A Simple Loving Kindness Meditation to Lift Your Family Vibe

Molly Holmes, LMFT Author

Posted On Jul 18, 2021 |

The Mindful Attachment Parenting approach teaches you how to live in loving kindness so that your family life is a win-win for everyone on the planet!

What is loving kindness?

Loving kindness is a practice of tapping into feelings of unity, empathy, warmth, and benevolence toward others, and acting on them. This means being mindful about honoring the “golden rule” and having integrity about how our choices can have a domino effect on the whole planet—like when we use toxic cleaners in our household that end up in our children’s bodies and our oceans. Now, there is the “ideal” and then there is the “reality,” and sometimes we might not be able to make the choice we would like—maybe we were exhausted and rudely snapped at a sales associate or accidentally threw the recyclables in with the regular trash. It happens because life is life and we are human, but we can be kind to ourselves about it and balance it out by doing random acts of kindness or picking up trash at the park, for example. And Mindful Attachment Parenting teaches you how to incorporate loving kindness into your family life.

Loving kindness meditation is the best way to lift your vibe, your family’s, and the planet’s

Loving kindness meditation is about cultivating compassion for all of life by repeating a series of phrases meant to evoke warm feelings and produce a positive ripple effect as you send them out to yourself, others, and the world. Traditionally, you begin with someone you love in order to more easily tap into heartfelt feelings of goodwill. Then you move onto repeating the meaningful phrases for yourself, a neutral person, and, last, someone you feel negative toward. In other words, someone you might not like very much, who could probably use some extra compassion. Most important, you can use loving kindness meditation to heal the whole family and improve relationships within it. And for the last set of phrases, I like to include Mother Earth and all living things as well. Because this way everyone gets some good vibes, which means all parts of you do too.

Loving kindness meditation phrases

You might be wondering if doing a loving kindness meditation and repeating the phrases really work? The specific phrases are: “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be at peace.” As it turns out, many studies now validate what Buddhists have long known about this powerful ancient practice. And the incredible thing about loving kindness meditation is that it takes only 10 minutes of it to create a daisy chain of greater feelings of social connection and positivity toward others and life in general.

The gift of loving kindness brings more family zen

A regular loving kindness practice has scientifically proven benefits in addition to making the world a better place. And it is one of the most profound tools I know of to improve your family’s health, happiness, and harmony. For example, if you are having difficulty with your children, picture them and send out the healing energy of a loving kindness meditation. Or if your children are experiencing sibling rivalry, picture them sitting together as you recite the set of phrases, sending out waves of peacefulness. And if you and your partner have a disagreement or are struggling to get along, take a few minutes to extend an energetic olive branch by holding him or her in loving kindness. Moreover, if you are having a day in which you are struggling with feeling like a “good enough” mother, send yourself the loving kindness you need and deserve.

Top five scientifically backed benefits of loving kindness meditation:

1. Increases compassion. According to most spiritual traditions, love and compassion are essential. Because these qualities are the language of the soul, without them, humanity cannot thrive. And loving kindness meditation may be one of the most effective practices for increasing compassion, which will give you a lot more family zen.
2. Stronger capacity for empathy. Regularly practicing loving kindness meditation activates and strengthens areas of the brain responsible for empathy. When there is repeated empathic failure in the parent-child relationship, an insecure attachment develops. But improving our capacity for empathy helps us stay connected to our kiddos and builds secure attachments.
3. More positive emotions. Do you want more happiness and a greater sense of well-being? It can be yours for just a few minutes of sending out loving kindness a day. In fact, research shows that practicing seven weeks of loving kindness meditation increased many positive emotions such as love, contentment, joy, gratitude, hope, interest, and awe.
4. Silences your inner critic. Doing loving kindness meditation helps you reduce self-criticism. And transforming the inner critic to your inner cheerleader is well worth adding this to your self-care routine, not to mention all the other benefits.
5. Is the fountain of youth. Research shows that women who practiced loving kindness meditation had longer telomere length than the same-age control group (longer means that you age more slowly because telomeres are considered a biological marker of aging). All these benefits and it is anti-aging too—that is quite a return on a 10-minute-a-day investment. Free, natural, and nontoxic Botox sounds good to me!

Follow these easy steps to practicing loving kindness meditation and experience greater positivity, youthful vitality, and heartfelt connection!

• First, allow yourself to get comfortable and center your awareness in your heart.
• Then gently close your eyes and start to breathe deeply, feeling your belly and your heart expand with each breath.
• Picture someone you love deeply, yourself, a neutral person, a family member, person you are having difficulty with, or Mother Earth and all of her inhabitants.
• Focus all of your attention on the subject of your meditation. Let your heart open toward this person or the planet.
• Then, from the space of your heart expansion, visualize yourself sending out the words and good vibes, and recite silently or aloud: “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be at peace.”
• Repeat this three times for each person or the planet from the felt-sense of your heart connection inside.

Heart and soul afterglow

When finished with each person or the Earth, take a few moments and bask in the positive energy you just created inside of you. And wrap yourself in its elevating warmth. Soon you will notice a cumulative effect as you rise to greater and greater heights of experiencing compassion and your interconnectedness with the flow of life. You will be in awe of how the more you do it, the more your compassion, loving, and acceptance toward yourself and others grows. And your family will benefit from you bringing your best self forward—which is why practicing loving kindness is a hallmark of the Mindful Attachment Parenting approach.

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Categories: : Holistic Psychology, Mindful Attachment Parenting, Self-Care