Lovingkindness For Writers: Author Edition

If you need some big love--for yourself, that pesky critique partner, your Inner Critic, that author you can't stand--this one's for you! It's for you if you want to get rid of your scarcity complex and send some big love out to your writing family--known and unknown. It's about deepening your connection to yourself and others, thereby increasing your empathy, which will help enrich your craft. Think characters who are deeply authentic, and stories from your weird, complex heart. We're playing writer jazz with the traditional mētta practice, choosing people specific to our writing life (a beloved teacher, a writer you've never met, your favorite author, that mean old reviewer/rejecting agent etc), and using phrases designed to get us pumped for our creative work: May you be happy, May you be inspired, May you FLOW. This practice is so important, Scribes. Self-love comes first here, and we need it, with all the ups and downs of the creative life, no? Love is love is love is love...

Transcript

Okay,

Wherever you have found your seat today,

Just take a moment to take a nice deep breath,

Nice inhale through your nose,

And a nice big exhale through your mouth.

Go ahead and do that two more times.

Inhale through your nose,

And exhale through your mouth.

And one more time.

Before we do anything,

Just want to give you a chance to really appreciate yourself for taking this time right now to find your center,

To find your seat,

To find a little more sanity,

A little more love in your day.

We're going to be doing loving kindness practice,

But this is with a focus for writers.

So the way that we'll be doing it is bringing not only ourselves to mind,

But other writers that we know and maybe even don't know.

Really just honoring this journey that we're on as artists,

The challenges,

The difficulties,

The joys of it.

Whether you feel a bit pinched inside with comparison or jealousy,

Maybe your heart is just hurting today.

Maybe the journey is just hard today.

So I invite you in this practice to really just settle in,

Get comfortable.

You don't have to take a traditional posture for today's practice.

You can sit in whatever way you wish.

Laying down might not be great because you might fall asleep.

And we'll be repeating phrases that I give you in our heads as we do the practice.

Just breathing normally through your nose,

In and out.

Don't allow the breath to be an issue or to trip you up.

Just repeat the phrases and the breath will come as it comes.

And we'll be doing a little bit of visualization of the people that we're doing loving kindness for as we go along as well.

So get comfortable and we will begin.

Take a moment just to bring your attention to the sounds around you.

Settle in for this practice.

Following your breath through your nose.

Adjusting any discomfort.

Eyes closed gently.

And just allow yourself to focus on the sounds in the space you're in.

Let those be your object of meditation.

Maybe you hear birds chirping,

Doors closing,

Cars driving by.

As thoughts arise,

You just acknowledge them and let them move on.

Don't hold on to them.

Don't fall into the story of them.

Return your attention back to the sounds in your space.

Maybe you hear people talking as I do.

Maybe you hear music.

Having a focus of your meditation can make it easier to settle into silence.

Meditation isn't an attempt to forget what's happening around us or to push thoughts away or even annoyances.

Maybe there's an annoying noise in your space.

But it's really an opportunity to work with what's happening right now to be deeply embedded in the present and to show up for yourself and for whatever is happening.

Finding ways to work with it in a way that is skillful and useful to you.

When you're ready,

Take a nice deep breath in and exhale through your mouth with a nice long sigh,

Letting go of any tension that you might feel,

Just relaxing any space in your body,

Sending some gentle relaxation to any space that feels tight.

Could be your eyebrows,

Your forehead,

Maybe you're clasping your hands or maybe your spine is really stiff right now.

Really settle into your seat.

When you're ready,

We're going to start with ourselves.

Loving kindness begins with ourselves.

It's very difficult,

If not impossible,

To love other people,

To have what Thich Nhat Hanh calls interbeing,

That sense of intercompassion,

Interworking with others,

If we don't open our hearts to ourselves.

And in opening our hearts to ourselves,

We open ourselves up to flow,

To our characters,

To our stories,

To more possibility for the dignity of our work as writers.

The more we love ourselves,

The better we can advocate for ourselves as artists.

So this is a really important step.

It might feel uncomfortable and if it does,

That's okay.

That's just what's happening in the moment and we'll work with it.

So take a moment to put your hand on your heart if that feels right for you.

If it doesn't,

You can leave your hands in your lap,

On your thighs perhaps resting,

Calm down,

Or if you want to bring in a deeper sense of receptivity,

You could actually have your palms up.

And bring the picture of yourself to mind.

It could be how you looked in the mirror this morning.

It could be of yourself as a child.

Oftentimes when we try to give love to ourselves,

It's easier when we're imagining ourselves as children.

And that sort of hurting child within.

So whatever picture of yourself you'd like to call out,

Bring that to mind.

And we're going to be bringing in three phrases that we'll use for all of the practice today.

And I chose these phrases to be focused on ourselves as artists and writers.

So these are not the traditional meta or loving kindness phrases.

But you can also,

When you do this practice,

Work on whatever phrases you wish.

It's very much playing jazz and that's okay with this meditation.

So the three phrases you'll be repeating silently to yourself are,

May I be happy?

May I be inspired?

May I flow?

So you'll just keep repeating those phrases for a few moments.

I'll guide you,

But also allow for some silence.

Don't worry if you're not on track with me.

Just be present for yourself.

So repeating in your mind,

May I be happy?

May I be inspired?

May I flow?

May I be happy?

May I be inspired?

May I flow?

Just keep repeating those phrases in your mind,

Focusing on the visualization of yourself,

Allowing the visualization and the words to be your object of meditation.

If thoughts arise,

Acknowledge them and come back to the mantra.

May I be happy?

May I be inspired?

May I flow?

May I be inspired?

May I be inspired?

May I be inspired?

May I be inspired?

We'll do it one more time.

May I be happy?

May I be inspired?

May I flow?

And now you'll let that visualization go and we'll move on to our next person for Metta,

And that is a teacher or benefactor.

So for this,

You want to think of someone.

It could be a writing teacher,

A mentor,

An editor,

An agent,

A coach,

A therapist,

Or even a fellow writer who has taught you a lot about writing and the creative life.

So this is someone that you feel gratitude towards for being a teacher or benefactor specifically in your writing life,

Someone who's really championed you.

So bring a picture of them to mind.

It can be helpful to imagine them in their favorite place or a place that you often see them.

And once you have that visualization in your mind,

You'll be using the same phrases.

May you be happy?

May you be inspired?

May you flow?

And again,

If you want to put your hand on your heart,

Really allow yourself to just send this energy toward this person,

Not in a woo-woo kind of way,

But really just that idea of when we experience gratitude,

It does something on a cellular level to us.

Even if they never knew it,

We are going to be the beneficiaries of that gratitude,

And it is going to alter how we move forward and through the world.

So really just allowing yourself to appreciate this person who's been there for you.

May you be happy?

May you be inspired?

May you flow?

Just repeat that a couple of times.

May you be happy?

May you be inspired?

May you flow?

May you be inspired?

May you be happy?

May you be inspired?

May you flow?

Using that visualization to help you send those words,

Those well wishes to this person who is in your mind,

Who is in your life,

In your heart,

Really basking in that gratitude for them.

When you're ready,

You can let that visualization go.

And now we're going to bring in our third person.

This is called in the traditional form the beloved.

So let this be a writing friend or another author who you just love to pieces.

You just love them.

My friend says they choose someone who makes their heart smile.

This could be somebody like a teacher benefactor who has really championed you and supported you,

But it's in a different way,

A truly like an intimate beloved friend.

It could be a life partner,

Ideally someone you know,

But perhaps you choose your favorite author living or gone who has inspired you so much and you just love them because they bring you to the page through their own work.

That's also okay.

You might not know them personally,

But you have deep,

Real intimate feelings for that author and that's okay too.

Whoever you choose again,

Picture them in your mind in their favorite place or their author photo or maybe just the last time you saw them,

Bring them to mind.

And again,

You can put your hand on your heart.

You can also play with a soft smile,

Which is a little chemical happiness boost anyway.

Really feel that love you have for them.

Really let yourself appreciate them.

Same phrases.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

Really bringing them to mind.

May you be happy.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

When you're finished with that person,

You can let that image dissolve.

Maybe take a nice clearing breath if you need it.

And we're going to move on to our fourth person.

This person's actually my favorite.

It's the neutral person.

It's somebody that you don't know and you don't have any feelings about one way or another.

If you do know them,

It's very tangentially.

The barista at your coffee house or a neighbor.

But in this case,

Because we're focusing on writers,

You're going to choose a writer you have no feelings about and you don't personally know.

So a fun thing to do would be to walk into a bookstore,

Choose a book at random,

And that's the author you choose.

Or maybe there's somebody on Twitter that you don't have any feelings about but you keep seeing their comments on threads that you participate in.

Or maybe there's another author who is at your same publisher.

Again,

You don't know them but you don't have any feelings one way or the other.

So don't choose somebody that you feel jealous of or whose work you've read and don't like.

You really want it to be as neutral as possible.

And the idea of this,

Again,

Goes back to that sense of inner being and universal connectivity and to the act of directing good energy towards someone you don't know and knowing that you probably won't receive that back from them is altruistic but it also strengthens our compassion muscles,

Our ability to be empathetic,

And to see our fellow writers as people,

Right?

Just other people and to wish them well because they're part of our larger tribe of writers.

I just love the idea of writers sending loving kindness to one another on the sly and we're all these unexpected beneficiaries of these really good vibe energies from fellow writers.

So again,

It might sound a little woo but really it's just about opening up your heart more so that when you walk into a bookstore or a conference or a class,

You feel a sense of kinship with these people you don't even know because you share this love of the word,

Of writing.

So when you think of that person and you might not have a picture in your mind,

It might be just their name on a book cover or whatever picture is on their Twitter profile,

Whatever you want,

But bring that person to mind and don't stress about this.

There's no wrong way to do it.

So just whoever comes to mind.

It could even be someone you have met but you just don't have feelings toward.

Bring them to mind and it's the same phrases.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

Really try to send this goodwill toward them.

Whoever they are today,

You could imagine them writing at their computer or sitting at a signing table.

Really just send this to them because they probably need it if they're a writer.

May you be inspired.

May you be happy.

May you flow.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

Okay,

We'll move on to our last person.

This is the difficult person.

So it's important that you don't choose somebody who has truly traumatized you.

Don't choose someone that is so triggering that you'll be thrown into a bad emotional place.

That's not what we're doing here.

We're working with our emotions,

Yes,

But we're also working on expanding our hearts.

We're not trying to hurt ourselves.

So this difficult person,

You have a lot of options.

It could be your inner critic.

It could be an actual critic.

I've definitely done loving kindness for a Kirkus reviewer.

It could be someone who's difficult for you in your creative life.

It could be an unsupportive partner or teacher who hates your work.

It could be somebody who gave you some really hard crit in a beta reading situation or writer's group.

You're basically just choosing somebody that's difficult in some way.

And it could range from just someone who annoys you as a writer or teacher or person in the industry,

An agent or something,

To somebody that you have real issues with who maybe did harm you in some way professionally or creatively.

A teacher who really stymied your work because their criticism was so harsh.

But again,

Not overly triggering.

You have to really feel this out.

So for this one,

If you haven't already,

I do encourage putting your hand on your heart.

And that is for you,

Just to ground yourself.

And as if or as difficult emotions arise,

Just let them be there.

So you're not trying to push the emotion away.

You're opening up to it while at the same time extending goodwill toward that person.

And that goodwill today might just be intentional.

You might still feel angry,

And that's okay.

But you have the intention of putting out goodwill towards them,

Which is huge.

Also be aware of the stories that come up,

The stories surrounding this person or what they have told you about yourself that has become a story.

You're not a good writer.

You're invisible.

You're not worth investing in or whatever.

So as those stories come up,

You want to treat them in the same way that you treated thoughts that arose in the other sections of the meditation.

So acknowledge them,

But let them go.

Don't hold on to them.

Don't go down that rabbit hole.

So when you're ready,

Bring up that person to mind.

If it's an inner critic,

You might have some way of visualizing that.

But if it's an actual person,

Then visualize them and ideally try to visualize them in some way that is as positive as you can make it.

So maybe you've seen them happy and you visualize that,

Or you just imagine them in sunlight or sitting by the sea,

Not drowning in it.

Whatever is useful to you as a visualization,

There is no wrong way to do this.

If your hand is on your heart,

Great,

If that doesn't feel right for you,

No problem.

And we're going to repeat the same phrases.

So take a nice deep breath in and let it out.

And here we go.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

You do not have to actually feel love for this person.

Don't force an emotion.

If you're really annoyed right now,

That's totally fine.

Just allow whatever's happening to be,

To accept it.

This meditation is going to do the work in you.

Just trust the process here.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

Meditation is everything.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

The stories start coming up,

Memories that are unwelcome,

Just allow them to be there,

But don't hold on to them.

Let them go.

Give yourself permission to let it go right now.

Do it one more time,

Really bringing that vision of them to mind,

Hand on your heart if that feels good.

May you be happy.

May you be inspired.

May you flow.

Okay,

So now take a nice deep breath in and let out that tension that you might be feeling or frustration or whatever you're feeling.

Let it out in an audible sigh.

Okay,

We're almost done.

Keeping your eyes closed.

Now gather everybody you've done loving kindness for today,

Including yourself.

Imagine them perhaps standing in a circle,

Standing in a signing line,

Standing in a bookstore.

Okay,

So yourself,

Your teacher,

Your beloved,

Your neutral person,

And your difficult person.

You're all standing together.

And imagine all of you together and then repeat after me in your mind.

May we be happy.

May we be inspired.

May we flow.

And now allow that circle to expand to include all writers,

The writers you know,

The writers you don't know.

Could be just helpful to imagine yourself in a huge bookstore filled with books,

Filled with writers.

You'll see people that you went to school with or that are in your writer's group or that you know in various capacities,

But also writers you admire,

Writers you don't really admire.

So imagine all of these writers together,

All on this beautiful,

Challenging journey of being an artist,

All of us trying to put stories and words into the world,

All of us in love with this art form that we believe is so vital to human existence.

And now we're going to extend that so we're going to give loving kindness,

Including ourselves,

To everyone there,

Real imagined,

Not just in that bookstore but beyond.

People writing on little desks in Calcutta,

People writing on desks in Copenhagen,

On desks in Tokyo,

In Buenos Aires,

Everywhere.

You're imagining writers everywhere.

And then repeat after me.

May all writers everywhere be happy,

Inspired,

And flow.

And then let all those visualizations go.

Take a nice deep breath,

Keep your eyes closed.

I'm going to ring the bell to close this out and just really allow that sound to settle over you and just really allow yourself to have a couple moments after we're through to really feel the effects of this meditation.

Reviews

This is beautiful meditation, thank you so much. And it’s timing, simply perfect, having just been to a new writer’s group earlier today. The synchronicity is heart affirming 🙏💚

Lovely and insightful, thank you so much!!