Loving Kindness Meditation for Your Self

Find a posture that allows you to be comfortable and at ease. Settling into your seat. Taking a few full breaths in and out.

Scanning thru your body, letting go of whatever tension you can.

Relaxing thru your shoulders, softening your hands, softening your belly. And even relaxing your feet.

It can be helpful to create an experience of loving kindness in the body by imagining an inner smile and the felt sense of a smile spreading throughout your whole being. Warm, bright and open.

You can imagine a smile behind your eyes …turning the corners of the eyes softly upward. Sensing a smile in the chest – the region of the heart. A smile inside the abdomen, inside the pelvis.

Feeling the warmth, the ease, the openness of that smile radiating inside the whole body now. Including your mind so that your thoughts, and your entire mental life floats in this more receptive space.

A space that can hold this life as it is.
Now bring to mind someone who you find easy to feel love with. It can be a friend, a family member, a teacher, or even a pet.

Someone who you trust fully loves and cares for you or someone who arouses your deep love and care for them – maybe a child or someone who you sense is vulnerable.

Whoever you brought to mind – sense that being’s goodness. What makes him or her dear to you. What brings up your sense of care.
Now hold this being in your attention and begin to offer the following phrases of loving kindness to them…

May you be filled with loving kindness. Held in loving kindness. May you realize loving kindness is your essence.

May you be happy.
May you accept yourself just as you are.
May you feel safe and free from harm.
May you feel peaceful.

As you offer these phrases, you might imagine the person receiving them.

You can repeat the phrases again…
May you be filled with loving kindness. Held in loving kindness. May you realize loving kindness is your essence.

May you be happy.
May you accept yourself just as you are.
May you feel safe and free from harm.
May you feel peaceful.

Now bringing your attention to your own being. Allowing yourself to remember and open up to your own goodness.

You might do this by bringing to mind times when you have been kind & generous – you might recall your natural desire to be happy and not to suffer. Connecting to your longing to spiritually awaken…to know Truth.

You might recognize how your honor your essential presence, your honestly, your ability to love and be love.

If acknowledging your own goodness is difficult for you, then might try looking at yourself thru the eyes of someone who knows and loves you.
Now with a silent internal whisper..begin offering yourself those same phrases of care you said earlier.

It may be helpful to place a hand on your own heart as a way of deepening your communication to your own being.

As you repeat the each phrase, sense the meaning of the words. Allowing them to become sincere prayers for your own well-being.

Feel free to change the phrases if you would like to.

May I be filled with loving kindness. May I be held in loving kindness. May I realize loving kindness is my essence.

May I be happy.
May I accept myself just as I am.
May I feel safe and free from harm.
May I feel peaceful.
Repeat the phrases again.

If you find any resistance arising in your being – maybe just stay with the phrase – May I be filled with Loving Kindness. Over and over.
Now allow your awareness to open out in all directions. In front of you, behind you, above and below you, out to the sides of you —as far as you can feel it — out infinitely.

And in this vast infinite space, feel your loving presence is holding all beings…those that you know well and those that are unknown to you – all species.

Imagine you can hold all life everywhere – the Earth, & all its beings in your infinite heart.
Aware of the Joys & Sorrows that all beings experience & again offering your caring phrases for their well-being.

May all beings be filled with loving kindness. May all beings be held in loving kindness. May all beings realize loving kindness as their essence.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings accept themselves as they are.
May all beings be safe and free from harm.
May all beings be at peaceful.
May all beings be free.

Now draw your awareness back to yourself, breathing deeply. Feeling your body sitting here –
And when you are ready – you can open your eyes.