Fill Yourself And Others With Love

A simple and yet powerful tool to help build not only self-love, but also love for others is called Metta meditation or loving kindness meditation. Sending loving energy to yourself and to others can boost well-being and reduce stress. A regular practice of a loving kindness meditation also increases our capacity for forgiveness, connection to others and self-acceptance.

The loving kindness meditation is a simple repetition of a set of phrases. There are a handful of phrases that are commonly used, you can modify the phrases to ones that resonate with you. During the meditation, you generate loving and kind intentions toward yourself and others.

Here are the phrases that I use:

May I be healthy
May I be happy
May I be filled with love and ease

First directing the phrases toward yourself, then toward someone you are thankful or have unconditional love for, then toward someone you feel neutral about, then toward someone who is frustrating you, and then to the Universe as a whole and to all beings. Repeating each as many times as you would like. 

During the meditation bask in feelings of warmth and self-compassion. If your attention drifts, gently redirect it back to these feelings of loving kindness. 

This meditation is something that I practice while sitting in meditation, but also as I am taking a walk, or doing some other type of routine task.

A loving kindness meditation cultivates our natural capacity for an open and loving heart, something that we can all benefit from now and always. Use this practice as an anchor to feeling grounded, content and loving towards yourself and toward others.