LOVING-KINDNESS FOR OURSELVES
- Please find a comfortable position, sitting or lying down. Let your eyes close, fully or partially. Take a few deep breaths to settle into your body and into the present moment.
- Put your hand over your heart, or wherever it is comforting and soothing, as a reminder that you are bringing not only awareness, but loving awareness, to your experience and to yourself.
- After awhile, feel your breath where you notice it most easily. Feel your body breathe in and out, and when your attention wanders, notice the gentle movement of your breath once again.
- Then, gently release the breath and offer yourself words of kindness and compassion, over and over …words that you need to hear. Words you can savour.
- If you already have phrases that are meaningful to you, please use these.
- If you are new to meditating with phrases, please open your heart and mind to what you need to hear – words of wisdom and compassion that speak to you in the deepest way – and whisper them gently into your own ear, again and again
- Allow the words in. Allow them to fill your being. Allow them to be true, at least for this one moment.
- Whenever you notice that your mind has wandered, refresh your aim by feeling the sensations in your body. Come home to your own body. Feel the importance of your words. Come home to kindness.
- Finally, release the phrases and rest quietly in your own body.
- Gently open your eyes.