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| Loving Kindness and Forgiveness A sweet friend, Francesca Donlan, is doing a post for 365 days on kindness. She performs acts of kindness, shares them, and also talks about the science of kindness. I told her I’d be a guest ambassador and do one of the posts. I am working on forgiveness, specifically ending a 50-year-long friendship that ended in a really yucky way. Not only was I shocked at the person’s behavior, but I am mad at myself for not having better boundaries that allowed a toxic relationship to go on for so long. What can make letting go of the internal dialogue that persists long after crappy endings? Enter Metta, the Buddhist practice of loving kindness, which cultivates an attitude of love and kindness towards oneself and others. It’s a simple practice. A typical Metta Prayer starts with phrases like, “May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be at peace” for oneself, then extends these wishes to friends, acquaintances, difficult people, and ultimately to all living beings everywhere. I substituted the “I” and inserted the name of the person I ended a relationship with. It helped me remember she hadn’t always been safe in her youth, our most impressionable years. And because of her upbringing, she didn’t always have peace. I was able to see past my hurt and give grace, empathy, and understanding to another human being, no matter our current relationship. My hurt and mental rehashing of our ending has quieted. If my thoughts go back to unconstructive inner dialogue, I remember the Metta Prayer and am armed with kindness and compassion, which once again quiets my mind. I found carrying resentment and blame to be heavy. There are three things I suggest in my book to suffer less in life; the subtitle is one: release what weighs you down, and embrace what lights you up. Secondly, are you moving in the direction of love or fear? Thirdly, are you moving toward your ego or your soulful self? I found that the inability to forgive weighed me down, giving my ego free rein over my mind and moving me in the direction of fear and resentment. With metta as a practice, forgiveness welcomed me home to my light, loving, soulful self. Big love to all of you. Thanks so much for being here, e’Layne 1 Practice to Tune into Your Body When you are unable to forgive, feel where the lack of forgiveness lives in your body. 2 Shifts to Observe the Mind…with curiosity and an open heart. When you’re struggling to forgive, take a moment to wonder why the circumstance is happening. Does your reaction have lessons to learn? Reflect on your upbringing and the lessons you learned about forgiveness during your youth. Is there something you can shift about your relationship with forgiving? 3 Quotes and a Question to Awaken the Soul “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Lewis B. Smedes “When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.” – Bernard Meltzer “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle” – Plato And drumroll…the Question When you find your mental dialogue displeased or angry with a person, are you willing to send them a Metta Prayer and see what happens? Thanks so much for being here, xoxoox e’Layne _________________________________________________ If you practice one of my suggestions, please let me know the outcome. If you’ve read my book, I’d love to receive any feedback, and an Amazon review would make my heart sing and help get my book out to more people. Additionally, I’ll be setting up a private Facebook page for students who take my classes, which will be a great place for a “face-to-face” conversation. xoxoxo The easiest way to reach me is artbyelayne@gmail.com. To buy my #1 Amazon Bestselling book, click on the picture of my book below. It has lots of exercises to quiet the mind of the loud-mouthed naysayers. If you’ve purchased my book and haven’t left a review, I would really appreciate it if you would…Amazon puts books in front of more people based on reviews, e’ xooxo |
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