I practice in loving kindness and we've been exploring self-compassion for many many days now loving kindness for ourselves.
We're going to now practice a visualization it's a story I'm going to lead you into a story today.
We've practiced many forms of different mindfulness but today I'm going to lead you into a story.
So choosing a comfortable seat sitting on a cushion on the ground with your legs crossed or sitting on a chair with your feet firmly on the ground keeping your back reasonably straight dropping your chin and if you like you can close your eyes or leave them open it's up to you.
Closing your eyes just helps you to go a little bit on the journey on this sort of visual journey and it's nothing any stranger than reading a book and enjoying those imaginary pictures in your mind.
So to settle our minds more we're going to take three deep breaths breathing in through the nose and out through the nose for the first two let's breathe breathing in and exhale inhale and exhale last one inhaling through the nose and exhaling slowly out the mouth sigh the breath out release any tension anxiety and what doesn't serve you today.
Coming now to a normal breath breathing through the nostrils if you can and just feel your body relax all the way from the top of your head moving all the way down through your body relaxing relaxing relaxing So I want you to bring to mind a friend who is walking the journey of life with you.
It might be a partner,
Maybe a child,
Or someone in your immediate family,
Or maybe all of your immediate family.
It can be a friend,
A parent,
A colleague.
And if we're struggling with all of those,
Maybe it's even a love that you wish you had if you are single.
And I want you to imagine that in your hands you have a little bag,
And inside of that bag are beautiful,
Special seeds for the perfect love tree.
They're just the most magical seeds that you're going to plant.
And your first ingredient in planting these seeds is finding a good spot,
It may be in your garden or in an enchanted place that you can imagine.
We haven't been out for a while,
Maybe it's a very special place you'd like to plant these seeds.
And we don't just plant one seed,
We plant them all.
We're very generous with our nutrients,
With our water,
And making sure that the area is properly prepared.
So we're generous,
That's the first ingredient.
We are generous with our time,
We are generous with our preparation.
We give our little seeds a chance,
A good chance right in the beginning.
And we give our time to make sure that this will happen.
And this spirit of generosity is really,
Can affect a wonderful relationship.
It's doing things that you might not necessarily want to do.
Offering your time,
Your resources,
Your finances perhaps,
Whatever you feel is generous and can really help your darling or your friend.
This is something we can cultivate for that special relationship,
For that loving relationship.
The second ingredient is kindness.
And as our perfect little love tree starts to grow,
We offer it support in the term of,
In the way of a maybe a support stick and some string that we can tie it next to the stick so that it won't be blown over or stepped on.
Making sure that our little tree has enough sun and as it starts to grow we can always replant it from a pot to the ground.
Our kindness is really in looking after their life,
Thinking of your friend,
Looking after their life,
Their things.
We maintain our loyalty to them,
We don't hurt them with our words.
Instead we build them up with loving kindness.
We can imagine growing this little tree in the same way that we nurture our friend.
The third ingredient to growing the perfect love is patience.
We don't give up on it.
When you plant a tree from a seed it can take a while to grow and it can give us so much joy just watching it grow from a little seed.
But by practicing generosity and kindness we may see someone change that might not happen immediately.
The seeds we sow we reap and as the winds of change blow this always tests our young tree.
Sometimes there's the heat of anger,
The changes in seasons,
The beauty of autumn,
The sadness of the cold or the promise of spring.
Everything is always changing,
Our world is changing.
We accept all these changes with patience and as we do so the roots get more solid into the ground.
And with every time the wind blows our tree gets stronger as it roots itself further.
The fourth ingredient is joy.
That the tree,
Imagine the tree is growing taller and well and we are happy and we find time to dance in the garden.
We plant little flowers and sometimes we slip and fall in the mud and we laugh.
We enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Always remembering the best things in life are free.
Take the time to have good clean fun.
And the fifth ingredient is our tree has grown to a large extent that can offer us some shade and we sit with our friend in the stillness,
In the shade and there's no need to talk or be entertained but really enjoy each other in making time for stillness,
For sitting under a tree and just experiencing that stillness.
And the last ingredient is wisdom.
Our tree begins to bear fruit and others come to enjoy.
We are admired for having followed and stuck to the process and now our children or our friends or our family can enjoy our example.
They can bite into the offering and take seeds from the tree to plant into their lives and so many can follow our example and understand that happy relationships can be cultivated.
This is wisdom,
The diamond of wisdom.
Dropping your chin down to your chest now.
Let's take in one deep breath in through the nose,
Out through the mouth.
Breathing in and slowly release out the mouth.
Taking a moment just to observe how you feel now.
Are we inspired to practice the six ingredients into our relationships?
Give them a try.
Lifting your chin and opening your eyes.
