Meditation On The Healing Power Of Love

35:21

35:21

Meditation On The Healing Power Of Love

Rated

4.9

Type

guided

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

171

Love is a healing energy that unites us, and yet heartbreak and loss can cause people to close off. Perhaps one solution is not to run away from love, but to sink more deeply into the inquiry of it while accessing the love within. During this practice, let us be inspired by thoughts on love by diverse thinkers who impact our culture. Then, we will practice loving-kindness (metta) meditation and gratitude to feel calm, centered, and comforted.

Meet your Teacher

Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Meet your Teacher

Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Transcript

Hi everyone. I'm looking forward today to sharing a meditation with you and an introduction before the meditation that really encapsulates a very powerful energy that we all have inside of us that we sometimes are looking for outside of us as if we don't have it. And so we're seeking this specific power that I'm going to tell you about in a minute outside of us rather than really knowing that it is within us. And the power of this and bear with me because I know some of you might not agree with this right off the bat. The power is love. And the reason I know some of you may not agree with this is I know how triggering the word love can be for so many people and I know how many definitions it can have even within our own mind in our own lives. We can love people in different ways. And I also know there are some of you listening to this meditation who would agree that it's this very powerful energy and force that we do have within us. And before I continue what I want to say is now that I've introduced the topic to you that seeking for love with others is valid and important and wonderful and healing and supportive and all of these things. However, When we aren't able to feel connected to other people in our lives and sometimes we aren't sometimes you may go through moments or weeks or months or longer where you're having trouble feeling connected to people for whatever reasons might be going on with you might be some of the things going on with people you're hanging around who knows but what happens is when we can feel that lack at times and we keep seeking and seeking for it outside we can forget that it really does exist within each of us as well. And once you get more and more and more used to tapping in to that love in you and what that feels like because it's not the same kind of love as romantic love it's not the same kind of love as love you might have within a family or love you might have with your pet or other other beings in your life. Every type of connection and energetic connection is different and there's a specific kind of wellspring that we also can definitely classify as love that exists within us that can we can connect to to feel nurtured and soothed. And it's wonderful to tap into this place often even if you're not feeling lack as a bolster as a renewal. And what I'd like to share with you today is I am working on a book and there will be more elaboration the book isn't all about this but there will be more elaboration and more things that I will say in the book to be supportive around that but today I want to do a just a little bit of a plug or a recommendation of a book if this does interest you and the book is called communion the female search for love by bell hooks again the book is called communion the female search for love by bell hooks and she's the author of the national bestsellers all about love and the book salvation so even if you don't identify as female this book can be really interesting for you if you have any other females in your life who are meaningful to you again whether romantic partners or friends or daughters understanding each other's experience and I actually have not finished the book yet I have just read you know a decent part of it and I wanted to make sure that I begin to share this because I think it's really amazing so as always I recommend if you can order from a local bookstore if you want a book very often local bookstores can order books for you they might not have it in stock but they can order it for you so if you're going to get a hard copy I think going local is a great way to support and buy local and also if you are not and you're listening in an audible way then of course choose whatever way works for you so the thing that I want to share with you from this book communion are two things the first I want to share and there's so much that is shareable and here that's why I'm recommending the book but the first I want to say is this bell hooks writes to seek love as a quest for the true self liberates all females who dare to follow our hearts to find such love are entering a cultural revolution that restores our souls and allows us to see clearly the value and meaning of love in our lives while romantic love is a crucial part of this journey it is no longer deemed all that matters rather it is an aspect of our overall work to create loving bonds circles of love that nurture and sustain collective female well-being end of quote if you need to hear that again of course you can rewind and listen to that again and as I said it does talk about female because there's a lot of reason for that as you read the book that that makes sense that it's specific but as you can hear from that it's true for all that to seek love as a quest for the true self liberates that's just applicable to everybody the second part that I want to share with you is just a smaller sentence and it has to do with this book in specific in which bell hook says that's why I wanted to write a more personal book about women's quest for love especially the meaning of that quest in midlife now the reason I say that is because I think a lot of people who listen to my meditation so not everybody is probably mostly within the age range of 30 to 70 years old now I'm happy that that I have people younger than that who listen and happy that I have people older but I'm gonna say that a bulk of people are gonna fall within the 30 to 70 range and while I don't know what bell hooks means by midlife I actually take it to mean for me quite a big chunk of our lives now that I'm definitely definitely well into that range and as I look back on my life I don't know what people used to mean by midlife but I think it used to be this smaller chunk of time like maybe in your 40s or something I don't I don't really know but it felt like when I was younger that that would be kind of the age like 40s or 50s and I feel like for me right now the way I think of midlife is that it's a much longer stretch of time the middle of our lives to me almost feels like the vibrant part of where we're really able to work on ourselves as self-discovery but also whatever work we're doing in the world and we're really in this deep process I midlife I think used to mean something that sounded pretty bad to me anyway the way people talked about it you know with midlife crisis and I just think we're breaking free of so many of course boundaries and and things that you know paradigms that may have worked or made sense at one point but don't anymore and so I would encourage you to think about what does midlife mean to you not in a scary way but like just what does it mean and to me it really feels like it's this time in life relatively speaking would be different for everyone really different for everyone depending on how your life path is going but I feel like generally 30s through and I haven't hit my 70s yet but from people I know who are older than 70 I'm really thinking that that's sort of the time our middle of life and I think of it as meaty and rich and important and challenging and wonderful so if you haven't hit this age range yet if you're younger I want to say I think it's a really fruitful beautiful time of richness for me my younger years were were good I was trying to think of an adjective there was you know I think being younger has things that are very fraught as well and then things that are can be joyful and exciting depending on how your life goes I feel like I had a very balanced mix of challenges and also positive experiences when I was younger I had some just really phenomenally positive relationships that were a highlight of my life and I'm still friends with people from those years so you know those are important times in our life but I feel like it's not till we hit what I'm now terming this middle life this middle part this big chunk the way I see it where we're starting to figure out who we are and we're really maturing and deepening into that and if we want to as some people will use the term like wake up or stay awake or awaken just become awake to life and to who we are and to the reality of relationships and energy and feelings and and what is going on in life beyond just what we've read in textbooks or what our parents have told us from their experience or beyond dogma that we've heard you know what is it as we all evolve and as life evolves and the reason I bring this midlife up is that I just say I think this book is pertinent for everyone and I think if you're not in that middle life stage you know you're getting there so this book might interest you or this you know idea of midlife and if you're past it if you're in your 70s or above 75 what does that stage of life look like you're not really quite in the middle anymore even if you live a very long time you're not really in that middle chunk anymore maybe there should be two middle chunks if you live a long life after 70 which is of course very possible for people so my point in going on about this is I think a lot of the people who listen to my work fit in this chunk of 70 as the you know tippy top area era and then like 30 as the bottom and then we have the stragglers on both ends who I appreciate just as much and so this idea of love I think is so important in our lives because what happens is that we realize that we do need community and others to help that life has a lot of ups and downs there's loss there are challenges there are things we didn't see coming and we also start hitting up against our own blind spots we start to see places in life where things aren't working really well and it's like whoa what can I do to suffer less to be more skillful in my life to really have fulfilling relationships and work that I want what's what's going on how can I do this and this is the time where we're inquiring about all of that and love has so much to do with it and I don't want to expand too much on my personal take or experiences on that too much now because I'm saving that for the book that I'm working on and again it'll just be not the whole book at all but really a chapter that I think is so important for our lives and important for all of us and so the nitty-gritty of it all though is that the point is that I think everybody or mostly everybody if not everybody really wants to believe that love is this powerful healing force they do want to believe that but it's so hard to at times when maybe we've had our heart broken from boyfriends or girlfriends or partners or of any kind or parents have broken our hearts or we feel that our children might have broken our heart in some way or you know anything it just it gets harder and harder to believe sometimes that love is this incredible balm that we want it to be or how do we get to it because it can be tough and what's interesting is it's funny I think I laugh at myself sometimes because I sometimes make pop culture references as well as you know literary references or things like that but I there is a song that has just come to mind that is by Coldplay and Selena Gomez and I'm just laughing at myself because I know a lot of teachers tend not to make a lot of pop culture references but and I happen to have really liked one of Coldplay's albums and then this song is a great song and I don't right now remember the exact quote from it because I wasn't planning on necessarily quoting it here but it is something about in the song they talk about how their experience you know that love is only equal to the pain and so again you can interpret lyrics any way you want love is only equal to the pain but I think this song is really an interesting and beautiful song that is about letting someone go and then what I think is so fascinating and interesting and special is at the end of the song the singer Chris Martin says and it's very faint in a way but he says something like you're still with me now I know so that the song is really about love and loss and pain and love and then at the end it's like there's this tie in where it's like but you're still with me now I know and again lots of interpretations you can make from this but the point is that what I gleaned from that and in my experience and in books I've read and things I've studied is that there is pain when we love and there is loss and there is grief and that's why community and support and loving other people is important and essential but like I said at the beginning of this and like the quote I read romantic love and also that kind of love with community and others it's not the only kind it's one of the kinds that we need to cultivate and they don't all have to feel the same when you love someone in your community it's not the same energetic love as your romantic partner it's not the same as as I've said before with your family so just being open to what does this energy mean and you don't even have to use the word love out loud but this feeling that that one has this connection this seeing the light in another person and so the reason I've spent time right now talking so much about this is I have experienced so much how the word love can be triggering and I know many reasons why it can be and again I think that harkens back to our many experiences of love and and how different people have loved us or have said they've loved us but then treated us one way or another way and it's a journey it's part of the path and that's why I love what Swami Kripalu said I love it so much he said I am a pilgrim on the path of love I love that I'm a pilgrim on the path of love and so perhaps you might want to think about that in no major way not creating an upheaval in your whole life but is there any part of you that is a pilgrim on the path of love and if so what in really healthy ways ways that feel healthy and nourishing to you are you thinking about your relationship to love are you investigating are you investing a little bit of time here and there on thinking about what that is for you and most importantly which is what this meditation now is going to be about is learning how to strengthen that bond to whatever that is deep inside of you that really is this well of support and comfort and ease when your mind has driven you into all these different directions when other people's reactions or challenges or their own garbage has interfered with your energetic sphere and and messed with your mind when you're when you're having these struggles both from your own own mind and your own internal dialogue and from other people and I use the word garbage because a friend of mine has said that to me in supportive ways and always makes me laugh when she was like that person just was talking garbage at you and it just makes me laugh to say that it's garbage because really it's you know type of energy that we don't need so I'm hoping that the things that I've said here are helping to create more space in your heart and more space in your body and more space in your mind to start to be open to this inquiry of love in more ways than you know in more ways than I know in more ways than anyone has ever known just start to crack open a little you can still have your boundaries or your walls where they need to be for protection and you know as those break down and you feel more comfortable that would be great but there's no rush this is easeful and gentle and and getting in conversation with yourself and so what I'd like you to do now is come into a comfortable seated position for meditation and as you start to get comfortable just release any thoughts or feelings or reactions or agreements or anything at all to do with what I've just spoken about just let everything go now and as you prepare for meditation allow yourself to just keep letting go through the meditation of tension of stress thought patterns just letting things go it will take time and you'll let things go so that you can come into a place of stillness now that you're comfortable feel those sitting bones rooting down into the cushion and feel the crown of your head lifting up toward the sky allowing the breath to flow in and allowing the breath to flow out make any small movements that you need to to feel more comfortable and now that you're feeling more comfortable let the breath continue to flow in and out at its own pace to help release some tension take a nice deep inhale through the nose very slowly and deep and a nice slow exhale through the mouth letting go and again a nice slow cleansing inhale you're bringing in air oxygen prana life force energy and then a slow exhale through the mouth letting go of what no longer serves you and then come into normal breathing letting the breath flow in and out through the nose while the lips are just gently touching each other all the muscles of the face relax and thoughts will come and they will go and just let them float on by practice not carrying the thoughts into a continued story following them into a continued pattern you can always think those thoughts again later so as the thoughts come up now release those thoughts and know that you're practicing meditation this wonderful wonderful experience for your mind and body and heart and as you know the whole point of the practice is thoughts will come to mind and when you notice that you're thinking you let go of those thoughts and bring your awareness back to a focal point which in this case can be your breath and my voice it takes a conscious effort to let go of those thoughts and return again and again to your breath to my voice to whatever can bring you into this present moment allowing all the muscles of the body to relax except the muscles you need to hold you upright all the muscles of the face can relax the neck and the shoulders the muscles that aren't needed can relax the arms the hands the fingers relax the torso the legs and the feet and the toes notice if there's anywhere else in the body that could relax a little more and just bring your awareness there compassionately just invite some relaxation into that spot and knowing that relaxation takes time it also doesn't help to try to force relaxation and so that's why you're inviting welcoming allowing relaxation to occur bring your awareness to how it feels to be seated now notice how the mind is how active it is or how still and label the experience right now of the mind on a scale of one to ten there's no judgment it's just labeling one the mind feels still up to ten where the mind is very very active and just label with a number right now how the mind feels one is still and calm and one is very active choose a number now silently to yourself and now letting that go and now bring your awareness to the heart you're just bringing your awareness to the center of the chest area as if you're compassionately holding your heart your heart space your chest in awareness with your compassion and now holding your whole self in your awareness your body your mind your heart your experiences everything about you and your experience on earth your younger self your future self your present self holding yourself in your awareness send the wish to your whole self may i be happy may i be healthy may i know peace and now hold in your awareness someone you love so dearly someone it's easy for you to love and holding that being in loving kindness and your awareness send the wish may you be happy may you be healthy may you know peace the breath flows in and the breath flows out if you notice thoughts have come to mind or have taken your mind away just bring your awareness back to your steady breath and to this practice of loving kindness call to mind a friend you haven't seen in a while hold this person in your awareness and send the wish may you be happy may you be healthy and see that as so for them may you be healthy may you know peace and the breath flows in and flows out hold someone now in your heart who may need a little extra boost of healing or calm or comfort maybe someone you know got some challenging news lately or maybe someone's been dealing with something for a while and holding that being in your awareness send the wish may you be happy may you be healthy may you know peace and now hold in your awareness someone with whom you have a small conflict or a small misunderstanding or something that's frustrating between you two something like that if there is such a person and holding that person in your awareness silently send the wish may you be happy may you be healthy may you know peace this helps soften your feelings toward what's going on and also really does send them that kind vibration of really wishing them well and now hold all beings in your awareness all beings and send the wish may all beings be happy may all beings be healthy may all beings know peace and let the breath flow in and flow out and continue to hold this vibration this feeling of loving kindness for yourself for others and as you hold this knowing that it's from this place we can help create positive change in the world create positive change in relationships it could take time it can take patience but it's from this energy this loving kindness that change occurs health improves work experiences improve contentment increases letting the breath flow in and out ask your heart what am i grateful for and if it's hard to think of something start with the fact that maybe the sun is shining or if not the rain is falling for needed water or if not that then the breath that you have breath that flows in and out start somewhere asking the heart what am i grateful for what am i grateful for take a nice deep inhale through the nose and a long slow exhale through the mouth return to normal breathing and assign a number now to how you're feeling in the mind one is toward a more still mind so one would be very still and 10 is a very agitated busy mind choose a number now between one and ten it doesn't matter what the number is it doesn't matter if the number has changed or not from the beginning if the number has changed it's a great reminder that we can change our mind and its state very simply it just takes a little bit of practice and the mind does change you know this one minute you could be feeling one way another minute you could be feeling another it could be triggered by outside circumstances it could be triggered by your own self and if your number stayed the same just as importantly you're cultivating self-awareness this awareness of how are you doing how are you feeling and from there so much wellness and so many good things follow we first have to understand and be able to notice how am I where does it hurt what feels good in our lives acknowledging these things is so important I hope that this experience with loving kindness with love with this idea of thinking more about this in our lives in different ways can be helpful and know that you can return to this meditation at any point that you want and you can always fast forward to the part where it's just the meditation or you could just listen to the beginning part if you want to hear that again meditations don't only have to be listened to one time it's something we can come back to again and again even if it's the same one I wish you a day where there's a little more ease for you in your mind and where you feel the support of life force energy that surrounds you