Body Metta Bhavana Meditation

Tags

Body image, body meditation

Sending loving kindness to your body

Find five or ten minutes quiet time

Sit or lie in a comfortable position

Listen to the sounds you can hear outside the room

Listen to the sounds you can hear inside the room

Bring your attention onto your body, the contact points, the chair/bed/mat beneath you. Your hands resting.

Bring your attention onto your breathing

Place one hand on your chest and begin thinking about compassion

The loving kindness you might feel towards a puppy or a kitten

Compassion

Now send this feeling to yourself via… heat radiating out from your chest…. Visualising light radiating through your body…. Saying to yourself, ‘May I be happy, may I be well, may I be free from suffering.’

Whatever your method, and even if you feel you can’t, intention is everything. Now focus on sending this compassion specifically to your body.

People often focus on the external, what the body looks like

Let us also go inwards and think about our internal organs. It’s funny how the most important bits are often the bits we think about the least. Whatever our level of human biology knowledge, reflect on the intricate systems and almost magical way in which our bodies work.

Thank your feet for walking you through life

Thank your hands for all you do through them

Admire the parts of your body that you like

Admire the parts that work well

Send compassion to any parts that don’t work so well

Try to soften towards and move towards acceptance of the parts you don’t like. ‘Your mind is as big as space,’ a meditation teacher once told me. Your heart too has unlimited capacity for acceptance and forgiveness, and that includes of yourself and of your body.

Return into your body rather than pushing it away

When you are ready, gently come out of the meditation by focussing on your breathing, then your body on the chair/mat/bed, the sounds inside the room, the sounds outside the room. Allow yourself a few moments of peace before resuming normal activities.

The practical application of Loving Kindness:

Acknowledge any truths that have come up here, perhaps you know you are doing things that harm your body, or know there are things you need to do to care for your body, from booking a screening or an eye test to looking after your back.

Follow/connect on Instagram @rachel_hill_relaxation

The Healing Project

Tags

Distance healing, Distant healing, healing, India, middle age, Travel, writing

Sometimes working on my thoughts and thinking brain can feel like trying to untangle a ball of wool that a kitten has played with.  Difficult, frustrating and maybe even impossible, or at least that’s what it feels like.  But what if I just decide to go and buy a fresh ball of wool or give up knitting altogether?

What if I just move my focus onto my feelings and especially my body and just use my thinking brain for reading, writing and arithmetic?

This week I have been doing some healing again, mainly just on myself, letting energy flow out of my hand into any sore areas, and letting the sore areas relax and accept the healing.  This is what a powerful imagination can be used for!

This self healing also involves taking breaks and having days off from typing and even yoga if things hurt.

I am even wondering if the subconscious mind actually lives in the body and learning to have a kinder and more aware relationship with my body might help me untangle subconscious issues without having to do any actual untangling…

There’s a great book called ‘Touching Enlightenment: finding realisation through the body’ if you are interested in this idea.  And if you are interested in tuning in for some distant healing let me know!

I got my period, which is what I was worried about last week, eleven days late.  I am 48 years old so my periods are a bit random and cause quite a bit of stress every month.  I am very unlikely to get pregnant I know but you do hear of people my age getting accidentally pregnant and thinking it’s the menopause.

Travel update

The monsoon is hitting the North of Kerala very hard at the moment with lives lost and crops and homes destroyed.

We are definitely going to Chennai in Tamil Nadu at the end of July.  We may visit somewhere else in Kerala before then depending on conditions.

Where we are we have seen broken tiles and damage to some of the shops and restaurants on top of the cliff.  One night I was woken by the biggest wind so far.  I saw a firefly come onto the balcony, flit about for a bit, looking almost like an ember, before it settled in the corner of the window sill and went to sleep (or so I assumed, its light went out).

On Monday and Tuesday we had two very hot and sunny days, 41°C!  It gets humid but then before long the rain comes again and cools it down.

We have been having fun planning our itinerary and booking places for later on: August- Chennai and other places in Tamil Nadu then Thailand.  September- Thailand then Japan.  October- India- Kolkata, Varanassi, Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan.  November- Rajasthan then to be arranged.  We will also build in another month or two in one place, somewhere comfortable that we’ve already been, for me to catch up with writing the book, maybe Hampi or back to Kerala.

Food wise, I have tried a couple of new things, Upma (a breakfast dish) and Momo which I think is a Tibetan dish.  Both very yummy.  We went into town one day and had vegetable biryani at a local cafe which we ate with our fingers (more practice needed).  We sat and watched as the heaviest downpour so far rained down outside before making a dash for the rickshaw stand.  We’ve got a local cafe nearby where we eat vegetable masala and dal fry; one night they cooked by candlelight as the electricity had gone out.  Some days we’ve eaten only snacks during the day- banana balls mainly- and treated ourselves to a meal at the Italian restaurant at night, delicious mushroom pasta and beautifully presented slices of wonderfully sweet fruit with maple syrup.

I have put some pictures on Instagram followingthebrownrabbit of the temple area that I love so much.

Writing update

I finished the draft of Goa Part One.  I have almost finished a draft of Hampi, just another hour or so needed then I can give it to my husband to read.  Then I will be onto Goa Part Two.  I am excited about getting that done because after that is Kerala, where we are now.  I hope to get up to date before we leave here at the end of July.

Thank you VERY MUCH for reading

See you next week