Love 2.0 (17 page)

Loving-Kindness for Yourself

When you’re ready—perhaps after you’ve eased your way in by sidestepping your own obstacles using one or more of the strategies just described—try experimenting with directing full-on loving-kindness toward yourself, following the ancient traditions of LKM. Again, it can be tempting to avoid or minimize this portion of the practice, for all the same reasons previously discussed. Stay alert to the possibility that you may disguise your neglect of self-love as humility or as selfless compassion for others. These rationalizations can be common. Move past them. The idea here is simply to experiment with and explore self-love using your personal experiences as your data. As you experiment, notice areas of resistance and become curious about them. Although by definition, areas of resistance beg you to turn away, decide in advance instead to hang in with them. Witness how you experience resistance and even lean in toward it. I can guarantee there’s more to learn by leaning in than from turning away. When you avoid a challenge like this, you forfeit opportunities for experiential learning that yields wisdom. Yet when you approach these areas of resistance, your return on this investment is better awareness and understanding, both of yourself and of love.

Knowing that it can be all too easy to zoom past using yourself as
your target as you begin your LKM practice, you might decide up front that you’ll focus exclusively on yourself for several weeks. Even mark off this time on your calendar. This is in fact how LKM has been taught to the participants in my team’s research studies. The very first guided meditation our study participants are offered focuses exclusively on the self, and they are instructed to stay working with this particular meditation daily, for the first two weeks. This is not self-indulgence. Rather, many LKM teachers find that exploration of self-love provides a solid foundation from which to later expand love’s reach. You can use this reasoning if you need to justify this level of self-focus to yourself: Self-focus has been part of LKM practice for millennia, and it will help you deepen your skills for extending your experiences of love to many, many others.

You can start in small ways simply by becoming aware of your body. Your body has its own pace, your mind another. Simply attending to your body coaxes you to slow down. Once you tune in to your physical sensations, you might discover a need to shift positions, stretch, or give yourself a few minutes of massage. Doing so is a form of self-love that instantly creates more comfort and ease. Just as eye contact is a key channel for making a connection with another person, awareness of your own body sensations is a key channel for self-love. It’s the platform from which you can offer yourself compassionate attention.

Try This Meditation Practice: Self-Love

Find a comfortable place to sit where you won’t be disturbed. If you’re in a chair, make your way to the back of the chair so that your lower back is well supported. Ground both of your feet flat on the floor. Sit upright, with your spine, neck, and the crown of your head pulled skyward. Gently pull your shoulder blades backward and downward, raising your rib cage slightly. These postural shifts will create a true physical openness for your heart, an openness consistent with the
positive emotions you aim to cultivate. Gently lower your gaze to reduce visual distractions. If you’re comfortable, close your eyes.

Begin by taking two or three deep breaths, and bring your awareness to your heart. Visualize how each in-breath affects your heart physically. Remind yourself how your heart is nestled between your two lungs. Consider how each in-breath gently massages your heart, in a tender, cradling embrace. Begin now to breathe normally, making no special effort to breathe in any particular way. Continue to rest your awareness on your heart. Consider how each in-breath nourishes you, as your heart drinks in precious oxygen. This passage of oxygen—from the nearby air, through your lungs and then into your beating heart and bloodstream—is the most basic and constant connection between you and the world around you. This simple action of breathing knits together all that is within you with all that lies beyond your skin. Each new breath thus creates a unity of life and community as all people alike share the nourishment that the earth’s atmosphere freely offers. All drink from the same well. Simply witness yourself, now, drinking in oxygen from the well of life that surrounds you.

When you’re ready, check in with how your body is feeling today, at this very moment. Are you experiencing any aches and pains? Any worries or areas of tension? Or are you excited, caught up in eager anticipation of something new? Whatever the feeling, there’s no need to push it aside. Pleasant or not, let the feeling in. Accept it as part of what it means to be you at this moment. Meet the feeling with curiosity and openness. Explore it. Note how this feeling registers in your body and how those bodily feelings change—subtly—from one moment to the next. Whether your current experience is pleasant or unpleasant, just witness and accept it. Whether events in your life are presenting you with good or bad fortune these days, just witness and accept those events. See them as part of the inevitable ups and downs that all people experience, no matter what part of this earth they call home. And just as surely as all people face good and bad fortune, and experience
pleasant and unpleasant emotions, all people—all the world over—yearn to feel good, safe, peaceful, and healthy.

Alongside this awareness of suffering’s inevitability and the fundamental sameness of all people, you can choose to wish yourself well. You deserve this kindness as much as anyone. Now, put your intention for this particular practice session, whatever it is, into words. This will shine a light on the path you choose and help you get back on it when your mind inevitably strays.

Begin by lightly calling to mind your own good qualities. If it helps, briefly visualize an event that exemplifies one of those good qualities. No need to launch an exhaustive hunt for the “best” good quality or the “best” exemplifying event. Just lightly accept whatever good quality or instance of it that comes to mind. No need to judge or rate it. Simply let it remind you of what’s good in you, what touches your heart about yourself. Then, gently offer the classic wishes of loving-kindness to yourself, choosing phrasings of these classic sentiments that best speak to your heart.

See yourself as being a dear friend to yourself. It may help to first conjure up the feelings of warmth and tenderness you might feel toward a small child, or a kitten, as innocent as these small creatures can be. Experience how your face softens or your heart expands in their presence. Now imagine directing these same feelings of warmth and tenderness toward yourself.

Between each phrase, pause for just a moment and drop your awareness down to your body, to your heart in particular. Note and accept whatever sensations arise there. Know that this practice session is more than the mere repetition of phrases. The phrases simply open the door to a chance for you to condition your heart to be more open, more accepting, and kinder. Staying aware of your heart region allows you to witness this conditioning as it unfolds.

At one moment or another, you’ll discover that your attention has strayed from the phrases. This may happen quite a lot. Don’t worry. It’s normal. Simply begin again by gently bringing your awareness back to the phrases. There’s no need to berate yourself for losing your focus. Indeed, each new moment of beginning again presents another opportunity for experimenting with the spirit of loving-kindness. Can you acknowledge your departure from your intended path while at the same time gently returning to it? What would it take to do so with a kind and loving sentiment toward yourself? Can you set aside all harshness?

As you come to the end of this practice session, know that it’s completely natural for you to treat yourself kindly and wish yourself well, even though you may forget to do so quite often. Know that you can generate this tender and loving attitude toward yourself anytime you wish, just by reminding yourself that this stance exists, and how at ease it makes you feel. Sure enough, difficulties and obstacles to your happiness will still arise. Suffering happens. But now you know that you need not add to that suffering by treating yourself harshly. Indeed, you can reduce your suffering considerably at any time by reminding yourself of the ancient and ageless wishes of LKM.

As your practice of LKM turns inward, toward yourself, be aware that this may also be a good time to begin (or resume) writing in a journal.
Whenever possible, just after your meditation practice session, allow yourself an additional five to ten minutes to journal the stream of your consciousness. Doing so creates the time and space for you to reflect on any associations or insights that arise for you as you begin to give yourself this new kindhearted attention. What does it feel like to create these warmer, more open sentiments toward yourself? How do these sentiments make your body feel? What markers of resistance become apparent for you? What happens when you experiment with bringing your awareness—even your breath—to those areas of resistance? How do they respond? Do they tense up further? Or do they soften? Simply observe what your inner experience is like for you today. What flavors does it offer you? Are you full of feeling? Or are you numb? Brimming with energy, or worn down? Know that any of these responses are normal and just describe what you feel. See where this recognition leads you.

If you find that you’d like additional structure as you begin experimenting with offering loving intention and attention to yourself, you can access the guided meditation on self-love that I’ve made available on
www.PositivityResonance.com
. All of the resources on this website are free for you to use and I hope you will find benefit in them. I also highly recommend that you seek out a local teacher. Nothing quite compares to having someone with more experience offer her or his own way of seeing and speaking about your journey as it unfolds. As with all teachings, adopt what resonates within you, making it your own, and leave the rest as you found it. Like everyone else, myself included, you are the keeper of the eclectic wisdom you’ve absorbed from a long succession of teachers, including those with and without that formal title.

Hearing Voices

“D’oh!”

If you know Homer Simpson, the fictional character on the animated television series
The Simpsons
, you instantly recognize this
familiar burst of self-incrimination. He uses it whenever he catches himself doing something stupid. Try your best Homer imitation now. If you’re good at it, you can actually feel the tension and tightness that this mere syllable creates in your body and mind. It’s as if your heart and whole inner self recoil into a closed fist. If you can sense this tightness, I’ll bet that your heart rate and blood pressure just shot up as well. Of course, this is only a momentary surge. Yet just imagine the damage this way of treating yourself could do over a lifetime. Homer is lucky to be a cartoon character: He need not experience the physical wear and tear that inevitably trails this trademarked emotional habit.

Nearly everyone hears voices, in the form of inner self-talk. What do you say—either out loud or silently to yourself—when things go wrong? Do you berate yourself, speaking to yourself in a harsh, scolding tone? Does your own inner critic, like Homer, have its own particular catchphrase? Being your own worst critic is only one form of negative self-talk. Other forms abound. Maybe your own self-talk is decidedly more anxious. Maybe you worry too much, second-guessing your every action, expecting the worst at every turn. Or perhaps the voices you hear keep your mind running in circles, questioning over and again why things have happened to you as they have, ruminating over every unpleasant episode.

How many times each day do you saddle yourself with needless negativity in one form or another? You might find the answer to this question especially illuminating. To discover it, get one of those old-school handheld counters and keep it in your pocket for a day. Tick it off every time your inner critic, inner worrywart, or inner ruminator speaks up. Your total for the day counts up the number of times your body and mind have tightened into a defensive, closed-off stance. True, some of this inner negativity is inevitable. There is no such thing as a negativity-free life. Yet just like your number of reps in weightlifting, the number of times that you speak negatively to yourself each day builds up a hardness in you.

Maybe speaking harshly or pessimistically to yourself is not your problem. Perhaps instead, your own particular modus operandi is to praise yourself excessively, giving yourself inner high fives and pats on the back for any accomplishment, while at the same time turning a blind eye to your shortcomings. Whereas other people can’t seem to shake the habit of self-denigration and self-flagellation, focusing too much as they do on the negative, maybe your love-limiting habit comes in the form of excessive self-praise and self-aggrandizement, focusing too exclusively on the positive.

Sound surprising? If so, it may be helpful to remind yourself that knowing a little bit about virtually any topic can sometimes be a dangerous thing. This is certainly true for positive psychology. This fact often takes people by surprise because, as a scientific specialty, positive psychology seems utterly innocuous. What could be dangerous about trying to be happy? Yet if positive psychology is absorbed solely at a surface level, it can sometimes morph into a way of being in the world that is as thwarting to love as is persistent self-criticism or self-doubt. Appreciating this danger requires absorbing the subtle differences between what I call eyes-open positivity and eyes-closed positivity.

True positivity springs from your full embodiment of positive emotions. It comes from a deeply felt sense of safety. By nature’s design, it expands you. Your body relaxes into it. Your torso literally stretches outward. Muscle tension melts away. With your torso expanded and your head held high, you see more of what surrounds you. Your peripheral vision expands, allowing you to take in more detail than you typically do. Your mind follows suit and it, too, expands. Conceptual boundaries, once sharply delineated and guarded, begin to soften, allowing objects and ideas that at one time seemed altogether separate to melt into a common pool of oneness. When positivity is
genuine—when it is truly embodied and heartfelt—it becomes virtually inseparable from this sort of physical, sensory, conceptual—and indeed spiritual—openness. I call this
eyes-open positivity
. When positivity is truly genuine, your eyes, mind, body, and heart blossom open, wide open.