Loving-kindness meditation: A key to emotional transformation
I’ve experimented with lots of different types of meditation over the years, and I’ve had my share of both challenging and blissful moments.
But one form of meditation that I come back to again and again is metta or loving-kindness meditation. Why?
Loving-kindness meditation is one of the most affordable, practical, and accessible ways to have a transformative emotional experience.
For those of us who have a hard time practicing self-love, loving-kindness meditation can be a way in. In the best cases, it helps us reach a level of unconditional self-acceptance that can be tough to access through analysis or talking.
What is loving-kindness meditation?
Metta or loving-kindness meditation is a practice of meeting yourself and others with unconditional love and acceptance—over and over again.
Instead of focusing on the breath (as with most other forms of meditation), loving-kindness meditation is all about using repetitive phrases to generate love, empathy, and understanding for ourselves, for the people we’re close to, for the people who challenge us, and, ultimately, for the rest of the world.
Though the practice dates back thousands of years, loving-kindness meditation is still relevant for our day-to-day lives right now. I’m seeing more and more people using it as a tool to heal and calm their minds, deepen their emotional strength, and improve their relationships, starting with themselves.
How to practice loving-kindness meditation
If you’re new to loving-kindness meditation, I recommend starting off with a guided version like this one, this one or this one.
Different versions of loving-kindness meditation use different phrases, which you repeat silently. These phrases usually go something like this:
- May I be safe.
- May I be happy.
- May I be healthy.
- May I live with ease.
There are lots of versions of these phrases. The important thing is to choose the variations that resonate most with you.
In a typical loving-kindness meditation, you start by directing these phrases toward yourself, repeating them over and over. Then you move outward, directing the phrases to people close to you, to someone neutral, to someone difficult, and eventually to the rest of the world.
Before you start directing love toward other people, though, you need to feel love for yourself. This can take time. If you need to focus exclusively on loving yourself for a while, do it. In fact, take all the time you need.
Once you can sense you’re moving closer to unconditional self-acceptance, then you can begin to channel your attention to others.
How loving-kindness meditation can transform your relationships
The more you learn to accept yourself unconditionally, the more love you can hold in your heart for other people, regardless of how close they are to you, or what they say or do.
When you meet other people with love, it’s easier to understand that it’s not their intention to say or do things that hurt you. Practicing loving-kindness meditation can help you understand this idea more clearly in the context of your relationships.
In many of our relationships, we get stuck in patterns of pain. Say you have a parent who doesn’t listen to you the way you need them to. You fluctuate between being mad at them for not listening and mad at yourself for not being the bigger person, for not being able to evolve.
Loving-kindness meditation is about meeting that anger—the anger at them and the anger at yourself—with love. Instead of trying to analyze or change your behavior or your parent’s behavior, you direct love to yourself and love to your parent. Love to yourself and love to your parent.
At first, you might not notice a change. But if you continue to practice, you will notice a shift in your emotional responses. You’ll begin to see that your parent doesn’t really mean to hurt you. That you don’t want to be triggered, but it happens. You’re not turning away from the pain. You’re facing it. You’re accepting it. And acceptance alone can be transformative.
In the meantime, the best thing you can do is keep meeting the pain with love and acceptance when you can. And when you can’t, you can’t.
The key here is to trust the practice. To trust that if you consistently focus your attention on loving yourself and others, that love will expand—and create a positive and powerful ripple effect in your relationships.
If you would like to learn about the practice more in-depth, watch this 10 part series:
Do you want to learn more about how to build a meditation practice? In my book, Life Launch, I write about how and why to meditate. I also explore other practical yet profound ways to take care of your spirit. Download a sample chapter here.