to cultivate feelings of joy or happiness peace or stillness use your breath to breathe that quality into your life into your body if that's too much simply breathe in a sense of nothingness or neutrality it may even be breathing in a sense of yourself again re-finding the old you or perhaps a new you that you'd like to bring into your life if there are any parts of you that still feel uncomfortable or stuck or distressed imagine using your hands to sweep away these remnants of emotion from the body sweep away gently this emotion that is stuck or conflicted or unsure where to go pick out any tiny little dark parts of color still lingering around any dark or smoky colors that are in or around your body sweep your body completely emptying all the dark and intense physical emotions out of the body see it come together in one solid colored ball of light almost as if you are draining the body of any final remnants of this difficult and overwhelming emotion and move the ball of energy far away from where you are remember to check for any last senses of this emotion in the back of your body souls of your feet your face your mind your thoughts your memories move this ball of energy far far away from you and let it dissolve into the distance throw it far away if you like lock it somewhere or hide it somewhere or give it to someone to keep away from you just allow it to move away from your physical body so that we are left only with your beautiful body your breath and your presence that has the capacity for stillness and peace nourishing energy calmness confidence in ourselves returning to your breath as we now start to cultivate a sensation of loving kindness for yourself validating that that was a difficult experience that yes those emotions are incredibly difficult to stomach and be with and they may have been with you for a long time continue to breathe deeply as if you are offering your breath as a prayer to yourself or a dedication to yourself hold yourself gently for the experience that you've been through for the challenges that you've overcome breathe in loving kindness into your body now that you've cleared and cleansed and created space for something new send these calm and loving feelings all throughout your body particularly in the places where this difficult emotion was living where it was hiding where it had become stuck even if you remembered this emotion being a tiny fleck breathe loving kindness into those spaces breathe loving kindness into every cell every pore every part of your body it's as if you were giving yourself a big hug or wrapping yourself in a giant blanket acknowledging the difficulty of the experiences that you've had the impact on the body the stress the burden of your mind the tears the anger the frustration but that's over now you can rest now you can breathe fully and properly now feeling spacious clear free you've cleared this difficult emotion away from your body and created a beautiful space for loving kindness to enter into those places continue to use your inhalation to move this loving kindness through every part of your body allowing your shoulders to drop a little more your head to become a little heavier the chest and the heart and the belly to finally become settled and calm and relieved you may even notice that your posture could feel different without the burden and heaviness of this emotion lurking around in the body tune into your face and imagine the expression of your faith knowing that this emotion hasn't left the body for now how would you look how would you show the world that you feel lighter and more loving kindness towards yourself we're going to close the meditation now and I invite you to carry this sensation of loving kindness empathy and warmth for yourself throughout this week throughout this month throughout your life remembering that you can come to this place of stillness at any time you choose creating space between yourself and the emotions that feel so overwhelming remember that you always have the power to feel exactly as you please to regain control and to find the places within yourself that are safe and calm and peaceful our body will do exactly as we tell it to do and it will let go of everything we ask it to let go you may like to place your hand over your heart or imagine doing so holding yourself gently for a few more breaths before we close this meditation you might even like to commit to never allowing that emotion from that memory or that experience to come back into the body or remembering you can always expel it out of your system and create space for loving kindness when you become overwhelmed be with your heart space as you remember your full body in this room in this moment come back to your life raising your awareness fully very gently and very slowly whenever you're ready thank you for listening to this meditation you you

Reviews

The meditation starts by briefly acknowledging and exploring the difficult emotion, then stabilizing by distracting yourself, the expelling, then letting self compassion take its place. It moves at a fairly brisk pace and doesn't leave a lot of room for experiencing the difficult feeling.

Incredible meditation. Will be listening to it again! Thank you for your guidance 🙏 😊