13.1 – Cultivating Care for Others

So, hello, and welcome to day 13.  You're just one day away from completing the course.

Today, we're going to be learning how to practice the loving kindness meditation.

Loving kindness is not technically a mindfulness meditation, but it's often used in conjunction with mindfulness, and really helps support our mindfulness practice.

So, the way to practice loving kindness is, we'll be using a set of phrases of wishing well for other people.


And we're just going to repeat the phrases in our mind like a mantra, and what we do is bring to mind certain people as we say these phrases, and just set the intention for wishing well for these people.


The point here is just to be setting the intention, and what we're doing is laying the groundwork to begin cultivating this well-wishing in our mind.


We're actually strengthening these neural pathways of wishing well for other people.


So, the way we practice loving kindness is, again, we're just going to imagine someone in our life that we care about.


And then, while we're picturing this person, we're going to repeat a phrase in our mind; a phrase of well-wishing, or of health and happiness.


And the first phrase is, “May you be happy and peaceful,” and we'll just wish this to one of our friends or benefactor, and we can imagine them being happy and peaceful.


The next phrase is, “May you be healthy and strong.”
The third phrase is, “May you feel safe and protected.”
And then, the last phrase is, “May you live with ease and well-being.”


So, an important thing to understand about loving kindness meditation, when we send these phrases to different people, it's not about actually making these things come true for these other people.


When we send these phrases, it's much more about how we're changing and transforming our own heart and mind.


We're making our mind a more loving place, rather than being selfish and really self-centered and self-absorbed.


We're beginning to cultivate a care and interaction with those around us. So, it's really about transforming our own heart and mind, though, there can be some benefits to this in your relationships.


When you transform your own heart, you actually might end up having a better relationship with those around you because of what you're bringing to the relationship.


So, this is the practice of loving kindness, and in the guided meditation, I'll be walking you through it step by step.


So, when you're ready to get started with this practice, go ahead and click on the next video, and I'll see you there.

Resources

Meeting MindfulnessWith Kindness (Mindfulness Worksheet)

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