Loving kindness, ending with the hard one. Music underneath
Loving kindness, and then the awkward bit where you turn it back on yourself.
About 13 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice.
You go to your own quiet place, then bring a friend, then a stranger, then everyone. Easy enough so far. Then you point it at yourself and something in you resists. We are taught to send love outwards and to go looking for it elsewhere. Love is acceptance, and accepting yourself exactly as you are today is the hardest one on the list.
Treat me to a coffee, keep the podcast free, and get my Weekly Calm every Sunday. It is all on stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for sitting with me.
Steven
Who this is for
You give out all day and there is nothing coming back the other way.
Most of us are far better at wishing other people well than wishing ourselves well. This one takes you round the easy part first and then turns it towards you, and you will probably feel it resist.
What happens in this meditation
You go to a place you know. A meadow, a beach, somewhere beside water. Whatever the weather is there when you like it best.
Then three lines, sent outwards. Peace, healing, love. First for somebody you care about, and a pet counts. Then for somebody else, with your friend beside you doing it too.
Then the compass turns round and points at you. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I give and receive love.
At the end you shake your arms out and notice whatever came up when it was your turn.
How to get the most from it
Thirteen minutes, and the last four are the ones that matter. Do not stop early.
If the lines feel untrue when you say them about yourself, say them anyway. You are not making a claim. You are asking what it would feel like, and the body does not know the difference.
Somewhere private helps, because this one can surface more than you expect.
Questions people ask
Why is loving myself so much harder than loving somebody else?
Because we are taught to send it outwards and to go looking for it elsewhere. Turning it round feels like a rule being broken. Noticing that flinch is most of the work.
What if I do not feel happy or healthy?
Then the words will feel like a lie, and that is fine. Ask what it would be like instead. Nothing is being claimed and nothing is being faked.
Who should I picture for the friend?
Anybody you find easy. A friend now, a friend from years ago, a dog. Easy is the whole point at that stage, because the difficult one is coming.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
stress · love · compassion · visualisation
Read the transcript
Welcome to a journey into inner calm and love. This is a simple meditation that would just help
to quieten your mind and quieten your body and just quieten everything that's around us at the moment when we're
feeling a little more overwhelmed or tired and stressed and maybe a little anxious.
It's just a simple way of just remembering that there is calmness and there is love in the world and
There's enough to go around and just centring ourselves in this moment.
So first of all, just begin by becoming comfortable. Just allowing your body to relax and comfortable in whatever
position you're in.
Remember, you can always support my guided meditations by going to the link in the show notes just
below.
And you can head over to the website to... Download the five Simple Practices for Inner Peace. Or join my
weekly newsletter, The Weekly Calm.
But hopefully you've settled in a little bit and your body's relaxed a little bit now. Remember that relaxing the
body isn't something we have to do. It's just something we allow to happen. And the same with the breath.
Just allow your breath to happen.
Breathing in calm. Breathing out relax.
And Just allowing this moment to settle in.
You don't have to do anything with this moment. You don't have to do anything with your body or your
mind or even your breath.
And now when you're ready, just spring to mind a little meadow or a beach or a quiet place
next to a lake or something. Anywhere that you're used to going or somewhere you used to be able to
get to when it was feeling nice and peaceful. Just
imagine being there now.
How warm is it? Can you feel the sun on you?
Maybe it's particularly in the winter or something and you like going there on the colder days.
This is unique to you
but really imagine what it's like with the whole body to be there
And just feel that sense of
calmness
and just notice the way everything just becomes slightly more quieter
And if there's anytime your mind wanders, just smile and thank you for the thought. We're just here breathing at
the moment.
A little bit of calmness and...
Inner Calm and a little bit of inner love.
And we can start this process just by saying to ourselves inside, may I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be loved.
And as we go through them again, imagine what it feels like to be happy.
Imagine what it feels like to be healthy.
And imagine what it feels like to be loved.
And you may initially
have a feeling that these things aren't true.
You may have that internal conflict where well
I don't know what it feels like to be happy because I'm not happy or I'm not healthy.
But Just for this moment,
What does it feel like to be like that?
Maybe we can just pretend so the body doesn't know any different.
So may I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be loved.
And now as you're in your quiet spot, the place where you enjoy to go, just imagine a friend there
with you
You could be a friend from the past or someone you know now. You could even choose a pet or
dog.
Just anybody that you want to share some peace and love and healing with.
Imagine them just being there calm with you now.
And we just turn our awareness to them and just saying we feel it deeply. May
you find peace.
May you find healing.
May you find love.
May you find peace.
May you find healing.
May you find love.
And with that person there, we'll turn our attention to someone else.
You're here with your friend or your companion. And
imagine doing this together
when we do this, we heal the world just a little bit and
we give the world a little bit of love. And it just moves the needle just a little bit.
So just imagine them there
And just imagine you and your friend just
moving the awareness and saying, may you find peace.
May you find healing.
May you find love.
May you find peace. May
you find healing. May
you find love.
Now bring your awareness back to this moment and you're sat in your peaceful place where you love being,
whether it was a meadow or a beach. You're
just back there in the perfect conditions of the way it was and the way you enjoy it most.
The friend that you love deeply and so appreciate can still be there with you if you want.
But this time we're going to turn the needle around and the compass around and aim it towards ourselves again.
And this time, instead of just feeling the love for ourselves, we're actually going to give ourselves some love,
give ourselves some healing, and give ourselves some peace.
Sometimes say this is the most difficult one to do. It
doesn't always feel comfortable giving ourselves love. We're so taught to give love to elsewhere, give love to somebody else.
And
we grow up conditioned to look for love from elsewhere.
So when we turn it on ourselves and we love ourselves, it almost feels a conflict. It almost feels a
little bit uncomfortable.
And remember what love is. Love is acceptance. Just completely accepting everything about yourself in
this present moment.
Bring your awareness to your breath in this lovely, peaceful place you're in.
And this time when you say,
May I be happy. Just
imagine yourself being happier.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
And this one's the big one.
May I give and receive love
and Just imagine receiving all that love from yourself.
What does it feel?
You notice the conflict sometimes.
It's much easier to love somebody else than it is to love ourselves.
What would it feel like if we could love ourselves? Accept yourself exactly how you are. Exactly who you
are right now.
Love everything about you in this moment. Then
with May
I Be Loved.
And with each breath. Breathing in love.
And with each out breath.
Allowing that love to penetrate the whole world.
That includes ourselves.
Now bring your awareness back to your breath. Breathing in calm leaving out relax And
gently open your eyes and just look around this room and shake out your arms and just
recognise that conflict. Recognise that slight hesitant to Turn the love on ourselves
and just to be completely loved.
And that's okay
allowed to love ourselves.
That's where we give ourselves in a calm inner
peace. It's the way we heal and the way we accept ourselves.
