Kindness, quite simple in theory, yet somewhat complicated in practice. Kindness towards ourselves, for example. Did you know that extending kindness toward ourselves is actually quite difficult for most of us? In fact, for most of us, we’re more likely to extend kindness toward a stranger than we are to ourselves. If you’re anything like me, you might be making a mental list of people that seem to excel at offering kindness toward themselves, but believe it or not, they too likely know the struggle.

Many of you know that I am in the process of getting my registered yoga teacher certification, but for those of you that do not, this journey of mine began in February of 2019 and will be “complete” in December of 2019. As part of this training, we received a list of reading materials that compliment our courses. One of which is Jack Kornfield’s Bringing Home the Dharma. Awakening Right Where You Are.

In his book, Mr. Kornfield refers to the time in his life that he was training to become a Buddhist monk. There is a particular part of the training where he had to work on Loving-Kindness meditation. In this portion of the book he briefly discusses a practice that we can do in order to help us “exercise” our loving-kindness “muscles”.

The idea of this practice is to start extending loving-kindness to ourselves and to all beings on the planet. Again, simple concept, complex practice, as we all have various opinions and emotions about all living beings on the planet. However, I’m learning this practice can even help with those complex emotions.

So a simple form of this practice can be to say to yourself at least once a day, something in regards to “May I be safe, May I be healthy, May I be happy.” If directing this toward yourself is a little harder, try including yourself with your family and saying “May WE be safe” etc.

See! Easy enough, it’s not like your praying to win the lottery or anything. In addition to reciting these words to yourself, it’s also helpful to send them to others. It can be people we know, people we don’t know, it can be to your favorite contestant on American Idol (Is that show still on?) But you get the idea.

Now, as a mom of 3, I do spend most of my days racing against the clock. Who am I kidding, I raced against the clock before I had 3 kids because I’m OCD and ADHD and well…that’s just me (sorry to anyone and everyone I’ve ever kept waiting and it’s likely if you’ve met me, I’ve kept you waiting in some shape, fashion, or form!). At any rate, I have made a point to practice this.

I started saying these words to myself, but if I’m honest, I didn’t really feel their conviction, but I kept at it and found that saying “we” and thinking of my family made it easier than just doing it for myself. I started mentally saying them as I was driving down the road in the car to the people Ive never met before. I started sending them to the fellow moms trying to keep it together at Target while their kids ran amok through the isles. I’ve mentally said it to the cashiers, my children’s teachers, the homeless that we pass, the people I pass at the doctor’s office, etc. And slowly, very slowly, I have truly began to feel the conviction of my words. When I’m mentally sending thoughts of kindness to these complete strangers, I sincerely mean it now.

I bring this up for a few reasons. The first being that this past weekend during our yoga teacher training, we also had a loving-kindness practice. We had to take the following steps:

1. Picture someone that is easy to love and mentally send them words of kindness.
2. Picture someone that might be struggling or going through a difficult time right now.
3. Picture someone we know in passing, but not well (such as the person that delivers your mail), and do the same.
4. Then we had to picture someone that is maybe a little harder for us to love (perhaps someone that we find annoying or over all just don’t like…if you choose to do this, maybe don’t start with your least favorite person ever! You can build up to them).
5. Then we had to send loving-kindness to ourselves.
6. Then we sent loving-kindness first to our room of fellow yogis, then into our community, then beyond that to cover all beings all over the world.

I found this practicing to be quite enlightening (see what I did there? Yes, I know I’m lame.) for two very surprising reasons. 1. When it came time to pick someone who I considered to be a “little harder” to love, I actually had a difficult time trying to think of someone! And not because my list was so hefty it was hard for me to narrow down who was harder to love (this would have been me a few years ago) but because through this practice I have sincerely found a way to have compassion and kindness toward so many.

And the second surprise was how FREEING THIS FELT!!!!! I mean seriously, it feels quite amazing. Very much like a weight has been lifted. There really is no person that I have ill will toward. Now, with this being sad, I do realize that I currently live in a bit of a bubble and that is likely why I was able to reach this level somewhat quickly. I have become rather picky about who I spend my time with and what I spend my time doing, but I believe this bubble is allowing me the ability to grow roots in this practice so that I have something to fall back on when I do walk back into the real world some day.

Finally, I wanted to write this piece now, because we are making our way into one of those seasons…..It is a season that I, personally LOVE but as an adult, it is also the season that I can see the dark side too as well. As we make our way toward Thanksgiving and into the next group of holidays, please practice this loving-kindness toward yourself. Practice it before you go see your family, practice it before you sit down and eat all the delicious things, and definitely practice this when our crazy culture makes you think you have to go broke buying all the things in order to make your holidays special!!! Because quite frankly, its ridiculous.

If you can start this practice now, mentally repeating these 3 simple things to yourself, to the strangers you cross paths with, to your friends, and to your loved ones, everyday, I believe it will help you remember that you too deserve to be healthy, to be safe, and to be happy, as do all beings. Moreover, this health, happiness, and safety can’t and don’t come from a store.

May we all be safe. May we all be healthy. May we all be happy. Namaste.