Practice Loving-Kindness Meditation to Be Calmer

Loving-kindness meditation is a self-care technique that you can use to reduce stress and to feel better about yourself and others.

How loving-kindness meditation works

Sometimes also referred to as “metta meditation”, loving-kindness meditation practice is very simple to do. In this type of meditation what you will be doing is sending kindness to others by repeating a series of sentences that express your intentions.

You can repeat those sentences out loud or mentally (mentally is the more common way to do it).

Those sentences are usually composed of two main elements:

• the name of the person (the personal name or the relationship you have with that person);
• and the expressions that represent what you are wishing to that person (your wishes and gratitude).

One example (more examples below):

[person name: Mary, or Mom]: May you be [your wishes: happy, healthy, etc. ]

Mom: may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be without suffering.

Practice Loving-kindness meditation

Find a quiet space you can use for a few minutes without being interrupted.

Get into a comfortable position.

Close your eyes, and take a few (3–5) deep and slow breaths.

Visualize someone you love.

Allow yourself to accept all the feelings you have for that person.

Send love and kindness to that person by mentally repeating sentences that express your intentions.

Below are some common examples you can use, choose the ones you relate more to, or create your owns sentences. You can adapt the examples to your situation and to the person you are thinking about.

Parents

• Mom: may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free of suffering.
• Mom: may you be happy, may you be healthy, and may we always love each other.
• Dad: I miss you, may you be happy and well.
• Dad: may you be free from all pain, may you rest in peace.

Friends

• David: may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free of suffering.
• Ana: may you be happy and well.

The positive effects

This type of meditation can be very powerful. Some of the positive effects it can help you achieve are:

• strengthen your feelings of compassion and kindness;
• increase your degree of acceptance toward others;
• reduce your self-criticism;
• increase the degree of acceptance toward yourself;
• increase your positive emotions.

Picturing our loved ones and sending love and compassion to them is not something easy for many of us. Because of that, this practice can arouse very strong emotions in us and be disturbing to some people.

It’s a technique that requires time, but that can be very healing.

In addition, with time and practice, you can widen your circle of care and gradually start to expand our compassion to include more people.

If you would like to learn more about loving-kindness meditation, you can look into the work of Sharon Salzberg, she is a world-renowned teacher in this area.

“With mindfulness, loving kindness, and self-compassion, we can begin to let go of our expectations about how life and those we love should be.” - Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

Overall, sending love and gratitude to others is more than just wishing peace for everyone, is also an important self-care practice that you can benefit much from.

“If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.” - Dalai Lama XIV, The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Buddhism.