29-Day February Loving-Kindness Journaling Challenge
What is Loving-Kindness (Metta)?
February is the month of love, kindness (also loving-kindness; or metta meditation) and compassion journaling here. As the frosty, freezing days continue on for another month or so, we are happy to provide more cozy, wintertime journaling exercises for invoking more love, kindness and compassion into your life. This comes from the Buddhist tradition called “Metta Prayer” or “Metta Meditation” and the Pali word “Metta” when translated, means “Loving-Kindness Meditation.” This prayer or meditation is an act of generating radical love, empathy, non-violence, benevolence, friendliness and compassion for all beings everywhere.
How can you show yourself loving-kindness this spring?
Namaste in Nature creates a uniquely Asheville experience of hiking, yoga and mediation combined. In addition to a month of loving-kindness journaling in February, think ahead to some self-love this spring in the mountains of WNC. Check out Namaste in Nature’s collection of meditation + hiking + yoga micro retreats™ (formerly known as yoga hikes) for this season including the best waterfall and mountain-top destinations in the area.
Heading to Asheville this year? Check out our blog posts and videos designed for planning your wholesome Asheville vacation or special occasion.
Metta Prayer & Loving-Kindness Meditation
All beings everywhere begins with you. In sending loving-kindness to the entire world, you must first begin by sending this wish for well-being to yourself. The first step is to accept yourself just the way you are. The first step is to come to know thyself. As you may have heard before, to give freely unto others—your cup must first be filled. To love yourself freely, to fill your own cup by addressing your needs and desires first, you complete the first step of Metta. The idea is that you begin by sending well-wishes (your needs, desires and wants; good things that all beings naturally desire) to yourself with purity of intention and force of loving attention.
Once you have sent loving-kindness to yourself, you honor oneness of all beings by beginning to ripple outward the same well-wishes to family and friends. After close relationships, you send the ripple outward further to acquaintances, to foes and others you have met that are not in your close-knit tribe. Next, you ripple out by selecting degrees of proximity until well-wishes of loving kindness have been intended for all beings everywhere. For example, you may start with all beings in your city and move to state, country, hemisphere, planet and throughout the entire universe.
The beauty of the Metta Prayer is that you can make it your own! By sitting in meditation with breath for a few minutes, you begin to contemplate what it means to send pure intention of loving-kindness to both yourself and others. Next, you bring focus to your own needs and desires as well as pondering what the “good things that all beings naturally want” are. You may arrive at common values such as happiness, freedom, good health, peace, abundance, community or other blessings that arise in value to you and you think others value too. Your intentions can be as simple or as detailed as you like as long as they resonate in truth—single words or phrases alike. An example of a phrase from Thich Nhat Hanh beautifully reads, “learning to look with the eyes of understanding and love.” This loving-kindness awareness roots you in your oneness with all beings everywhere and evokes compassionate understanding for those now known to be like you.
Think: “I wish for you as I wish for myself.”
The first step of realizing intrinsically-shared needs of all beings and the ancient level of equality between all beings is valuable in itself for your spiritual development and for deepening loving-kindness toward yourself and others. By contemplating your own desires and needs, you come closer to knowing thyself and that is the first part of Loving-Kindness Meditation. In knowing thyself, you will take care of your needs and will then be free to share with others. If you would like to go further, try your creative Metta Prayer or Meditation now.
To create a Metta Prayer/Loving-Kindness Meditation of your own, use the following steps below:
Sit comfortably in meditation with breath for several minutes.
Contemplate what it means to send pure intention of loving-kindness to others.
Ask yourself, “what are good things that I desire and all beings naturally want?”
Select three well-wishes for yourself and others that surfaced in your meditation.
When you feel grounded and centered in love, begin to recite your intentions for yourself:
“May I be… [insert your first well-wish]”
”May I be… [insert your second well-wish]”
”May I be… [insert your third well-wish]”Next, ripple your intentions for close loved ones like family and friends:
“May my loved ones be… [insert your first well-wish]”
”May my loved ones be… [insert your second well-wish]””May my loved ones be… [insert your third well-wish]”
Then, send your loving intentions to acquaintances, even enemies and all the people you know:
“May all the people I know be… [insert your first well-wish]”
”May all the people I know be… [insert your second well-wish]””May all the people I know be… [insert your third well-wish]”
And so on, you continue to ripple your well-wishes out by the degrees of proximity you choose. Repeat your three intentions for each degree of proximity to offer loving-kindness to all beings in the specific group you are referencing.
For example, you may choose to begin with:
City —> State —> Country —> Hemisphere —> Planet —> Universe
”May all beings in the [insert degree] be… [insert your intention here]”
Metta Awareness Tips
While you are reciting your aspirations and intentions over-and-over again, it is important to not enter into a mindset of repetition. This is the power of deciding on your own series of “well-wishes” to send to all beings in certain degrees of proximity that makes sense to you. Look deeply first at thyself and then look deeply at each subject you send loving-kindness intention to. Look deeply with all your being in order to understand and to move past the “willingness to love” to a deeper and understanding state of “love.” Look deeply at the body, the mind, the emotions, the perceptions and consciousness amid your sending of “well-wishes” to all beings everywhere. As you practice, you notice the happiness, love, light, anxiety, fear or worry that already exists inside of you. This is another step of Metta leading to self-awareness, knowing thyself and arising mindfulness to choose feelings of goodness, light and love in place of their opposites. This summary from teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh in Cultivating Compassion.
If Metta Meditation is new to you, you may like to get started reading this beautiful Metta Meditation script for practice or follow along with the guided meditation in the video above. Many different kinds of scripts are available in Google search as well as varies styles of videos in YouTube.
By opening your heart and offering love and light to yourself and others, you are contributing to a more compassionate and understanding life for all. Thank you for spending time in meditation and coming to know yourself more fully. May you be happy, may you be well, may you be free.
As you journey into loving-kindness study, we encourage you to go inward and get to know your relationship with love, kindness, compassion and relationship to others. The prompts below are templates or suggestions for journaling each day of February focused around cultivating more loving-kindness for yourself and for others.
Winter Journaling Challenge
February: A Month of Love, Kindness & Compassion
1. Who is someone who has taught you about unconditional love?
2. Tell someone you love them (even if only in your journal) and why you do.
3. Write a “feel-good” letter to your body with love, kindness, compassion and/or apologies.
4. What is your love language?
5. Describe love using all your five senses.
6. Reflect on a loving interaction you experienced today.
7. Do we all deserve love, kindness and compassion inherently?
8. Reflect on a time your day was changed by the kindness of another person.
9. How does love, kindness and compassion relate to the condition of our society?
10. Describe body language of a person embodying love, kindness and/or compassion.
11. List people who make you feel loved, gifted kindness or offered compassion and detail the ways in which they do.
12. Can you ever run out of love?
13. What does “self-love” mean to you?
14. [Valentine’s Day] Write a poem about love or expressing love.
15. Is teaching love, compassion and kindness essential in childhood development?
16. What does it mean to “hold space” for others in your life?
17. Do you ever feel disconnected from giving or receiving love?
18. What does it mean to supply love, kindness and compassion to nature?
19. Have you experienced conditional (vs. unconditional) love in life?
20. Reflect on a time when you chose judgement instead of loving-kindness. How did it make you feel? Did you stay in judgement or move into love?
21. Can setting healthy boundaries generate love, kindness and compassion?
22. How can you open to experience love more freely?
23. Write your own loving-kindness meditation with your needs and wishes for yourself and extend your wishes to others including family/friends, acquaintances and all other people in the world.
24. Is loving yourself an essential component of giving love to others?
25. Reflect on a time you offered a random act of kindness.
26. What gets in the way of your kindness and compassion for others?
27. Where does kindness flow most naturally for you?
28. Reflect on ways fear hinders the sharing of love, kindness and compassion.
29. [Leap Day] Are you comfortable with affection? Reflect on the role it has in offering love, kindness & compassion.
For more heart-opening in this month of love, check out Miranda’s 25-Minute Air Flow for Heart-Opening on YouTube:
25-Minute Air Yoga Flow for Heart-Opening by Namaste in Nature
Have you been journaling along with us this winter?
Let us know in the comments below!
