Loving-Kindness For All Beings
A Daily Meditation for Unconditional Love, Starting with You
Hello! I’m Kate, a therapist sharing weekly Letters from Therapy. If you enjoy my writing, make sure you’re subscribed! If you wish for deeper self awareness, acceptance and meaning in your life, upgrading to paid gives access to enriching discovery tools. Your support also makes these letters possible, thank you!
Hello friends,
It’s been a wonderful first month for me writing my letters from Substack. I’m so grateful you’re here with me. In fact, I just practiced this powerful meditation for you, it’s my favourite, and I know you’ll love it.
What is Loving-Kindness?
I started practicing loving-kindness around 14 years ago, when my ex-husband and I broke up. I was a bit of a wreck, so I went on my first silent meditation retreat (at Gaia House in Devon, England). Learning this practice helped me piece myself back together.
Now, loving-kindness meditation (also known as Metta) helps me settle when I am too angry, to help me forgive, when I’m scared, stuck in difficult memories, or lost in shame. If you ever feel like this, and you like the idea of a more loving world (of course you do!), and if you want to bathe in love for the benefit of all, this one is for you.
‘Metta’ or loving-kindness is the development of unconditional love for all beings, starting with you.
When I practice loving-kindness, it brings me back to myself. It’s also a lovely option if you find the attention of mindfulness difficult. If you recoil at the thought, read on, have a go, and try the journaling questions. Resistance is often full of self-awareness gold.
Loving-kindness practice gives you a deeper appreciation of yourself, others, and the world around you.
How to Practice Loving-Kindness
If you don’t have much time, read it through and practice later, or sprinkle it through your day.
To begin, settle into a comfortable position in a quiet spot. Take a few long breaths, to bring your body into a state of homeostasis. Allow the breath to bring peace and calm to your body and mind as you inhale. Exhale all tension.
You may wish to place your hand against your heart. Say these words inwardly, or out loud if it’s suitable. Leave a few breaths between each phrase, letting their meaning sink as you say the words:
Loving-Kindness for You
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I be loved
May I be peaceful
If you encounter any difficult feelings, allow them, and trust that you can hold them.
Loving-Kindness for Others
Next, widen your loving-kindness to someone you love. Say the same words inwardly, holding your loved one in mind.
May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you be loved
May you be peaceful
Imagine the loving-kindness flooding through you and out as you meditate.
Now think of a neutral person, perhaps a local shopkeeper, your postman, or someone you pass on your commute. Take another few minutes to practice Metta for them:
May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you be loved
May you be peaceful
Loving-Kindness for a Wrong-doer
This next one is optional and can be challenging though healing. Practice loving-kindness for someone who has harmed or wronged you. Please start with a minor transgression, someone who annoyed you or you don’t really like. (I’m going to practice with sarcastic Paul from my previous post.) With more practice you can work up to more serious transgressors if you’re confident about it.
May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you be loved
May you be peaceful
Loving-Kindness for All Beings
Now practice loving-kindness for all beings. Imagine it flowing from your heart, out into the air and across the entire world.
May all beings be happy
May all beings be healthy
May all beings be loved
May all beings be peaceful
Loving-kindness is like meeting all experience with a kiss.
You can speak it to your pain, too.
You can change the script if you prefer something else. This is what works for me, and is adapted from more traditional scripts. Others I use are: May I/you be free, may I/you be peaceful and at ease, May I/you be safe.
You can choose to focus on one of the four phrases each day/week/month, or one of the four recipients - though always start with yourself. You can practice for a few minutes or a whole hour every day, it’s up to you.
I was delighted to read that author
also mentions practicing loving-kindness with meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg in her beautiful book Bittersweet.
Challenging Emotions
Sometimes during loving-kindness meditation opposite feelings can arise, like anger or sadness. The practice can reveal a lack or a loss, either from the past or in the present: something you weren’t aware of before. Allow yourself to experience the feelings so you can understand them, and tolerate them better in future. This is how we integrate them, and move on. Challenging emotions alert us to unaddressed pain, and give us a chance process, take action or seek help.
Meet all your experience with an attitude of loving-kindness.
If you liked it, find time to practice loving-kindness in your routine each day. I often practice at random moments too, when I feel I need it. Practiced regularly, loving-kindness will become part of your neural wiring, which can’t be bad!
Imagine if everyone reading this practiced together right now, sending waves of unconditional love across the world! 🤯😍
And I am practicing loving-kindness for YOU today dear reader! Can you feel it?🥰
To spread loving-kindness around the world, please share this letter with someone who would like it or needs it, or ‘restack’ on Substack (where I host these letters). Let me know in the comments there how you found it, or just hit the like button, so more people can discover this beautiful practice.
Paid subscribers can download one of these free phone wallpapers with the loving-kindness script to remind you (in the members area below). You can also access the journaling prompts below for a deeper exploration of loving-kindness, any resistance, and unlock more resources and exercises on other posts.
Dana is the Pali word for generosity. It is an offering from the heart to someone for their work. The act of generosity fills the giver with a sense of abundance and letting go, as they know their generous offering benefits the receiver, and becomes part of their being.
Take a few minutes to write the meditation in your journal if you have one, for future reference, and, if you like, spend 5 minutes free-writing about the experience and what comes up for you, to give further voice to your feelings.
Visit the Personal Growth Tools Page for 9 therapeutic journaling prompts to explore this further.
Metta!
If you enjoy my writing, make sure you’re subscribed for weekly ‘letters from therapy’. If you wish for deeper self awareness, acceptance and meaning in your life, upgrading to paid gives access to enriching discovery tools. Your support also makes these letters possible, thank you!
Hi Kate, this is a practice we do in the Buddhist tradition. Just wondered whether you're Buddhist
Beautiful. I have practiced this at wellbeing events. It is such a lovely generous act of love. It's something I've forgotten and am going to try each day. Thank you for the reminder.