Choose & Grow Unconditional Love

This is a 13 minute, Loving-Kindness meditation. In this practice, we focus on loving ourselves, those that seem "easy" to love, those that feel "neutral", those that seem "hard" for us to love, our community, all beings, and then ourselves once again. The intention is to choose and grow our focus of Unconditional Love.

Shari starts and ends with the sound of the bell and leaves space between each section so that we can practice the meditation together.

Transcript

We'll start by taking a moment to center ourselves by focusing on our breath,

Paying attention to our in-breath and then paying attention to our out-breath.

So in-breath,

Out-breath,

In-breath,

Out-breath.

We'll practice this together for roughly one minute.

Our first section,

We'll begin with ourselves.

So with our in-breaths,

We bring the energy of loving kindness to ourselves with the statement,

I see your suffering.

And with our out-breath,

We bring the same practice to ourselves with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

Breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice together for one minute.

Our second section,

We turn our practice towards someone we love.

This could be a family member,

A friend,

An animal in our lives,

Or anyone that we feel is easy to love.

So with our in-breaths,

We bring the energy of loving kindness to this easy to love person with the statement,

I see your suffering.

And with our out-breath,

We bring the same practice to them with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

So breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice together for one minute.

Breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

Our third section,

We turn our practice towards someone that we feel neutral about.

This could be someone we see walking down the street but don't really know,

Or maybe someone we've only seen online.

Whoever this neutral person is in our minds,

We will bring the energy of loving kindness to them by practicing with the statement,

I see your suffering with our in-breath.

And with our out-breath,

We bring the same practice to them with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

So breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice together for one minute.

Our fourth section,

We turn our practice towards someone that we have a hard time loving.

This doesn't mean someone that we hate.

It's someone that maybe said something and it got under our skin,

Or someone we may not even know personally,

But has said or done something that triggered some anger or sadness in us.

So with our in-breaths,

We bring the energy of loving kindness to this hard to love person with the statement,

I see your suffering.

And with our out-breath,

We bring the same practice to them with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

Breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice together for one minute.

Our fifth section,

We expand our practice outwards towards those in our greater community.

This might mean our neighborhood,

Those in our workplace or school,

Those in our living environment or any community that we might be a part of,

Might be an online community.

With our in-breaths,

We bring loving kindness to this greater community with the statement,

I see your suffering.

And with our out-breath,

We bring the same practice to them with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

So breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice for one minute.

Breathing in,

I see your suffering.

Our sixth section,

We continue to expand our practice outward towards all living beings.

With our in-breaths,

We bring loving kindness to all living beings with the statement,

I see your suffering.

And with our out-breaths,

We bring the same practice to them with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

So breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice together for one minute.

Breathing in,

I see your suffering.

Our seventh section,

We'll bring our practice back in towards ourselves.

So with our in-breaths,

We bring the energy of loving kindness to ourselves with the statement,

I see your suffering.

And with our out-breath,

We bring the same practice to ourselves with the statement,

You are enough just as you are.

So breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll continue this practice together for one minute.

Breathing in,

I see your suffering and breathing out,

You are enough just as you are.

We'll spend the last moments coming back to our breaths,

Paying attention to our in-breath and then paying attention to our out-breath.

Our in-breath and our out-breath.