This lesson is really different because we're going to do something called a body scan meditation. And this is often that a lot of my students, this is their favorite type of meditation, mindfulness meditation that we do. And this meditation you do lying down, and this is a fairly long meditation, I think it's about 2425 minutes in the recording, so again, I'm gonna, what I'm going to have you do is pause the video, find a comfortable place to lie down. Now that can be you can lie down on a bed, you can lie down on a yoga mat. You just want it to be comfortable. Don't do it like in a totally darkened room late at night because then you're just gonna fall asleep.

But I want you to listen to the body scan recording, and then come back and we'll talk about it. So that was the body scan meditation. And I find that to be very, very relaxing. And you know, it's important. We're training your brain and how to deal with observable events. But part of what we need to do is to really be present with our bodies.

Now some people are, they're very sensitive to what's going on in their body. They're very attuned to it. And others of us are not, we kind of forget that our body is there. So I really like this meditation because it really gets you into a deep state of relaxation and it really gets you in touch with your physical body. So what I'd like you to do for homework for this lesson is actually to do another body scan, not right away, like but you know, maybe tomorrow, or the next day before you go on to the next lesson. Try doing another body scan so that you really get comfortable with that type of meditation.

In this lesson, we're going to do something different yet again. And what we're going to do is something that's called a meta me TTA, metta meditation, sometimes called a loving kindness meditation, and it's different. So there's something I'd like you to do before we do this, and I want you to take a piece of paper, and I want you to write down on it. The name of someone that you that you love that You have a good relationship with, I'd prefer this to be someone that's still alive. It can be a friend, it can be a family member, it can be. It can be anyone.

So someone that's alive that you feel you have a good relationship with. And I just want you to write down their name. So take a minute to just just take a moment to do that. I'll give you a moment to do that. Okay, so you've got written down the name of someone you have a really good relationship with. Next thing I want you to do is I want you to write down the name of someone that you don't have a good relationship with someone that you're struggling with someone that's difficult in your life, again, could be a friend that you're having trouble with, could be a family member, could be a well known public figure, you know, maybe you really are mad at Your senator or the president or whatever.

So it doesn't have to be someone you know, personally, but someone that just causes you anxiety and difficulty. Again, I'd like it to be someone that is currently alive. So take a minute and figure out just one person who that would be and write that down. Okay, so we have the name of someone that you love and get along with really well and we have a name of someone that you're struggling with. So we're gonna use both of those in this meta meditation. And so here's how it's gonna work.

I would like you to do. You're going to pick at least a 10 minute meditation. Now you can do this with a recording. You could do this on your own, you could do 10 minute you can do 20 minute but at least And I want you to to download the metta meditation instructions that are in this lesson. And here's what you're going to find in those instructions. Here's how it's gonna work in the middle of your meditation.

Sometime just in the middle. You're going to have the the person will start with the person that you that you have a good relationship with. And you'll see on the metta meditation form I'm going to have you think of that person. And then I'm going to have you ask not ask but think of the following statements as we think of that person. Here's the statements are on the downloaded sheet but here's let's just go through what they are. May you be happy?

May you be at peace. May you be Healthy May you be safe may you have love. So you think of the person that you have a good relationship with. And as you think of them you kind of slowly say silently to yourself those five statements. So you're going to do that at some point in your meditation you'll have the name of the person, you'll have the the the handout sheet with the five statements, and then you will say that somewhere in your, during your meditation. Next, during the same meditation at a different point, I want you to think of the person that you're struggling with.

And I want you to say the same five statements. May you be happy. May you be at peace. May you be happy. May you be safe, may you have love. And you're gonna slowly say those silently to yourself while thinking of the person that you're struggling with.

And then you might let a minute or two go by and then you're going to do it one more time and you're going to do it for yourself and you'll see that that the phrases changed just slightly. And so you say thinking of yourself, you say May I be happy, may I be at peace? May I be healthy? May I be safe? May I have love. So I want you to go do that meditation.

Again pick 10 or 20 minutes, you can do listen to a recording and do it in the middle of during that you know towards the end of those recordings when I'm not saying much or you can just do this on your own and time at have Your card with the or piece of paper with the two names person, you have a good relationship with the person you're struggling, have the sheet in front of you and ready. And obviously, when you're doing this, you can open your eyes a little bit and say each statement and you're going to do it for someone you're close to, and have a good relationship with someone you're struggling with. And yourself. So go do that and then come back and we'll talk about it. So this is called a metta meditation or loving kindness meditation. It's an interesting one to do.

I, I'm guessing most of my students say that when they do it for the person they love, it's just easy and nice. When they do it for the person they're struggling with. It's really hard. And sometimes they go like, No, I don't I don't want to tell that person you know, may they be happy. And the more resistance you have in saying it the More you know that you need to do it because you are having a reaction to this person. So this is something I suggest you do regularly, you don't have to do it every time you meditate, certainly.

But I suggest that especially if there's someone in your life that you're reacting to, and you're struggling with that you that you do this kind of metta meditation, what you will find over time is that, like, let's say there's someone, let's say I have a co worker, and I'm really not getting along with them. I'm just struggling with them. And they're just kind of making my life miserable at work. You'll find that if you do this metta meditation a couple of times, maybe over the course of a week, or two or three, the charge the reactiveness of your relationship with them changes, and that's a good thing, because then it causes you less stress. Now, I'm not saying you'll ever change that person or you may not even totally change your relationship with them. But you will be able to reduce somewhat the stress you have when you interact with them because you've taken away some of the reactiveness.

And I think it's always a good idea to do this periodically just for yourself just because you want to send yourself, love and wishes for happiness. So that's the metta meditation. And for homework what I'd like you to do is practice that is to, you can pick the same people that you picked during our session here or maybe you want to try someone else. And practice doing a metta meditation on someone you love, someone you struggling with and on yourself.