A Guided Loving-Kindness Meditation

Studies have shown practicing this meditation over seven weeks can increase feelings of love, joy, contentment, and compassion. These positive emotions and feelings can then move out into other aspects of your life. It can help increase mindfulness, improve your social connections and relationships, help manage symptoms of illness. It helps you be more patient and open to others, even those who you find difficult to deal with. A loving kindness meditation also helps reduce stress.

It helps you be more resilient in the face of stress. To practice, all you need is a comfortable and safe place to sit or lay down and ideally in a place where you will not be interrupted for the next several minutes. And please don't practice this meditation if you're driving a vehicle or in a situation where you need to be aware of what's going around you. So let's begin. I invite you to find a comfortable sitting position or laying down position. Any position will do.

So find that position now, get comfortable, close your eyes if that's comfortable for you. If not, just have a soft gaze. Begin to breathe in and out through your nose, if that's possible, if not, purse your lips and breathe in and out as if you were sipping your air through a straw. So let's turn your attention to your breath. And intentionally slow your breath, inhale slowly, and exhale slowly and softly and smoothly.

And continue to breathe in this manner, slow and soft on the inhale, long, slow, soft on the exhale. And as you breathe in this manner, consciously relax your muscles, soften the body. Whether that's softening your eyes, your jaw, dropping your shoulders, relaxing your belly, your hips, your legs, even your feet and your hands. Just prepare yourself to open yourself up to a deep awareness of love and compassion.

If at any time during this meditation you find your mind wandering or your mind getting awfully busy, just notice that and bring yourself back to your breath or back to the words that I'm using to guide you through this meditation. I'd like you to choose a person or even a pet or an animal that you love or who you love. Choose someone who you love easily and naturally rather than someone that's just complicated to love.

And just to visualize that person, maybe sense what being in a relationship is with that person. We're not analyzing the relationship, we're just feeling it for right now. And as you imagine this person that you've chosen, I want you or invite you to focus on the area around your heart. If you'd like, place your hand over your heart and just focus on your heart and imagine breathing in and out through your heart.

I know that might sound odd, but just imagine that your breath moves through your heart. And as you imagine this, and as you breathe, maybe you can feel your heart beating. Or maybe you can feel the warmth between your hand and your heart. And now turn your attention to feelings of gratitude and love, warm and tender feelings for the person that you chose for this meditation. Again, it could be a person, it could be a pet.

Just feel the feeling of gratitude and love, warm and tender feelings for this person and what loving this person feels like for you. And now we're going to send these feelings of loving kindness and compassion. We're going to send them or turn them inward to you. Imagine that warm glow of love and compassion coming from your heart and turning inward to you and your body. And that warm glow is moving throughout your body.

Can you send those feelings up and down your body from your toes to the tip of your head and everywhere in between? And now, if you would like, you can repeat these following words to yourself. May I be happy? May I be well? May I be safe? And may I be peaceful and at ease? Silence. And now let's send this loving kindness and compassion to those who are closest to you, to your family, to your friends.

Imagine those friends right now as vividly as you can and send these feelings of warmth and kindness of love and compassion from you right into their hearts. Imagine that warm glow of love and compassion that comes from your heart and imagine it moving into their hearts. And now, if you would like to repeat these words with these close friends and family in mind, say to yourself, may you be happy, may you be well, may you be safe, and may you be peaceful and at ease.

And now, let's expand the circle. By sending your loving kindness and compassion to your neighbors, to your acquaintances, even strangers and animals, to those people around you in a larger circle than your close family and friends. And using the same words as we just used, repeating to yourself, may you be happy. May you be well, may you be safe and may you be peaceful and at ease. And let's now imagine the whole world, the whole planet earth with everybody on it.

And let's send loving kindness and compassion to everybody around the world, even to the earth and imagining that love coming from your heart, coming from your heart, right to the heart of everybody in the world and right to the heart of the earth. And let's say these words. May the world be happy, may the world be well, may the world be safe and may the world be peaceful and at ease.

Now if you've had your hand on your heart, return it to your lap or maybe to the floor beside you if you're laying down. And let's just spend a few moments savoring this feeling of loving kindness and compassion in your own body and being, and in the world around you, whether that be close or far away. Let's just savor it for a moment.

And now, let's Bring our attention back to ourselves in this room, in your room, hearing the sounds, seeing in your mind's eye, the furniture, the windows, feeling your body in contact with the floor, the chair, or wherever you might be laying down, if you're laying down. And let's just take a few more breaths, nice, slow, easy breaths, a nice, slow inhale and a nice, long, gentle exhale. Inhaling slowly and softly, and exhaling slowly, softly, and long.

And now begin to bring gentle movement to your body, maybe wiggling around in your chair or on the floor, moving your fingers and your toes, even tapping your thighs, tapping your chest around your heart, just gently. And when you're ready, go ahead and open your eyes gently and slowly and tiptoe back into your day and may loving kindness and compassion be with you for the remainder of your day.