My Thoughts Toward You

A few years back while preparing to teach a course on trauma, I came across a lovingkindness meditation. I started using it in class. It is fairly simple. First, you imagine someone very close to you, someone you love very much. It could be a family member, a friend, or a pet. You close your eyes and hold a vision of that person in your mind. With your hand over your heart you say the following words while thinking of your beloved.

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

As you think of your loved one and say these words, feel with all of your heart all that you hope for this person.

Breathe…deep into your abdomen. How do you feel?

 

Next, think of someone for whom you have more neutral feelings. Perhaps they are a person in your life whom you see on a fairly regular basis. You do not particularly like or dislike the individual. Hold that person in your mind and heart. With your hand over your heart and a vision of the person in your mind, say the following words:

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

What do you notice about how you feel? What sensations do you have in your body?

Now think of someone for whom you struggle to have good feelings. Let’s be honest. You don’t really like this person. Or, perhaps you like or even love this person, but you disagree with them on so many subjects it makes it difficult to be around this individual or to stay in relationship with them. Do you have that person in your mind? You do? Good. Ok, with that person in your mind and your hand over your heart, say these words:

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

Deep breath. Sit in this space for a moment. What do you notice?

 

What I usually notice is overwhelming peace. It is easier to let people go, take my hands off of their place in my life, and to allow them to be who they are without it requiring anything different from me. Extending freedom and peace to them releases freedom and peace within myself.

I tend to be a trusting person…perhaps to a fault. I lean toward expecting, hoping and believing the best about a person. I love to hear a person’s story and to see the context of their decisions, their dreams, their challenges, and their quirks. In general, I believe that people really are doing the best that they can with whatever they have wherever they are at this point in time. I don’t think this approach toward people negates accountability and consequences. I can still have boundaries and draw the lines for my life even if I understand and appreciate a person’s context. Understanding is not the same thing as excusing any more than love and affection is the same thing as acquiescence.

I am also learning to love people…myself included…not despite their quirky, messy human ways, but because of them.

God made us beautiful. So, so, so complex and beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong. I can ascribe negative intent and jump to fearful, judgmental, worst-case conclusions with the best of them. So much of doing that kind of conclusion jumping is human nature. It is amplified on social media and within other forms of interactions where the person is not physically in front of us.

The truth is that our world right now is anxious and fearful. Anxiety is catching. We tend to breed terror among ourselves. We don’t make very good decisions or judgment calls in these circumstances. We become worst versions of ourselves. Our brains turn to instinct (different than intuition!). We use survival tactics…quick decisions based on limited information, hyperarousal (read as hyper-sensitive), a herd mentality, and divide/conquer strategies.

John Gottman, renowned couple’s therapist calls it “negative sentiment override”. At best we all do some version of it as a form of self-protection. We notice and remember the negative pieces of information so we can avoid or be on guard in situations where we could get hurt. In all relationships and especially in our most intimate ones, we have to take intentional steps to notice and call out the good.

I wonder what would happen if we made it a spiritual discipline to resist fear and to intentionally think good things of one another.

Paul starts his letters to the churches in the New Testament affirming his good thoughts toward the people. Some examples include:

I have not stopped giving thanks for you. Ephesians 1:16

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy. Philippians 1:3-4

God models this posture toward us in Jeremiah 29:11:
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Dr. Kristin Neff has pioneered the field of self-compassion. She challenges the old concept of self-esteem as being the vehicle to success and well-being. What I hear in Neff’s work is that what we need more of is not to boost how we THINK of ourselves, but how we APPROACH ourselves. Instead of pumping ourselves up or trying to psych ourselves out, what if we learned to be kind to ourselves? What is we treated and talked to ourselves like we would hopefully talk to an old, dear friend?

Dr. Neff also understands another truth:

We tend to treat others out of the depth of grace we give ourselves.

Will you do something for me, sweet friend? (I know some people don’t like it when random bloggers use the word friend, but that is really how I feel. Ignore it if it bothers you that much, because I get that, too.) Put your hand over your heart. Close your eyes. With love and compassion, say:

May I have happiness.

May I be free from suffering.

May I experience joy and ease.

May I have happiness.

May I be free from suffering.

May I experience joy and ease.

Did you know it is ok to think these things toward yourself? Did you? It is really, really ok. It is healthy, good and healing. It is healing not just for you, but for every single person around you. Your ability to love, care, and give compassion to yourself is directly tied to how much love, care, and compassion you can give to others.

Some of you are terrified I am veering into the territory of no boundaries…no accountability…no standards of behavior.  No, sweetie. Nope. What a terrible lie we have been given. The lie is this idea that to be loving and compassionate means we can’t also be healthy. To be kind means we can’t also be firm. You can give yourself grace for sleeping through your alarm, which made you late to work AND encourage yourself to do better tomorrow.

            In fact, you will be MORE likely to encourage yourself to do better tomorrow if you give yourself grace today.

Promise, promise, promise.

What a haggard world we live in at times. It can make us bone tired. It can feel like a BATTLE. It is so easy to worry and fret. Obsessing over what people think of you is an easy habit to indulge. A quote credited to a few different historical individuals goes something like this: “You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.”

Sweet friend, if I know you at all (and truly also if I don’t) I want you to take this to the bank. I am thinking good thoughts toward you. I am hoping you are happy. I am wishing you joy and ease. I am praying freedom from suffering.

We are going to fight. We are going to have conflict in this world. To be honest, conflict has gotten a bad reputation. Conflict is really a gateway to closeness and understanding. It is a route to seeing and being seen. When you wrestle with someone you can’t help but be INCREDIBLY close to them. Conflict is not the enemy to compassion. It can actually clear out room for it.

No, I am not worried about the spats. I’m not overly fretful of our disagreements. I DO want you to know that in the midst of all the differing opinions we all inevitably will have that we CAN intentionally be compassionate. We can create a culture where our posture toward one another is hopeful and assumes the best in our interactions with one another.

I know I sound naïve. I know I am giving evidence of idealism. I also know that I would rather choose the burdens of this hopeful posture and intent than falling into the easy chasm of suspicion and expecting the worst. Whatever preconceived assumptions I have (good or bad), I have found that people usually prove me right.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Love is hard, expansive, growth inducing, sometimes painful…and HARD.

Hate is easy, toxic, corrosive, painful…and pretty EASY.

Wisdom and awareness are not antithetical to hope.

And, I have a lot of hope. Maybe not for large, world scale problems. Maybe not those, but for you and me? For you and me as well as the space BETWEEN you and me? I have a great deal of hope.

So, dear friend, here it is. I KNOW the thoughts I have toward you…thoughts of peace and not of evil.

May you have happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

May you experience joy and ease.

“Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.”