Loving Kindness Meditation | Developing Mindfulness and Compassion

Hey there, everyone, and welcome to this very short standalone video on the loving kindness meditation. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. I've had a lot of people ask me to do a standalone video on the loving kindness meditation because they find it very helpful for getting grounded in the morning, for coping with anxiety and frustration at other people, and even to help them get into the Ruth right mindset before going into a meeting or into a potentially challenging discussion. So let's talk about how to do this. First, the setup. Get into a place where you feel safe and you can truly relax. So that could be your office, it could be your bedroom, wherever it is. You know, if there are other people around, you may need to put a note on your door that says do not disturb, because you certainly don't want to get into a relaxed state and have somebody come and knock on the door. If you have dogs, you know, put them up somewhere where they're not going to be barking at the mailman or something. So getting into a place where you can feel safe and truly relaxed for five minutes, that's all you need. Once you are in that place, sit or lay comfortably. Not everybody is down with laying down. So however you can get into a comfortable position so you can physically relax, then remember that we all want to feel safe, healthy, and loved. And when people act out, a lot of times that is coming from a place of fear. When we act out, it tells us that the person for some reason may be feeling threatened and they are getting either angry or anxious, and those are threat responses. So it's important for us to think about that. When people act in unkind ways, you know, we have to examine where is that coming from. Because again, we all want to feel safe, healthy, and loved. And if they are acting that way, it tells me that probably they don't feel safe, healthy, or loved, and. Or somebody taught them that that was an appropriate behavior to be unkind. So, you know, just kind of bearing all those things in mind for why you might want to practice a loving kindness meditation, because this will really help you, in my mind, get grounded so you can be more empathetic. Now it is hard. Don't get me wrong. This is not something that's super easy. It can be very hard to send positive vibes, positive energy to people that you are angry with, to people that you inherently dislike for some reason, to people who are being unkind to you. It can be very difficult to send them energies of peace. So we don't start there. We actually, I recommend not even Starting with yourself, because a lot of us don't like or love ourselves as much as we possibly could. And some people don't like themselves or love themselves at all. So stage one, I encourage you to practice this. Just envisioning something easy to love. And that could be your child, that could be your dog, that could be a bumblebee, your higher power, whatever it is that you find easy to love, that you don't have any problem just sending positive energy to, and you see them and they light up your world. Okay, so that's the first one, and that's the quote, easy one. The second stage, once you get to the point where you can do this and you can see yourself sending positive energies to that thing that's easy to love, then envision yourself. You can look in the mirror, you can just see yourself in your mind's eye, but envision yourself and you're going to send those positive energies to yourself. Once that's easy, then you can move on and do it where you are. Sending positive energies to your friends, because that's generally not too hard to do either. Even though they occasionally make mistakes and they may make you angry occasionally, it's not overly difficult most of the time to want the best for them. Stage four, once it's easy to send positive energies to something easy to love yourself and your friends, then you start thinking about challenging people. That person at work or that neighbor down the street or whomever it is that makes you just kind of clench your fists or clench your teeth in frustration. Taking a breath and remembering that we all want to feel safe, healthy and loved. And if they are acting in ways that don't attract that, that tells me that somewhere inside that they must feel very scared or very hurt. So again, trying to go at it from a place of empathy instead of something else, and sending them these positive vibes. Maybe if we send them to them, if we dose them with positive vibes, you know, the old phrase used to be kill them with kindness. But getting in the mindset where you're going to try to interact with them lovingly can really help in your interactions. And then stage five, not everybody moves up to this stage or tries this stage. But sending those positive energies to the universe and imagining all the people and things in the universe, getting the positive energy. Okay, so how do we do it? It's really pretty simple. What you're going to do is you're going to inhale and, you know, inhale, big breath. And as you exhale, say, and I find it helpful to say it out loud. But you don't have to say, may your life be filled with peace, health and love. And as you exhale and you say that, envision the those words filling a glowing bubble of healing energy. And every time you say it, that bubble gets a little bit bigger. Eventually, it envelops whatever you're sending that loving energy to. So I did my best to make a little diagram of what I'm talking about. So let's just practice this. Get into that comfortable position. Inhale. Think about what you're going to send this positive energy to and say to that thing to the universe. May your life be filled with peace, health and love. See that bubble enlarging. Inhale again. May your life be filled with peace, health and love. And that bubble is getting even bigger again. May your life be filled with peace, health and love. The bubble is huge now, and it's approaching that thing that you're sending these positive vibes to. May your life be filled with peace, health and love. Now, see that energy? See that bubble enveloping whatever it is that you are sending the energy to and filling it with feelings of peace.