Day 39 Loved and Loving
Lovingkindness is a powerful practice for connecting to others
Today’s reading helps us understand how mindfulness is not just about ourselves; it is also about our relationships and sense of connection to the world. What was your experience of the lovingkindness practice? What arose for you? Was there any difficulty?
Resources
Here are a few guided lovingkindness practices:
Dr. Chanequa “Loving-Kindness Meditation” (16min; available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify)
Manoj Dias “Loving Kindness on the Go” (6min; available on Insight Timer)
Ruth King “Metta (Loving Kindness)” (19min; available on Insight Timer)
Sharon Salzberg “Lovingkindness for Challenging Times” (28min; available on Insight Timer)
Éowyn Ahlstrom “Lovingkindness Practice” (45min; available on Insight Timer)
I’ve used Dr. Chanequa’s Lovingkindness podcast episode in the past on several occasions. And I absolutely love this meditation! When saying “may you be healthy” to myself, I realized that part of loving kindness is learning to better understand my body.
What also arose is that I felt neutral about someone whom I usually care deeply about. However, lately, this really has not been reciprocal where I have given substantially more than I’ve received. Despite my ambivalence about this person, I still do want good things for them. I can also trust God use Divine loving kindness to do those good things - I do not need to wear myself out trying to do unreciprocated good things for this person.
I felt a lot of resistance to the practice - Dr. Chanequa’s meditation was beautiful and helpful and I felt my heart center become more open as I did it. But I realized part of the resistance came from struggling with meditation in general. I often feel frustrated because my mind wanders and I don’t like doing it because it is time that feels unproductive. It makes me realize how much the productivity-driven abusive capitalistic mindset has influenced how I think about time. I want my mind to be healthy as it is a gift God has given, so it is worth taking the time to do the things it needs. And it’s ok that I struggle with it - it is a practice! I think the other part of the resistance came from feeling a lot of anger towards a specific group of people as I was trying to do the practice - I have been struggling with this for a few years now and mostly tamping it down. But it keeps coming up recently so I think it is time for me to deal with it.