May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you be safe
May your mind be at ease
This is a meditation called metta, a Pali word translated as loving-kindness. It is often incorporated with mindfulness meditation, a practice that is increasingly well-known and used, among other things, as a stress management tool. (More on that another time.)
Today I offer loving-kindness meditation for your self-care & well-being toolkit to use in this time of Covid19—and whatever else may be going on for you, those you care about, and those in your community.
You can do this valuable, fairly simple meditation anywhere, for a few minutes, or for longer. It is meant to help people struggling with difficult emotions, help us overcome feelings of self-doubt or negativity, change habitual negative thought patterns, and bring positive changes in attitude as we develop loving acceptance. Give it a try, whether you mediate, do mindfulness practice or not!
You can tweak the precise wording of the above phrases for a later meditation. For now, say these a few times in your head now to help you remember them. Change the pronouns to I/my and repeat, as you will do this in your meditation process as well. Better yet, write these phrases down on a piece of paper. If you forget while meditating, just look at the list. No points lost for opening your eyes, promise.
Next, select 4 people to direct the metta phrases toward, according to the instructions below. List these names as well, putting yourself first. Having the names chosen and listed in advance will help you stay focused.
These are the suggested categories in a typical loving-kindness meditation:
1. Yourself
Cultivating loving acceptance toward yourself is the jumping off point. You may experience resistance initially, such as feeling unworthy, undeserving. If so, simply return your attention to the repetition in progress. This is not a practice where you denigrate yourself in order to uphold the happiness of others. All people want to be happy. This includes you, me, and everyone else. Directing metta toward yourself is the basis for cultivating your ability to genuinely love others.
2. Someone you respect a lot. Alive, please.
3. A friend or dearly loved person. If you wish to have a few here, I think that’s just fine. However, for your first time, see if you can just pick one, so as to ensure an experience where each ‘receives metta’ in equal amounts.
4. A neutral person--someone you don’t dislike or like, who you see around, but have no strong feelings about one way or the other.
5. Someone you are having difficulty with. (Just one person…)
Again, some can struggle with #1 above initially. When you focus on yourself, you may feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, even selfish. You may be more skilled at thinking about yourself in terms of past mistakes, regrets, bad things we did to others or that happened to us. Habituated negativity, wherever it is directed, is not healthy for mind, body or spirit.
Ever heard this one?
Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and hoping
the other person will die.
Metta can be a tool to help you manage such negative feelings. (Note: We all get them. You Are Not Alone.) Loving-kindness meditation isn’t designed to increase selfishness or conceit; rather, it is a commitment to your own happiness and self-respect. It can have far-reaching effects, from turning off that pesky mind-body stress response to improving your physical health and the way you engage with others.
Often people find #2 and #3 above easiest. Your struggle may even be with whittling down to just one! Remember that YOU are the person benefitting directly from this meditation, so it’s not as if someone you don’t pick will miss out. For now, don’t worry the matter to death. Just pick one.
And #4 can seem challenging at first, especially now, when maybe you aren’t seeing many people, especially ones you don’t know. What about the person who checks you out most at the grocery, or who delivers your mail? Or the guy that walks by your house every day, getting his exercise? Relax. Pick one.
For #5, choose someone you’ve had conflict with, evokes in you fear, anger, or a resistance to forgive. Maybe don’t start with a person you are having the biggest interpersonal conflict with this first time. (If you are a trauma survivor, for right now pick someone less triggering than your current/past abuser.) Again, just pick one!
OK. You have your metta phrases. And you have your name list.
Next, to set your first meditation, decide how many repetitions of the 4 phrases to do for each person. For instance, "I will repeat the 4 phrases 2 times for myself, and 2 times for each person on the list." If you have enough time, you can also go back to the top (yourself), and repeat the process once through, or more!
Eyes blink, birds sing, minds wander. That is the nature of minds, especially stressed or negative ones. Getting all these decisions out of the way before starting means less need / temptation to let your thinking mind (aka monkey mind) take over, fumbling around to remember people, evaluate them, choose who will be in slots 2-5, and then inevitably drift off into the jungle of who knows what sort of thinking, thereby interrupting your meditation.
As with mindfulness meditation, just notice when your mind wanders, without judging, and bring your attention back to this mantra-like repetition. If you forget where you left off, start over from the last person you remember you had in mind, or go back to the beginning, yourself, and start all over. Do this every time your mind wanders.
No points off for starting over.
There will not be a test.
Ready to meditate?
Get into a comfortable position with your lists handy, in case you need reminders.
Take a few deep in-breaths, letting each out slowly, letting your body relax a bit more each time. Allow your breathing to
s l o w d o w n
to a peaceful pace. Close your eyes if that is comfortable; otherwise, lower your gaze and let your eyes soften their focus.
Say to yourself, silently, one phrase per breath:
May I be happy
(breathe)
May I be healthy
(breath)
May I be safe
(breathe)
May my mind be at ease
(breathe)
Move on to the next person on your list. If you find it helpful, you can hold an image of that person in your mind, but this is not necessary. Change the pronouns of the 4 phrases above (from I to You, My to Your) and repeat the process, one phrase per breath.
After doing this for the last person on your list, repeat the process, if time.
And that is it!
By the way, the above 4 phrases are not set in stone. Google’ “metta phrases” for variations. Some substitute for the last one, “May you have peace,” or “May you live in peace” for instance. Choose/tweak for what rings best for you. Just keep it consistent through any given meditation to help you stay focused/return to focus.
May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May your mind be at ease….
A special gratitude to Dr. Gillian Galen of McLean Hospital, who presented a wonderful 3-part series, Meditation and Mindfulness for interested staff about 5 years ago, when I still worked there. I’ve drawn extensively from her presentations in this post.
