Let's begin our compassion practice by getting into the body in a way that feels right to you.
Adjusting whatever you need in order to feel grounded and balanced in your meditation.
And when you're ready,
You can connect with the breath.
As with so many other contemplations,
It's always good for us to remain grounded,
To get into the body and just feel the breath before we open up to adding concept on top.
So just noticing the in-breath and out-breath as it moves through you.
At this point,
We can bring to mind the image of someone that we have a hard time with.
It doesn't have to be the most traumatic person in our life,
I recommend against that,
But someone that we are struggling with in this moment in time.
It could be a co-worker who has created extra work for us,
Or it could be a family member who has let us down.
It could be a romantic partner or a friend.
Whoever comes to mind first is a good person to work with and hold their image in mind as if they are in the room with you right now.
So we could imagine their hair,
Their eyes,
The way they smile or the way they dress,
Whatever makes it feel vivid to you.
And as you hold their image in mind,
You might notice that your heart wants to flee,
It might want to shut down,
You don't want to seek to understand this person.
So to the best of our ability,
We remain open-hearted and we'll begin to think of some of the positive things about this person.
At the end of each thing that we come up with,
We just add these three magic words,
Just like me.
So for example,
They're very caring to their pets,
Just like me.
They're very generous to their friends,
Just like me.
Whatever comes to mind that you can come up with that's a little bit positive for this person,
Just name it in your own mind and add those three words.
When we get completely distracted,
We come back to the image of this person and the positive qualities that we can drum up,
Adding just a few.
Like me.
Now we move to some of the things that we don't like so much about this person,
But we continue to offer these three words,
Just like me.
This person gossips a lot,
Just like me.
This person is untrustworthy,
Just like me.
This is very hard because we don't want to see some of our own negative qualities,
But maybe there's some small part of what we don't like in this person that we ourselves may have carried out.
Maybe you don't always gossip,
But maybe there's been a time in the recent past where you have and you can acknowledge that.
Furthermore,
You can acknowledge where that tendency might come from.
In order to further understand this person.
So just seeing what not so nice things,
The things we dislike about this person,
Come to mind and adding those three words,
Seeing how they land,
Just like me.
When you feel able,
You can take a few deep breaths and let go of the image of this person.
So at your own pace,
Maybe breathing in through the nose,
Out through the mouth.
And notice as you do so,
If there is a little bit of further understanding,
And out of that understanding for this person,
A little bit more open-heartedness,
Or at least,
Just put that in the inverse,
A little less close-heartedness towards this person that we might normally call difficult.
Thank you for practicing with me.
