Community for Deepening Practice

Befriend Yourself

Customizing Loving-Kindness Phrases

Today, we wrapped up our session on MSC Session 3, Practicing Loving-Kindness. After reviewing the prior month’s work on deepening understanding of mindfulness, compassion, and loving kindness, we invited our hearts’ answers to these questions: “What do I need?” and “What do I long to hear?” As a way to continue the process of cultivating goodwill for ourselves (and others) we began to develop a set of personalized loving-kindness phrases. We are free to pull these out and use them anytime during our daily life or as a part of formal Loving Kindness for Ourselves Meditation (which we’ll address during the next session).

Housekeeping:

  • Next week, we welcome back Bal, who will return from her training!
  • We will once again hold our dedicated Creative Invitation meeting on Monday. All are invited, even those who’ve never tried a Creative Invitation.

Home practice:

Required: In preparation for next week, please continue holding space for your Loving Kindness Phrases to find you. Again, the questions that we ask ourselves are “What do I need?” and “What do I long to hear?” Some answers may have come up for you during class, or you might already have phrases you like to work with. If you feel that they express all that you wish for yourself, simply rest with what you have, and bringing them out to use in daily life if you wish. You may also find that in moments of ease or flow in your daily life, new phrases may emerge. If they do, what a gift! Write them down and see how they feel. We’ll revisit them in MSC Session 4, during formal loving-kindness meditation (for ourselves).

Required: Please continue practicing Loving-Kindness for a Loved One formal meditation. In conjunction with your information mediation, we encourage 20-30 minutes per day of practice.

Optional: As a way to practice asking compassion’s question, “What do I need?” we offer the MSC Compassionate Movement practice. This is an optional MSC exercise, and so this may be your first time to experience it. We recommend you try it at least once during the coming week, or more, as a way to stretch your extraordinary body and refresh your mind during moments of stagnancy or when you’re in need of some tender self-care.

Optional: Creative Invitation, which is a playful way of being with our customized loving-kindness phrases.