Bringing the self into lovingkindness meditation: three recordings

In our earlier post on lovingkindness meditation with highly shame-prone and self-critical people, we described a sequence that begins with a focus on others. Many people who are highly self-critical find that kindness aimed at themselves can set off their threat system instead of eliciting social safety. If one of the main aims of loving-kindness meditation is to get the social safety system activated, then focusing on others can often be an easier way to access social safeness.

In traditional Buddhist practices of loving kindness, it’s often the case that people start with themselves. We wanted to present that as an option for those who prefer that. It’s also a good option for people for whom the self might not be the easiest place to start or for whom they want to practice in a more focused way on practicing kind and friendly intentions towards themselves.

How the recordings make the self easier

The self comes first, but with support built in:

• A warm memory first. After settling in, each recording asks you to recall a time when you felt warmth, connection or safety with another person or animal. This primes the social safety system before the self appears.

The three recordings

Each stage keeps the self and a friend and adds one more person:

• Lovingkindness for yourself and a friend (11 minutes; script in Word format)
• Lovingkindness for yourself, a friend and a neutral person (14 minutes; script in Word format). The neutral person is someone you see regularly but don’t have strong feelings about, such as the person who makes your coffee.
• Lovingkindness for yourself, a friend, a neutral person and a difficult person (21 minutes; script in Word format). You don’t have to choose the hardest person in your life. If your relationship with yourself is the difficult one right now, you can offer kindness to “that part of yourself that you’re struggling with.” The recording ends with all beings everywhere.

In the recordings Jenna calls these the second, third and final stages. For a client who is new to lovingkindness, Lovingkindness for a friend from the earlier sequence makes a good first stage.

When to use them

• After the friend-first sequence, once a client can reliably feel some warmth toward a friend and the friend-and-yourself recording goes reasonably well.
• When the self isn’t the sticking point. Not every client who struggles with shame finds self-directed kindness the hardest part.
• For yourself. The same recordings work for your own practice.

If it stirs up threat

When clients first direct kindness at themselves, they may feel more self-criticism, grief or a sense of not deserving it. Chris Germer and Kristin Neff call this backdraft. This is normal experience for high self-critics and it’s important to see as information, not a failure. For those who experience this, here are some options:

• Go back to a friend-first recording for a while.
• Help the client find personalized phrases that feel less foreign.
• Ask them to note their reactions on the lovingkindness tracking worksheet, so you can talk them through in session.
• If you’d like to see it coming, assess fears of compassion first.

As Jenna says in the final recording: “This practice isn’t about changing your feelings. It’s about practicing kindness regardless of what feelings or judgments may show up.”

All our recordings, including the earlier friend-first sequence, are on the audio recordings page.