Let's make ourselves comfortable and we'll take a few deeper breaths and we'll bring our attention into our body.
Bring our attention inside and we can start to notice where we've put our body.
Make sure it's comfortable so it's not going to bother us.
Our feet planted on the floor,
Our arms resting comfortably.
Next time we inhale,
Let's take a slightly deeper inhale and lengthen our spine a little bit.
And when we're ready to exhale we can soften into our chair a little bit.
Taking a few more deeper breaths.
Relaxing the muscles of our face.
Our jaw.
Relaxing our shoulders.
Body becoming quiet,
Still and resting.
Can we let the mind rest on the breath for a few moments?
And if the mind wanders we know that's completely fine,
That's what it does.
We just return and build our muscles of attention to what's going on in our head.
Let's have a quick check in with how we feel physically,
Mentally,
Emotionally.
We can notice if we like or don't like how we are right now.
And then bringing our attention back to our quiet breathing self.
For a few moments with nothing else to do.
I'm going to invite you to place your hands on your heart and offer yourself loving kindness.
So as I speak words I would use to offer myself loving kindness please just notice your reaction to the words.
It can be difficult to offer ourselves love without conditions.
Parents of ourselves we aren't so keen on can start to voice their objections and I invite you to notice it all and as best you can just accept that that is there without trying to reject and push away that bit of you.
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be healthy and happy.
May I live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May I love and be loved.
And just breathing that in.
Knowing how it feels to offer ourselves this love.
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be healthy and happy.
May I live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May I love and be loved.
Breathing that in,
Allowing it to fill our body.
Knowing how that feels.
And now sharing this loving kindness with our nearest and dearest.
So there may be one particular person for whom loving kindness comes very easily and I'd like you to bring that person to mind now.
It may be someone who's in your life now or someone from your past.
Whoever they are it's someone for whom loving kindness naturally springs into your heart and makes you smile.
And we'll think of this person as we offer them loving kindness.
May this person be filled with loving kindness.
May they be healthy and happy.
May they live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May they love and be loved.
And if you would like to you can imagine this person receiving your good wishes.
And feeling how it feels to offer this person our love.
Spreading our loving kindness a little further now to our nearest and dearest,
Our friends and family.
May our friends and family be filled with loving kindness.
May they be healthy and happy.
May they live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May they be loved.
You can imagine this bubble of love and acceptance expanding out from you to include these loved ones.
We're now going to offer love and kindness to someone we don't know particularly well.
Someone to whom we feel neutral about.
We might meet them on the street.
We might not know them particularly well.
We know behind their exterior they have hopes and dreams just as we do.
May this person be filled with loving kindness.
May they be healthy and happy.
May they live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May they love and be loved.
And noticing how that feels for us.
Now we're going to offer loving kindness to someone in our lives who challenges us.
And this can be difficult but these are the people that teach us the most.
These are our teachers.
They drive our evolution and our growth.
Just notice how it feels as we challenge ourselves to offer these people kindness.
And we'll try and accept whatever happens when we do that.
So choosing someone that challenges you and it could well be one of the people in your friends and family.
May this person be filled with loving kindness.
May this person be healthy and happy.
May this person live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May they love and be loved.
Accepting,
Noticing,
Accepting.
Setting out that bubble of our love now so wide it includes everybody.
All the humans.
Imagine that bubble of our love covering the whole world.
May all the people of the world be filled with loving kindness.
May we all be healthy and happy.
May we all live in abundance,
Trust and gratitude.
May we all love and be loved.
And resting for a moment in that sense of loving kindness that you have created.
Enjoy it.
Breathe it in.
And slowly when you're ready we're going to start to take a few deeper breaths and prepare to come back into the outside world.
There's no hurry.
Allowing our body to start to move again.
We'll see if we can keep a little bit of that loving kindness in our heart to offer to the next person we meet.
Thank you for practicing with me.
