Mindfulness for Writers Podcast Episode #3: Lovingkindness for Writers

Today I dig into why the practice of lovingkindness (mettā) is particularly helpful for us as writers when we deal with our inner critics and perfectionists. I get into why we could use a little more gentleness toward ourselves and how we can do this practice on the spot during emotionally difficult times. Those of you who enjoy mantras will dig this practice, which is a contemplative combo of visualization and phrases that you recite in your head. I * really * love this kind of meditation, and I think you will, too (despite the cheesy name). Combine this with my guided meditation on lovingkindness and you're good to go!

Breathe. Write. Repeat.

Transcript

Welcome to the Mindfulness for Writers podcast.

I'm Heather Demetrios and today we're going to be talking about loving kindness meditation which is one of my favorite practices.

I have a guided meditation that goes along with this and I'm going to be writing a blog post too and one thing I mentioned in the guided meditation that I'll mention here too is that there are many people who hear this phrase loving kindness and think it is the cheesiest crap ever and it sounds like woo-woo,

Self-help,

Affirmational weird stuff and they want nothing to do with it.

Well I totally understand you know coming from that place and and even the name loving kindness is quite syrupy sweet but it is an incredibly powerful and effective practice and has helped me a lot as a writer who is a perfectionist and who is really hard on herself and is always striving to be to be better to push herself to to accomplish more and I think that if you're like that at all if you struggle with perfectionism it can be really hard to be nice to yourself and to see to see yourself in a positive light but also even just to be gentle or kind to yourself.

Some of the things I say to myself are horrible and I would never say them probably even to like my worst enemy so we we really have to work on that if that's something that you're struggling with because it definitely affects the work because it affects your well-being and when you're not okay the work's not going to be okay so that's one reason that loving kindness is very effective in cultivating that sense of gentleness toward yourself.

The other is that if you struggle with professional jealousy there's something in Buddhism called sympathetic joy which is basically the ability to honestly truly be happy for somebody else almost as if the good fortune day experience had happened to you.

One of the things I hear writers talk about the most and one of the things I struggle with as well is professional jealousy.

It can be really hard you know you're isolated you're working on your own you get on Twitter and you see like all these people have these amazing book deals or you see you know the publisher doing so much for another writer that they're not doing for you or another list comes out about you know the best writers of the year whatever it is you know and you're not on it and when you're a writer you also have a usually have a community of writer friends a tribe and those people you know they're gonna have things that happen for them that are really great that are not going to be happening for you and how do you cultivate that sense of sympathetic joy where you can be genuinely happy for them and that their success does not in any way constitute your failure and while I don't actually believe that there's there's room for everyone at the top or I just don't there isn't I do think that we can have the ability to be happy for other people's good fortune you know and so loving kindness can help with that as well it also helps with challenging relationships that you might have with people in the industry could be an editor could be a publicist could be a reviewer who gave you a terrible review a book blogger a teacher even somebody who has hurt you professionally and how do you work with that how do you work with those strong emotions so that when you sit down to write that's not all swirling in your head and you can just focus on your story so loving-kindness is a great practice for that it comes from the word metta which is Pali that's the Buddha's original language and so this word metta is is this idea that you are cultivating the sense of loving-kindness for yourself and a specific group of other people and then that that wish for loving-kindness that wish for happiness for others radiates out even to like the whole universe and so there are traditional phrases that you use in English that you direct at different groups of people including yourself but loving-kindness is a great practice because it really lets you play jazz as a meditator you can use whatever phrases you want and you also don't have to have a certain posture when we do contemplative practices in meditation this is a time to relax a bit so when you're when you're using mantras or you're doing visualization work that's considered contemplative and so in in those situations you can lay down as you do the meditation you can sit on your couch you can you know just basically chill out a little bit more than with mindfulness meditation where you're you're working a bit harder because you're you're really trying to focus on the breath and trying to maintain this focus in Metta in loving-kindness meditation you'll still have some of the same challenges you know your mind will wander you'll have to bring yourself back to the object of meditation only in this case the object of meditation is the phrases and the visualizations not your breath so just to give you kind of a rundown of what this practice looks like and again you'll want to check out the guided meditation and then basically once you've done the guided meditation you can just kind of make this work for you however you want to do it I recommend having a Metta practice every week so some people like to do it every day I often do it on the weekends kind of gives me a little break from the mindfulness meditation which you know if you know if those of you that have been meditating it can be hard work and so it's kind of nice to be like oh cool I can just kind of lay back and recite some phrases and just be really present with that and have this sort of exploratory thing going on in my mind it's kind of a nice a nice break but you can do Metta on the spot I do it on the subway I do it while I'm walking I see a homeless person I offer Metta to them I catch myself while I'm writing you know having a moment of self-hatred or fear even of my future or whatever and I might just quick do a minute or so of Metta so this is something that is super portable and just a really great tool to have in your back pocket so traditionally Metta has the certain phrases that you hear often so they are may I be happy may I be healthy may I be safe may I be at peace you'll hear a lot of variations of that but that's the general thing happiness healthiness safety peace but I I play jazz with that and I'll talk a little bit more about that later but you have these phrases and first you direct them to yourself silently in your head you're thinking may I be happy may be healthy maybe safe maybe a peace and you do that a few times while visualizing yourself and then you move on to the next person and that is a benefactor so your benefactor I often say you know I choose my English teacher always pretty much somebody in your life who has supported you and shared their wisdom and so it for many of us that's a teacher some of you it could be an editor that you've worked with it could be even a family member who you know maybe helped put you through school or always read your books and you know makes a point to talk to you about them or whatever so you would visualize them and then you would repeat the phrases but this time you change change it to me you it's the same phrases you always use the same phrases for each person but it be may you be happy may you be healthy may you be safe may you be loved you repeat that a few times and again if your mind wanders you just bring it back to the meditation start the phrases over get that visualization in your head and then after you've repeated them however long you want you know you could spend five minutes per person if you want you could also just repeat the phrases a few times and then move on to the next person you want to give enough time that you actually have developed a feeling not that you would physically feel a feeling you might feel zero emotion while you're doing this you might feel annoyed while you're doing this because you think it's cheesy but you know you want to cultivate a sense of like a clear sense of sending this these wishes basically to this person that you're focusing on it takes a couple times then you let that go and you move on to the next person which is a beloved person or pet a lot of people choose pets because this is someone a being who makes your heart smile so in classes you'll often hear teachers say you know don't choose someone you're having sex with don't choose a partner or spouse these are complicated relationships you really want to choose somebody that you just think of them and they just make you smile and there's no complication at all so that's why a lot of people like to choose their pets or I sometimes choose my nephews you know just just people that make your heart smile so picture them in your head same phrases may you be happy maybe healthy maybe safe maybe at peace and then you do that for a bit and you go the next person which is a neutral person this is someone you don't know I often choose like the last stranger that I can picture in my mind that I encountered my Lyft driver a barista one of my neighbors I that I don't know but I just kind of see them around the neighborhood you know someone across from me on the subway it doesn't matter who it is don't agonize over this just go with the first person someone you have neutral feelings toward it's usually someone you don't even know their name you honestly they're just a person that you can picture in your head you do the same phrases a few times let that dissolve and you go to the last person who is the difficult person it's really important that you do not choose someone that traumatized you do not choose someone that you have overwhelming feelings about when I say difficult I mean someone who annoys you someone who is challenging to you but you know they don't keep you up nights it's it's just someone who grates on you you know like a like a little pebble in your shoe if you want to work with stronger relationships like let's say you have a really bad relationship with a with your sister or you have a really difficult situation with a co-worker or you know a friend or whatever that's fine but you have to take care of yourself so I I can't tell you what is the best person to choose but the main thing is that it's somebody that is not going to create overwhelm or upset you know if you're working with a therapist or something and you want to do loving-kindness before a session with them and then you know then you have someone that who can kind of help you grapple with that that's fine but it's really important no trauma the whole point is that we're just working with cultivating this sense of loving-kindness for others and it's a heart-opening practice so it's not like you're supposed to be some emotional hero here so you'd get that person in your mind and I often suggest you know if you can imagine them somewhere where you know that they're happy or have a sense of well-being that's that's nice that's a good thing to do don't choose like a political leader I'm not gonna name any names but you know don't choose people that you like Hitler you know I mean like don't choose people that you don't know that you just have strong feelings toward you really you know you want to keep it personal if you can you do the phrases and if a difficult emotion arises as you're doing your difficult person you feel upset sad angry whatever you can stop the loving-kindness for them at that moment if you need to and just put your hands on your heart take a few breaths before you move on to the next part of the loving-kindness meditation I mean try not to stop like the whole point is to cultivate this feeling and to work with you know sticky emotions so don't like give up but if it is too hard then of course take care of yourself then you let that image solve and the next thing you do is you imagine all of the people that you've given loving-kindness to including yourself you imagine all of you guys together and you repeat the phrases one more time except this time it's me we be happy may we be healthy you go through the phrases and then you let that image dissolve and you can and you don't have to like spend a lot of time on that one you can just repeat it once or twice and then move on and then you radiate basically to a kind of a ripple effect where you go from small to big so you might wish loving-kindness for the people in your apartment building and then by the end of this you're you're wishing loving-kindness to all beings everywhere if you don't have a lot of time or sometimes this part for me personally gets a little bit tedious so after I do the all together all the people that I've done loving-kindness for imagining them in a circle when I go to the next part for all beings I might just think the phrase may all beings be happy and free and this is a traditional Buddhist phrase but it's just simple sweet may all beings be happy and free and that means animals insects people on the earth in the universe aliens like spirits like whatever you believe in like it's just all beings everywhere and if you want to get more whatever with that then like I'm in Brooklyn so I might say may all beings in Brooklyn you know be happy and safe may all beings in New York be happy and safe may all beings in North America be happy and safe or you can do directions like beings in the north west south east however you want to do it all the continents whatever it's it's really loosey-goosey it's whatever works for you and after you've done that you let that kind of image dissolve and then I usually suggest you know just take a couple minutes to just follow your breath follow any sensations that are in your body you may feel a sort of tingling us or something just because when you are reciting phrases in your head for a concentrated amount of time it does create a sort of energy sometimes but if you feel nothing at all like zero you feel hollow that is completely fine too that's something that I really want to mention is that there's there's no expectation here of a way you're going to feel like with all meditation the work that you do on the cushion or the chair is not you're not going to be feeling things necessarily in that moment the effects of meditation are when you get off of the cushion or the chair and they usually sneak up on you you know a situation arises where you would have been really annoyed and angry at a person but for some reason you're you're less triggered by them today and that could be because of the loving kindness because of the meditation that you're doing so it's really important that if this feels cheesy and boring or weird or whatever just stick with it most of the people I know if they felt weird about doing meta practice at first very quickly they got on board and realized that it was pretty awesome and there's all kinds of science that points to like when you cultivate a sense of love for yourself and when you cultivate well-being you know toward others that there's actually chemical things that are happening in your brain you know releasing you know dopamine and serotonin and all this kind of stuff that actually does make you feel happier so there is the direct effect of loving kindness is that you'll probably be a little bit happier maybe not all the time but maybe even just after doing the meditation it really helps so as I mentioned before this is great to do if you want to like specifically connect it to your writing life so let's say you're at the laptop and you're just having a shit writing day and you're starting to really go down that rabbit hole of like I'm the worst writer ever this is never gonna happen for me I'm wasting my life I have nothing to say whatever it is and in a moment of mindfulness which hopefully you're working on you realize you're doing that you realize you're hating on yourself and you stop it's kind of like stop drop roll you know you stop and you can use some loving kindness right you can close your eyes or just sit there and just think maybe happy maybe safe maybe healthy maybe at peace and just go through that a few times you know and then let it go and just a little mindfulness loving kindness moment for yourself like I said I do this for other people like if someone irritates me sometimes we'll try to do meta for them in my head afterwards instead of devolving into a story about why they're so mean and I don't want to be a friend anymore or whatever or you know I see a homeless person on the street and just have like a moment of human compassion for them may you be happy maybe safe maybe healthy maybe free you know whatever so this is super portable and very usable very easy and it's nice because you don't have to be in this like you know meditative pose and everything has to be quiet around you I often do meta on nights when it's like freaking loud in my apartment building and everyone's playing music or having parties or kids are running in the hallway and there's no way that I can do my mindfulness meditation I just jump into some meta and that's what I do instead and it works so one thing that I want to mention is that again the phrases can be whatever you want so in the guided meditation that I have that goes along with this podcast is I use the phrases happy inspired and at peace so I think may I be happy may I be inspired may I be at peace I like using the word inspired for us as writers because that's what we want we want flow we want inspiration we want that that awesome feeling of writing something that we're super into and so you know using phrases that work for you sometimes I struggle a lot with having like an open heart toward other people I'm really hard on myself and then I also hold other people to that unfair expectation and so sometimes in my meta practice I might think may I have an open heart you know sometimes I feel like I have a cold shriveled heart and I have to do that I have to do this work so hopefully this is helpful to you again this is a super great practice because you know it's super jazz playing fun like just loosey-goosey do what you want I do recommend trying the traditional phrases to begin with because it gives you a sense of sort of what that feels like and then you can change phrases in and out from there I recommend simple phrases not just like like a even just like an adjective you know may you may you be safe not like may you be safe wherever you are today like don't add all that stuff on to it because this is memorized right and you're using the same phrases for every single person and so you want to make it easy between the people it's nice to just when you let the image the visualization of them dissolve to just take a nice deep breath and move on to the next person some people really like to put their hands on their heart center during this meditation it's a very visceral like connected feeling and it and it cultivates a sense of gentleness and warmth to themselves and to other people and gives them like a physical reminder of like what this practice is about so if you want to do that go ahead but again you don't have to because it's a contemplative practice we practice with our eyes closed unless of course you're doing this on the fly while you're walking or on the subway or whatever so I'm going to also be posting a blog with some info that should be helpful for a meta but check out the guided meditation and as usual you know if you have any questions let me know send me an email find me on Twitter I'll leave you with this quote that I love by Rumi kind of distills what we're doing here today love is the bridge between you and everything and I really think that that's what we do when we're writing is we're trying to connect to that love of our humanity and of our characters and of the struggle of being human and the Beatles were kind of right all you really need is love so cheesy so true so I wish that all of you will be happy inspired and at peace today and I look forward to practicing with you more in the future

Reviews

Fantastic content. I stand behind you.

Love this. Thank u for a wonderful explanation. I will practice this regularly

Thank you! I will try this metra practice. Seems it will be easy for me. I tend to carry on dialogues in my head most of the time. You explained with exceptionsl realness and clarity.
😊🙏🏽😊

This is extremely helpful. Thank you🙏🏻

Great podcast ⚘ everything mentioned applies to being an artist too. I will begin using this approach in my work. I look forward to the next podcast.