In these meditations, the object is to cultivate and send out compassion to the world and all living beings in it, including ourselves. According to Marci Quinn, spiritual author of A Teen’s Spirit: Changing the World Through Love and Kindness, “A loving kindness meditation is a powerful tool to help you experience forgiveness and compassion for yourself, those you know, and even those you don’t. By actively visualizing yourself extending love to people during your meditation, a deep sense of peace and calmness sets in.” This is a particularly beneficial meditation to try if you’re looking to hold space for someone, enhance your communication skills, and deepen your relationship to yourself and the world around you. “Aside from the sense of peace that you can receive,” Quinn notes, “this practice can help improve your relationships with family and friends with whom you may normally have deep-rooted, recurring issues. Offering love and forgiveness to those who may not seem to ‘deserve’ it is one of the most transformational choices you can make in your life.” In addition to that, Quinn adds it’s also beneficial to choose people that you may have negative feelings toward or unresolved issues with. “Bringing them into your meditation will help open pathways to actually feel forgiveness and compassion for them despite any of their perceived wrongdoings or shortcomings. In offering love and kindness to others, you can be sure you will receive it as well.” Once you can extend that love and compassion to those you may struggle with, it opens the pathway to healing. “A loving-kindness meditation practice will help shift your perspective of others (and yourself) from fear-based to love-based thoughts,” she notes, “which helps open you up to receive all the blessings you deserve.”
