Take a gentle moment to self-soothe and practice this supportive loving-kindness where we feel into the love for a dear other and then offer that same love and kindness to ourselves, finishing with a compassionate phrase.
We're going to do a brief compassion and loving-kindness practice here and so we'll start with the full breath in through the nose down deep into the belly out through the mouth and we can start with any soothing practices here as we arrive so we could sway side to side or rock gently we might bring a hand to the opposing arm and just gently move our hand up and down it in a scratch or a gentle soothing comforting touch maybe we embrace both hands together and a bit of a hand hug here or we can do a self hug by placing one hand on the opposite shoulder and then the other hand underneath the opposite armpit and staying in this position as long as is helpful taking this self-soothing as we breathe and we're going to bring to mind someone who is easy to love an uncomplicated relationship someone who's easy to love could be a pet or a partner a child and as you think of this person feeling all the love that you have for them letting this grow and radiate and as you have your eyes closed if you do here allowing this person to appear and imagine them appearing in front of you and we're going to send them some of this love imagining them receiving it and then letting that go and bringing yourself to mind and we're going to send some of the same quality of kindness and love to ourselves and so imagining and seeing yourself here and sending some of that warm kindness to yourself we may choose to share a kind phrase with ourselves this could be a loud or just within it might be something like may you be well may you live with ease may you receive the comfort and care that you need taking a moment to just linger here breathe through the body all the way out and coming back to this loving kindness at any point in time as you need and taking part in your self-soothing strategies as helpful as well
