Practice: Loving Kindness

Learning Objectives:
After this session, participants will have the knowledge required to:
  1. Describe typical characteristics of "auto-pilot" reactions, both their own and people's in general
  2. Describe typical differences between self-centered thoughts/reactions and compassionate thoughts/reactions
  3. Identify 2-3 benefits of compassionate POV to everyday situations at school
“We all are so deeply interconnected; we have no option but to love all.” 
―​ Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style

Each day we encounter people doing things we don't like

and every day we do things that we don't like.  These things could be big with major impact, very painful, or could threaten our well-being.  More often, however, they aren't so big--they just feel like they are, and our minds react very strongly.  These feelings can build up inside to elevate stress and result in an "auto-pilot" (unconscious, automatic) reaction of fight or flight.

Then there're our feelings about our feelings...

Our automatic judgments of ourselves, automatic self-criticism of our thoughts, feelings, and reactions complicates matters.  We judge and criticize ourselves when we fail to act as we "should", which could be most of the time!

Auto-Pilot

When your auto-pilot is "turned on" it's easy to feel very threatened or annoyed by relatively minor stuff.  When stressed and on autopilot, we over-react without being aware of how this is happening or even that it is happening.  Our over-reaction feels justified.

Mindful awareness allows us to notice this auto-pilot misery and step back from it.

MT is aimed at increasing our capacity to be aware and make a more conscious choice about how we interpret what's occurring at any given moment and what we're going to think.  But in order to choose, it's necessary to notice that your are, in fact, thinking, making judgments, and interpreting your experiences.  That's the awareness part.  When you know that there's more than one way to see things, you then have some freedom to choose.

To illustrate this point, click on the video link below to view "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace.

Video: "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace

Your thoughts about the video

  1. Wallace brings up the notions of the "I-am-the-center-of-the-universe" default mode that leads to our reflex to think of others as getting in our way,  opposing or threatening us.  Can you think of a time when you experienced  being in this frame of mind?
  2. Can you imagine an instance in which you are able to choose how you think of a frustrating situation?
  3. How could you become more aware of your auto-pilot reactions to the external world to allow you to choose your reaction?

Academic Impact

Have you ever seen students (yourself included) get caught up in being-in-the-center-of-the-universe?  What happened?  How did it impact on being successful as a student?  Think about this mindset and how it might manifest itself in the following situations and settings
  • classroom
  • group projects
  • dealing with instructors
  • motivation to sustain effort in challenging situations
How could becoming more conscious of how you're reacting, then choosing to change your reaction, affect things for you at school?
  • What might change for you?
  • What would you do more or less of?
  • What makes this good idea so hard?

Practice: Loving-Kindness to Cultivate Compassion and Reduce Stress/Over-Reactivity

Loving-kindness practice (also known as "Metta meditation") involves intentionally creating thoughts, mental images, and sensations that bring up kind and compassionate feelings towards other people and yourself; seeing everyone, including yourself, as wanting the same things--to be happy, to feel safe, to be well.  You wish yourself well, wish others well, wish the whole world well, regardless.  It helps us deal with difficult feelings--pain, anger, hopelessness, and fear--from the biggest and most profound to the daily inconveniences where we get ourselves bent out of shape when we don't get what we want.

Practicing good will and compassion toward others helps us to:

  • disengage from automatically feeling that other people and/or the world in general is out to get us
  • reduce defaulting to seeing others as a threat to us
  • see the "big picture" and not take everything so personally

Self-compassion helps us be okay with being human.

Being human means:
  • making mistakes repeatedly
  • worrying about how others see us
  • being excessively self-conscious
  • being overly self-critical
  • being needy
  • etc...all that human, petty, frustrating crap

BTW, compassion and wishing others well isn't 

about letting yourself or others get away with bad behavior, making excuses, letting other people mess with you, or giving in/being helpless.  It's about easing the stress and pain that difficulties cause you.  Your distress doesn't automatically impact the other person or make them accountable, but it always impacts you.  When you're less upset, it's often easier to set limits, hold boundaries, and do the hard work of letting go and taking whatever action is necessary.

Reminder: Loving-Kindness is a training practice

  • You have to do it repeatedly for the training effect to occur--for it "to stick".
  • It doesn't matter if you feel it at the time or not.
  • It can sometimes bring up intense feelings, which (like all feelings) can be noticed and let go.
  • Setting up cues or reminders for yourself to practice can be helpful.

Let's give it a try.

The following are guided loving-kindness practices.  They are 9- and 10-minutes long, respectively.  Try each one, on the same or separate days to see if you prefer one or the other, or just to experience a different voice.
 Loving Kindness Meditation- Diane Winston (MARC UCLA)
Befriending-Mark Williams and Danny Penman 

How was that for you?

For the next week,
  • Do at least two Loving-kindness formal practices during the week, choosing from one of the above or finding your own practices.
  • Continue informal daily mindfulness training.
  • If you are doing this practice as a class assignment, download the assignment sheet here:
mt_at_mc_credit_sheet_for_students.docx
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