Loving-Kindness Meditation: Send Warm Feelings to Everyone

We don’t always have to like someone for us to have love for them.

Sure, it may never be “family love,” or “romantic love,” or “friendship love.” However, we can all have “compassionate love” for anyone despite any differences or shortcomings that person may have.

Compassion is our ability to understand and sympathize with the suffering of others. It begins with the understanding that life is hard for everyone – even people we may initially perceive as “bad” or “evil.”

In theory we may never even want to see a person again, but we can still send them positivity and genuinely hope that they find happiness and success in their lives.

We all suffer in different ways and we all just want to find happiness. Compassion is the acknowledgement that all humans, at a fundamental level, want the same thing.

You may not get along with someone. You may not want to associate with them. You may not want to be their friend. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have good intentions or wish them the best. While you may not interact with the person or directly help them in any way, you can still hope that they find their way and eventually achieve happiness.

This may sound inconsequential, but the implications are tremendous.

Cultivating compassion toward others (even people we will never meet) is closely linked to mental health and well-being. It makes us feel more socially connected to everyone, cultivating a sense of oneness, and it allows us to maintain a positive outlook on life as a whole.

To be honest I’ve struggled a lot with being positive toward others. I grew up very pessimistic and cynical. I kept magnifying people’s flaws and imperfections – and I generally had very low faith in humanity as a whole. I still wrestle with these feelings, but I’ve improved a lot over the past decade.

One possible cause for this cynicism was consuming a lot of negative media and developing a type of mean world syndrome. I’d watch news stories about crime, murder, and war and naturally conclude, “Humanity sucks!”

Another possible cause for my cynicism was social anxiety and my inability to build positive connections with others. It was a defense mechanism. It’s easier to cope with being alone and alienated when you brush off everyone as hopeless, dumb, or evil. Once you believe that you think, “What’s the point of being nice to anyone?”

Of course all of this can become a self-fulfilling belief. You expect the worst from others – and that’s precisely what you get!

When you enter your social interactions expecting to hate or be hated, you’re going to act in ways that make it more likely to come true.

A “loving-kindness meditation” was one powerful way I began to shift this perspective.

Loving-Kindness Meditation

Loving-kindness meditation is a popular tradition in many schools of Buddhism. The aim of the meditation is to cultivate kindness and good intentions toward oneself and all others (even “enemies”). It is a wish that all conscious beings overcome suffering and achieve happiness.

The first step is to cultivate good intentions toward yourself. As one wise quote goes, “It is impossible to travel the whole world in search of one who is more worthy of compassion than oneself. No such person can be found.” Once we achieve self-love and self-compassion, then we can extend our love to others.

During a loving-kindness meditation, there are different types of people that a practitioner will focus on. These can include:

• Self
• Family
• Friends
• Loved Ones
• Pets
• Neighbors
• Coworkers
• Acquaintances
• Strangers
• Enemies (see the “enemy’s gift” )
• People we’ve never met (other countries, etc.)
• Future people
• Animals and other living things
• The entire world
• The entire universe

How you structure your own loving-kindness meditation is up to you. Sometimes you may go into a loving-kindness meditation with specific people in mind, but other times you may just want to create good will toward everyone.

I practice a “Loving-Kindness Meditation” at least twice every week as part of my multi-stage meditation. It’s the last stage of the meditation, so it always ends the exercise on a positive and uplifting note.

When I have the time, I try to cultivate love toward as many specific people as I can. I’ll even look back on my past and send best wishes to people who I haven’t seen or spoken to in years.

For each individual that you focus on, try picturing them in your imagination during the meditation. Then recite powerful mantras or affirmations that cultivate warm, positive feelings.

Useful mantras you can use during your loving-kindness meditation:

• “I love _____.”
• “May _____ be free from suffering.”
• “May _____ find happiness and success.”*

*This is the one I always use.

Mantras used in Buddhist literature:

• “May all beings be free from enmity, affliction and anxiety, and live happily.”
  – Patisambhidamagga Mettakatha
• “In gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease.”
  – Karaniya Metta Sutta

Make sure that you find an affirmation that you find meaningful and resonates with you. Feel free to create your own too ––– it’s not any specific word or phrase that is magical, but the feeling and intention behind the words.

If you’re not a naturally loving or kind person, you may find this exercise feels a bit “awkward” at first. Be patient with yourself. You may have to practice it several times before your attitude begins to shift.

Being a kinder person is like learning how to ride a bike. It’s going to feel uncomfortable at first, and you may fall down a few times, but the only way to get better is through conscious repetition.

The first couple of times I practiced this, it felt super fake (especially since I’ve always struggled with cynicism and pessimism). But now it’s a regular part of my routine and I can jump into this state of mind with greater ease.

When I practice now, I’m reminding myself of all the positive connections I have in life. It gives me an immediate sense of universal love and interconnectedness. One study published in the scientific journal Emotion supports this idea that Loving-Kindness Meditation can increase feelings of social connection and belonging.

If I really focus on generating positive feelings toward these people, I start to feel my mood lift and a sense of elevation and bliss – like a hit of the happiness chemical oxytocin.

Another study published in the journal PLOS One discovered that loving-kindness meditation can activate parts of the brain that are involved in how our body responds to emotions (insula), as well as a part of our brain that scientist believe is responsible for empathy (temporal parietal juncture). This effect was particularly strong in experts at meditation vs. novices.

Neuroscientists Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz say that through practice we can train our brains to be more compassionate and kind: “People are not just stuck at their respective set points. We can take advantage of our brain’s plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities.”

Lutz believes that loving-kindness meditation may also help curtail some forms of depression and anxiety. And further research by positive psychologists Barbara Fredrickson found that loving-kindness meditation can increase our daily experiences of positive emotions like amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, hope, joy, interest, love and pride.

If you want to start creating more positive feeling in your life, a Loving-Kindness Meditation is a great place to start. Try it out for yourself and see if it helps!

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