A Personal Account on Adopting a Loving-Kindness Practice
By Liz Dehler, Guest Contributor
Note: This blog is part of a monthly series that aims to provide the Y4ED community with basic teachings and principles from Buddhist Psychology to promote healing and the development of compassionate minds.
Sunrise on Vancouver Island. Photo by Liz Dehler.
As I sit here on my chair in my room writing, I am overwhelmed with appreciation and love for all that is. Despite the lingering effects of the global pandemic, the current political chaos in Europe, and the continued uncertainty of the ever-changing landscape of eating disorder recovery, I have noticed more and more moments like this one: moments where I can pause whatever I’m doing and notice the cool air flowing in through my nostrils, and then the warm air flowing out. These are moments I have come to learn to practice metta, or loving-kindness, meditation.
Metta meditation is a type of Buddhist meditation. In Pali, a language that's related to Sanskrit and spoken in northern India, “metta” means positive energy and kindness toward others. The practice is also known as loving-kindness meditation.
On this particular occasion, I closed my eyes, and put my hand over my chest. I softly repeated these metta phrases to myself: May I be happy. May I be free from fear. May I make a friend of my body. May I live with ease.
After a few minutes of focused attention on my breath and my body, this feels good. My heart is open and my mind is more calm. This must be the fruits of my work: a radiant heart and new found capacity to love. This, to me, embodies the practice of lovingkindness.
Since beginning to intentionally outpour love towards all parts of my being, I noticed two things:
I have held conditions that limit my capacity to love myself and others. Like many people, I have patterns of grasping and clinging on the parts of myself that I find easy to love. Often these forms of ‘easy love’ are the result of having been praised, accepted, or validated by society at large. In contrast, I continuously sense resistance towards loving myself in times of struggle. These ‘hard love’ moments are the one’s that often are not seen as beautiful or loveable. It’s the endless pursuit to meeting someone else’s expectations while holding the narrative that ‘I am not loveable as I am.’
My capacity to love and build nurturing relationships has grown exponentially. As I continue to make efforts towards loving all subtleties of my being, I begin to know myself deeply and, in turn, see others’ true loving nature. I have developed conscious relationships stemming from love and abundance, where the expression of love comes in many forms: in authentic greetings, in hugs and human touch, in laughter, in art, in cooking and eating together, and in vulnerable conversations.
I will not pretend to say that this has been easy for me, or to imagine that it will be easycfor anyone else. This remembering and re-learning to love is an evolving andcchallenging process. A starting point is asking myself: Where can I find the love in thiscdifficult moment?
To this question, one can be comforted by words from Sharon Salzburg, who says: “Love exists in itself, not relying on owning or being owned. …Love can only buy itself, because love is not a matter of currency or exchange. No one has enough to buy it, but everyone has enough to cultivate it. Metta reunites us with what it means to be alive and unbound.”
Liz Dehler is a mentor, writer, yoga teacher and Contemplative Psychotherapy student at the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Sciences. As a guest contributor for this series, she is passionate about sharing her interests on contemplative psychology and psychotherapy to foster an empowering environment and promote inquiry-based approach to recovery.