Metta Meditation

There is a meditation that focuses on the intention of metta, beginning with yourself.  You settle yourself comfortably and spend a few minutes focusing on your breathing.  How is your breath?  Is it shallow?  Deep?  Constricted in any way?  Go ahead and deepen it.  Breathe waaaaay down into your diaphragm to a slow 4-count, and exhale on a slow 4-count.  Then focus on the following:

May I be filled with loving-kindness

May I be well

May I be peaceful and at ease

May I be happy

Breathe it in.  See if you can fill your body with it.  How does it feel to wish yourself well?  

Sometimes I do this meditation while I'm walking my dog.  Sometimes my brain starts yakking up a storm about how fake it feels, oh--what's that over there?, I don't like how my neighbors landscape their yard, etc.  And I have to gently haul my brain back (much in the way I rein in the dog when she gets a bit cheeky on the end of the leash) and start again.  May I be filled with loving-kindness...

A lot of folks seem to expect meditation to be a magic bullet (massage, too, for that matter).  And you may very well have some sort of A-HA! moment the first time you do this.  If you do, good for you, and please tell me what you found.  For most of us, it's a new soundtrack that we start to play in our heads to replace some of our habitually critical soundtrack.  It gives you a little space, a little breathing room...and then, perhaps, some day you find you've cut yourself some slack when normally you'd be reading yourself the riot act over some slip-up.  

There is more to the meditation, but let's start at the beginning.  And...begin.