The Practice of Loving-Kindness: Reduce Your Anxiety and Help Heal The World
Our world is a pretty chaotic place right now. As a society, we seem to be more divided than ever.
Whether the topic is politics, the pandemic, the vaccine or social justice issues, opinions from both sides are very high and heated. People can no longer have a conversation with someone they disagree with for fear of being judged or canceled. Family and friends are divided and some no longer talk to each other. In general, we seem to have lost the ability as a society to see the good in people and to be open to another’s opinion and perspective.
And this saddens me deeply.
If you’re like me, this might also heighten your anxiety since it seems there is nothing that can be done to stop these dividing conversations. But, I’m here to tell you that there is something we can do - we can practice gratitude and loving-kindness. It starts with self-love and moves toward seeing our shared humanity and experiences with others. In today’s blog I’m sharing how a gratitude practice can begin to shift your own negativity bias so you can reduce your anxiety, improve social connections and feel happier in life.
The Negative Bias
Have you ever wondered why we don’t practice gratitude more often or why it’s really hard to make the shift toward appreciation and gratitude?
Our negativity bias is hard-wired because the nature of the ego is to be selfish. Your ego is all about self-preservation and keeping things exactly as they are or the way you want them to be. When things don’t go as planned, the ego feels threatened and the mind kicks in to solve the problem. It does this by creating order through the stories we tell ourselves - who we are, what matters most, what we can accomplish in this world and what we’re all about. These stories are formed during your childhood and shape the person you are today.
Here’s an example - Let’s say little Johnny comes home from school after getting a B+ on his history exam. He’s pretty excited because history has been a tough subject for him and he can’t wait to share the news with his father. When he shows his dad the grade, dad responds with, “Why didn’t you get an A?” Pretty quickly Johnny feels terrible that he’s disappointed his father. At that moment Johnny’s ego kicks in and says “I don’t ever want to feel that way again” and creates a story that he has to do better, always. Before too long, Johnny becomes a perfectionist well into his adult life because he fears disappointing himself and others.
Your brain is constantly using these stories and scanning for all the ways things could go wrong because it believes it can control the situation and stay alive. These hard-wired patterns are difficult to change, but the good news is that we can learn to train the brain to look for the good in the world instead of just the bad. And shifting this perspective will bring you a sense of ease and connectedness.
The Power of Gratitude
There is something very interesting about what happens when you concentrate and focus on gratitude. In 2015, a study was done that showed how feeling gratitude and appreciation can impact your life (see graphic to the left).
In fact, when you practice gratitude, studies have shown that although it doesn’t happen overnight, the neural pathways of your brain actually change to start looking for the good instead of constantly scanning for the bad. Studies show that there is an increased activity in parts of the brain related to empathy and perspective-taking.
For example, instead of walking into a room and seeing a dusty shelf or a cluttered desk, you might notice the sunlight streaming in from the window or your favorite painting above your desk.
A gratitude practice can be incredibly impactful not only in our own life but in our environment as well because our energy follows our awareness - or what you focus on will move your energy in that direction. If you begin to train yourself to look for the good around you, your energy will shift that way as well. You will start to show up in the world with more gratitude and love for yourself and others, and that will feed others to do the same. It simply takes one small act of kindness and gratitude to create a greater sense of connectedness and cultivate a shift that could open a ton of possibilities. One way to begin cultivating these acts of kindness is through a loving-kindness meditation.
What is Loving-Kindness?
My teacher, Jonathan Foust, always shares the following story when he explains Loving-Kindness.
Imagine you are walking in the park and you see a sweet little puppy up ahead. You immediately feel joy and excitement to pet the puppy. But as you approach, the puppy lunges at you and tries to bite you. You jump back, no longer feeling excitement or joy, and say, “what the heck, puppy! I’m just trying to be nice! Why are you being so aggressive toward me?” You are now angry and upset at the puppy. But then you look down. And you see the puppy’s leg is caught in a trap. And you immediately understand why the dog lunged at you - it was scared and afraid. Instead of being angry, you now feel compassion and understanding and you reach down to help the puppy out of love.
In Sanskrit the word Metta translates generally to loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, fellowship and/or non-violence. It is the strong wish for the general welfare and happiness of others and yourself. A loving-kindness, or Metta, meditation is the practice of sending kind attention toward ourselves and others and it helps to create an open-hearted quality in more of your own experiences and the experiences you share with others. It deepens your capacity to react to situations with more kindness and care.
This meditation starts with sending loving-kindness to yourself first. For many of us, including me, this can be very difficult. The stories our ego tells us can make it hard to think we are worthy of love. We learn over time to be much harder on ourselves than others. But you are a person worthy of love because it is your birthright. And before you can send loving-kindness to others, you have to offer it to yourself first.
Once you offer loving-kindness to yourself, you move on to send loving-kindness to others that cause you different levels of difficulty. The classical order is:
Yourself
A mentor or someone you admire
A friend or loved one
A neutral person (a store owner or the mail carrier)
Someone who is creating stress or a challenge in your life
All beings
With each stage, you will bring to mind an image of that person and send them well-wishes through certain repetitive phases that will help you change the way you pay attention to yourself and to others in your life. The phrases I tend to use are:
May I/you be happy
May I/you be healthy
May I/you be safe from harm
May I/you live with ease
You can also choose phrases that might work better for you. You want to choose phrases that you most wish for yourself and others.
I believe that we need the practice of gratitude and kindness now more than ever. The amount of uncertainty and worry in our world leaves us feeling fearful and anxious. It’s easy to think this way because of how our brains are hard-wired. But finding the courage to turn away from fear and toward compassion and understanding is what we all need right now in order to shift our own negativity bias and begin to open up to different and new perspectives and possibilities. This is not easy. And change will not happen overnight. But I do believe that this small act of self-love on a regular basis has the power to bring us closer together as a society and be happier in our lives.