Loving Kindness

This month marks the four year anniversary of living here in Switzerland.

Whoop! Whoop! I love it here 

 

 

 

 

As a friend pointed out, sometimes it is so breathtakingly beautiful that I feel as if I am in a dream!

However when I first arrived it wasn’t like that. Of course it was beautiful when I got here, these mountains have been here for quite a while!

I mean that I was so unhappy to be without my family and friends, my network and connections, that I really couldn’t see anything wonderful at all.

I was feeling very lost. Overwhelmed by a sense of isolation and loneliness.

Shortly after we arrived we went on a trip. I remember being at the airport to catch our return flight and realizing that home was not home anymore. The tears rushed over me as I saw the flight information board confirming we were not flying to London but to Geneva instead!

I cried most of the way home and gave myself permission to feel the deep sadness that arose when I thought about not living near my community.

When I got back I decided to make these needs for connection and community a priority.

But what to do? I was pretty miserable, didn’t know anyone and my French was (and still is!) pretty poor.

I needed something radical. Something I could start doing BEFORE I actually solved the problem of meeting new people.

I didn’t know how long it was going to take to actually build community, and I definitely didn’t want to keep feeling like this while I figured it out!

I looked to what I had learnt during my years of training and inner exploration, and I started to practice Loving-Kindness Meditation.

Loving-kindness is a meditation practice, also known as Metta meditation, that supports the cultivating of compassion and loving awareness. It comes from the Buddhist tradition but it can be practiced by anyone. The idea is to focus on, and develop, feelings of compassion and loving kindness to ourselves, to those we are close to, to those we struggle to feel connected to, and even to strangers.

Rick Hanson, author of Buddha’s Brain and Just One Thing, puts it like this:

“Metta” means loving kindness. A beautiful way to compensate for the hard-wired tendency to fix our attention and affections on mainly one person, or small group of people, is to deliberately cultivate and practice an attitude of compassion and kindness toward people in general.

I did a long version a couple of times a week (free download here 🙂 or by signing up to my newsletter) and I did a short version whenever I noticed the heavy despair and longing for connection.

The long version I had recorded during mindfulness training the summer before, but the short version came as a bit of a surprise to me. I guess I must have pulled it out from somewhere, but what really surprised me was how effective it was!

How I discovered the short version

One day I was on the bus when I suddenly noticed I was surrounded by people. They were everywhere. On the metro, train and bus, (I took a lot of bus journeys back then, getting life set up and finding my way around), in the supermarket, in the street.

Human beings. Everywhere. I was struck by the realisation that I was surrounded by other people, all sharing the same needs as me, even if I was not feeling connected.

I didn’t actually KNOW any of them in the traditional sense, these were strangers after all. Not even Linkedin connections, or Facebook friends! However I knew enough about our interconnectedness to sense that if I allowed myself to connect with them and wish them well, even briefly, that this would have a positive impact on my well-being.

My short version was to allow my eyes to settle on people at random and say:

• May you be well.
• May you feel safe and secure.
• May you feel loved and cared for.

At random. Over and over again.

• May you be well.
• May you feel safe and secure.
• May you feel loved and cared for.

And it worked! I started to feel more positive. More connected. More at peace.

I began to really see, and feel, connected to the human beings around me, and to sense the love and support in my life.

My sense of isolation and loneliness dissolved and slowly, or perhaps even as a result of this, I started to build the community I longed for.

Today I am blessed with an abundance of deep and satisfying connection in my life, which is good because I really need this. People to support me, to share with, to dream, mourn and celebrate with. And fundamentally to help me meet my precious needs for love and belonging.

And I am very grateful to have practices that can really change the way I feel and the way I experience the world.

If they can also have a positive impact on my physiological health and increase grey matter in the brain, all the better!

So go on. Give it a go! Download the meditation. Give yourself the gift of compassionate self-care today.

And if you still need convincing, check out some of the pretty awesome science links in this Huff Post piece about Loving Kindness