Stephen Michael

Denver, CO, USA

Practice loving-kindness to transform suffering into connection and find peace through heart-centered breath.

English

Compassion is when love meets suffering and is moved to action. Compassion is a courageous practice that invites us to lean into our shared human suffering. Compassion tends to the heart with kindness and softens the edges leading us to recognize the strength and durability of our one heart.

Healing Compassion And Loving-Kindness

Greetings beautiful people. Welcome to this practice on compassion. Compassion is when love meets suffering and is moved to action. Compassion is a practice of recognizing that we all have struggles and experience suffering. With a strong sense of self-awareness, we can see others through a lens of compassion. We also must have strength to see the pain of another person and the courage to be able to act on it. The act of compassion does not have to be heroic. An act of compassion could be simple. It can be offering loving kindness or well-being or letting someone know you care. Compassion does not strive to fix another person's struggle. It creates a connection and maintains boundaries. Let's move into a practice of compassion. Allow yourself to find a position that's relaxed but alert. Let's take a few grounding breaths. Breathing in. Breathing out. As you breathe in, allow the breath to create some openness. Opening across the chest, opening the heart. As you breathe out, allow some relaxation, some settling in, some ease. Take a deep breath in. Let your heart open and perhaps quietly speak the words of compassion. I care. As you exhale, again, just allow that relaxed fixation and that ease. Bring to mind someone with whom you have a challenge. Allow yourself to bring that challenge to mind, being conscious of a story that you may attach to it. As you breathe in, let that struggle or that challenge come to mind. As you breathe out, let go of the story and the attachment. Take a deep breath in. Let it touch your heart. As you breathe out, let it touch your heart. Release. Let go with your exhale. Let go of attachment to a story. Breathe in and recognize the vulnerability of being human. Allow yourself to open to a difficulty or a stress. Practice letting that in. Exhale. Allow it to be a release of the strain, the stress, or the judgment that comes from suffering. Take a deep breath in. Let that breath touch the edges of your heart and soften. See if you can let that suffering be with care. Exhale. Let there be ease and kindness and gentleness in your body and in your heart. As you breathe in and allow that struggle, that suffering, this edge of humanity to be with you, notice if there's points of tension and grip. And then as you exhale, physically allow those to release and let go. As you call this person or this moment to mind, you may repeat after me quietly these words of compassion. May you be free from pain and suffering. I care about your suffering. May you hold your suffering with ease. Come back to the breath. Breathing in to open, to expand. Breathing out as a cleansing, a releasing, a letting go. With your next in-breath, turn your awareness toward your own heart. The recognition of your own struggles or your own suffering. And in this space of compassion, let that connection to humanity. And you can repeat quietly in your own mind these words of compassion for self as part of the greater humanity. May I be free from pain and suffering. I care about this suffering. May I hold this suffering with ease. Take a deep breath in. Let that spaciousness open the heart. Touch the edges and soften. And release, relax, let go, let yourself be held. All this for another moment of silence. To just be in the space where love meets suffering. In these last few moments, you may want to put your hand on your heart. Take a deep breath in. Perhaps a moment of gratitude for the strength of the heart, the capacity of the heart. And ultimately, the connectedness of our hearts to our shared humanity. May you be free from pain and suffering. I care about this suffering. May you hold your suffering with ease. Take care and be well.