Loving Kindness Meditation

We are often very good at being empathetic and understanding of others, forgiving and caring for them. However sometimes we can struggle to apply this same kindness and compassion to ourselves. Therefore, at first, loving kindness meditation may feel strange, as you may be used to being harsh or critical of yourself.

Loving kindness meditation is an exercise for developing empathy and kindness towards yourself in an unconditional way. The more we can be compassionate toward ourselves, the more we will be able to be more accepting of our experiences. In loving kindness meditation you will begin by developing compassion and kindness for yourself. You will be guided with some phrases that you can use, along with having the option of creating your own phrases. Kindness can take some time to develop so it is important to practise.

If you choose to do loving kindness meditation, please try to:

• Do this twice a day over the next few weeks.
• Use the guided audio or text-based version of the guided-audio exercise (found in ”Practise Tools’ & ‘Downloads’ boxes below) to assist you with your daily practise.
• Complete the self-monitoring form (pdf version found in ‘Downloads’ box below) before and after each practise.

Note: You are also able to listen to the guided-audio with one of the the relaxation videos in the box below. Just press play on the audio and then play on the video. You can also switch to ‘full-screen’.

In this box you will find two guided-audios and four relaxation videos to help you with your daily practise.

• The first guided audio (introduction) explains ‘why to do it’ and the second (exercise) is the actual guided exercise itself (what you will use when doing the daily practise).