This is a loving kindness meditation by Awakening Mindfulness.
Find your most comfortable seat.
Feel your sit bones grounding down into your seat.
Feel the energy of your body grounding down into the earth.
And from that grounded place,
Begin to lift through your spine,
Lengthening each vertebrae one at a time,
Creating a little bit more space in your spine and finding a noble posture.
Feel the vertebrae lengthen through the neck and pull that length through the crown of the head,
Expanding the awareness of your body and of your mind into the room around you.
As you do this,
You can close the eyes.
With the eyes closed,
Turn your senses on.
What is it that you hear?
What is it that you sense in the field of your mind and your body in the room or the space that you're in?
Let your energetic field expand beyond the body and fill the room.
What is it that you feel?
What is it that you sense?
Can you feel your skin making contact with the air of the room?
Is there a quality to the air?
Keeping your energetic awareness expansive,
Filling the room,
Bring your focus to your skin and feel all the places that your skin meets the air.
Notice where your skin touches your seat and notice the inside of your skin where the skin touches the inside of your body.
See how aware you can get of your skin.
Is it warm or cool?
Find now aware of your muscles and your bones pulling all the way into your center,
The center of your core right behind the belly button containing the energy of your body here,
Right behind the belly button,
The center of your power,
Of your strength,
The center of groundedness and from there lifting your awareness and energy up into your heart.
Keeping your heart here,
The heart energy,
Notice the quality of the heart.
Maybe there's a tenderness,
A softness,
An openness,
Maybe there's a contraction.
If there's something there you can name that feeling and just let that be.
If you could take your whole torso and back it up an inch or two,
Let the space across the heart open.
Let your energy shift from doing to just being here right now in your body.
As your spine aligns,
You feel the energetic sensors of the body align with the heart.
From that core,
Feel your energy expand out,
Filling the room.
Today we'll practice a loving kindness meditation.
I'll offer phrases to you and if it's comfortable for you,
You can just repeat them in your head silently to yourself.
Touch your awareness gently on the breath at the heart.
Begin to breathe through your heart.
Feel how the breath expands the heart space.
Call to mind somebody who you love very much.
Imagine this person here with you in your mind's eye.
And offering these phrases to this person.
May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and in mind.
May you be at ease and happy.
As you wash the image of your loved one with these intentions,
Feel how those intentions soften the heart.
As your heart begins to marinate in this compassion and love,
Feel the tenderness begin to expand your heart space.
Your whole torso may need to back up an inch or two just to accommodate the opening.
You can allow that.
And now calling to mind yourself.
In your mind's eye,
A picture of yourself.
You'll offer the phrases to yourself now.
May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May I be well in body and in mind.
May I be at ease and happy.
As you offer these well wishes to yourself,
Feel how that sweetness offered expands the heart.
Receive these offerings from the self to the self.
Let the whole heart center expand and soften with the reception of this loving kindness.
With this tender heart available,
Now calling to mind,
Someone who you have a somewhat contentious relationship with,
Maybe a little maybe disagreement or maybe a longer held tension.
Cultivating an image of this person in your mind's eye and holding them there in the cushion of this softness and compassion and expansion in your heart.
You'll offer this person these phrases.
May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be well in body and in mind.
May you be at ease and happy.
Letting these thoughts and phrases and intentions of loving kindness wash through you and wash through the person who you hold in your mind's eye.
Let these offerings soften your heart and expand your heart space.
Notice that the more soft and tender the heart space,
The more it expands,
Expanding out beyond the body,
Filling the room,
Possibly extending beyond the room and connecting with others.
Open to mind now all beings everywhere.
May all beings everywhere be filled with loving kindness.
May all beings everywhere be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May all beings everywhere be well in body and in mind.
May all beings be at ease and happy.
Allowing these phrases to marinate your heart.
Letting the heart expanding its compassion beyond the body,
Beyond the room,
Expanding out to all beings everywhere.
As you hold this expansive compassion,
Connect back with your center of power right behind the belly button and from there dropping an anchor of groundedness and connection into the earth below you.
Feeling yourself rooted and grounded and powerful.
Feeling yourself expanded and loving and compassionate.
Expanding down and radiating up and out,
Everything's aligned.
You're breathing through the heart.
Bringing one hand to your heart center and one hand to your belly.
Feeling your grounded strength.
Feeling your loving compassion.
Both hands come to the heart at prayer.
Namaste.
