This Metta Meditation script is based on the idea of loving kindness. This meditation is good for anyone who wishes to offer blessings to someone who is suffering or is struggling to find forgiveness for someone that may have wronged them. This practice can also help you cultivate compassion and create boundaries for yourself. At the end you will find your body relaxed and your mind clear.
Metta Meditation is also referred to as Loving-kindness Meditation. Metta Meditation aims to open your heart and invite in more love and acceptance with mindfulness and intention. Metta meditation is not a way for you to bypass your experiences and emotions. It does not call for you to cling to fake positivity or to disassociate or disconnect from what is going on in you and around you.
When you practice Metta Meditation, you bring your full attention to loving and kind thoughts about yourself and others. Practitioners are encouraged to first send loving and kind intentions to themselves. Once this has been achieved – which could be more complicated than you think – you then start sending those intentions to people you love. You can then move on to strangers and resonate thoughts of goodwill to your community, and eventually, the world. Part of the practice includes sending good intentions and wishes to someone you may have a complicated relationship with.
Again, this is not intended to instill false positivity or generate positive feelings towards people for who we just aren’t feeling it. Instead, practicing Metta Meditation will help you recognize your triggers and the emotions or thoughts you hold about a particular situation or person. Thoughts and feelings that you are likely repressing or ignoring will come up to be examined, to be felt, to be acknowledged, and released.
How to do a Metta Meditation.
Sit comfortably in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Focus on regulating your breath with long, deep inhales and slow, complete exhales. Bring your full attention to your breath. If a thought comes into your mind, acknowledge it and let it go. Bring your mind back to your breath. Once you have cultivated a space of inner stillness, bring your mind to your first intention. With this practice, you can repeat any intention of goodwill that resonates with you. Common intentions or mantras include ‘May I be happy.’ ‘May I be well.’ ‘May I be safe.’ ‘May I be peaceful and at ease.’ May I be cherished.’
The aim of each intention is for you to wish yourself well, but instead of mindlessly repeating them, the focus is on integrating them – in believing them and in living as if they were true. You are likely to experience some resistance at first. You may find that your mind wanders off, that you suddenly remember to check on your indoor plants or find some other distraction. It is normal to feel slightly uncomfortable during this practice. This is because you may not be used to being the center of loving-kindness. Try not to judge what is coming up. Instead, you can direct loving-kindness and acceptance to any thoughts or emotions that may arise.
Once you have practiced loving-kindness towards yourself, you can start to radiate that out to other people. Visualize a person who you care for and send them the same good intentions that you sent to yourself. You can also adjust the intentions if something else resonates better for that person. You can then expand to include others, acquaintances, pets, strangers, and persons you don’t get along with very well. Metta Meditation is a way to invite more love, more kindness into the world. It starts with us and radiates out to other persons and things.
About Ariel:
Ariel has worked with movement her whole life. Originally a dancer for many years, she shifted to her focus to Somatic Psychotherapy in 2008 when she obtained her MA at CIIS in San Francisco. She worked at The Center for Somatic Psychotherapy, one of the only somatic based clinics in the country. In 2010 She obtained her MFT license in California. Since then she has built a private practice in San Francisco, centered around supporting individuals, children, adolescents and families using somatic work, movement therapy and mindfulness meditation. Most recently, she established a private practice in Belgium. She was certified to teach yoga in 2002 and has taught yoga, meditation and workshops of various topics over the years in San Francisco, Boston and Lewisburg, PA. She has studied with various teachers in the mindfulness community, primarily Tara Brach. She has been melding the disciplines of movement, meditation and psychotherapy for over 15 years to help others find choice and equanimity in their lives. She currently lives in Antwerp, Belgium where she enjoys rock climbing, meditating and other outdoor adventures with her husband.
