Be Kind to Yourself this Valentine’s Day
With Loving Kindness Meditation
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, let’s learn something called Loving Kindness meditation.
I’m going to share an easy meditation technique to help you love yourself with more ease. It basically helps us to be kinder to ourselves.
Why practice Loving Kindness?
Less Stress and Anxiety
Improve our relationship with ourselves and others
Daily Loving Kindness meditation can lead to being kinder to yourself
Loving Kindness meditation can eventually lead to being kinder to others
Loving Kindness meditation can even lead to a kindness felt toward those who you may feel dislike or towards those whom you may even hate!
—Research has shown Loving Kindness to Improve Stress!—
Loving Kindness example (SELF):
1. You Start by showing Loving kindness to YOURSELF.
You do this by saying a mantra and meditating on this for several minutes, several times per day…or whenever you catch yourself beating yourself up by using negative inward (or outward) self-talk.
The mantra that you say to yourself (out loud if alone) is simple.
The mantra should cover basic worries in order to set your mind at ease.
Loving Kindness example:
”May I be Safe, Healthy and Capable today.”
You can alter this as you see fit.
It may evolve over time for you.
2. Loving Kindness Example (OTHERS):
Eventually you may want to add this to others in your life in order to feel more kindness toward them.
It can be “neutral” people in your life such as a mail carrier, cashier at your local grocery or anybody who you come into contact with but do not really know that well.
You can change the generic mantra above to:
”May they be Safe, Healthy and Capable today.”
3. Loving Kindness Example (OTHERS/DISLIKE):
Eventually you may want to add this mantra to those you dislike, using the same mantra as above.
You will think of an individual or more than one individual who you dislike while saying the mantra.
Results of Long-term Loving Kindness practice
After some time of saying this interchangeable mantra every day, you will start to notice a softening of the edginess that was once there… toward yourself and others (if you practiced loving kindness on others, too).
Stress and Anxiety may lower and you may notice you are able to let more things go without giving yourself or others such a hard time.
For example, you may less often call yourself names like, “stupid” when you forget an event or a name or “klutz” when you bump into something or someone.
We have a harder time in the western world with self-hate or at least with being too hard on ourselves.
This can be softened with a little daily Loving Kindness.
More information on Loving Kindness meditation can be found with meditation experts such as Pema Chödrön and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Read more on meditation references Here.
Written by Aleesha Kaplan, LAc.
Aleesha specializes in treating acute and chronic pain. She became interested in acupuncture and holistic medicine when acupuncture cured her of debilitating migraine pain many years after an auto collision in high school with a semi-truck.
DISCLAIMER
This article is not intended to replace any health care. No information on this site should be relied on to determine medical diagnosis or treatment for a medical condition. As with any health concerns, always be sure to consult your health care provider with any health concerns.
