Dear Friends,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Galway Kinnell’s poem St Francis and the Sow<\/em> starts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bud In her book Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness<\/a><\/em>, Sharon Salzberg writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “To reteach a thing its loveliness” is the nature of metta.<\/p>page 18<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Later, she says of the practice of mett\u0101<\/em>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n The practice of metta, uncovering that force of love that can uproot fear, anger, and guilt, begins with befriending ourselves. The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. … How few of us embrace ourselves that way!<\/p>page 25<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Befriending myself wasn’t something I thought was possible when I first started practicing. Like many people, there is a harsh self-critic that likes to hang around and tell me how I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy of love, I really screwed up that time, etc. When I read that one must be able to wish oneself well before proceeding to others, I thought I’d never be able to do this practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharon Salzberg addressed this in her most recent book, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have never believed that you must completely love yourself first before you can love another. I know many people who are hard on themselves, yet love their friends and family deeply and are loved in return—though they might have difficulty in receiving that love. But it’s hard to sustain love for others in the long haul until we have a sense of inner abundance and sufficiency.<\/p>page 15<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Sharon and bell hooks had an interesting discussion about this passage on a podcast<\/a> (also partially transcribed here<\/a>). Sharon explains this a little further:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you give love to others without loving yourself, you\u2019ll be out of balance. You won\u2019t find wholeness.<\/p> On the other hand, I don\u2019t think loving yourself one hundred percent should become the project before you ever work on loving somebody else. <\/p>https:\/\/www.lionsroar.com\/the-power-of-real-love\/<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n If you find it difficult to offer mett\u0101<\/em> to yourself, one way that may help is to visualize yourself as a young child – full of innocence, wonder, and joy. Then offering the phrases of well-wishing to that being, and then gradually extending the intention toward kindness towards yourself now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ll also suggest some other variations of phrases from different teachers, as you may find some resonate with you better than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeanne Corrigal has used a version of the phrases similar to these:<\/p>\n\n\n\n May I be safe in awareness and kindness. To close today, Christina Feldman offers a suggestion on what to do if this gets too painful or difficult:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you find that your tolerance for standing near the painful begins to falter, you can experiment with bringing your mindfulness to the areas of your body that are well—absorbing a felt sense of ease. Pain is not the totality of your experience in that moment. Pain can coexist with ease and wellness. A significant aspect of boundless friendliness is in experientially knowing the possibility of peaceful coexistence between pain and wellness, the difficult and the lovely.<\/p>page 30<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Gently and gradually, we can befriend ourselves, reteaching ourselves our own loveliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With warm wishes, Dear Friends, Galway Kinnell’s poem St Francis and the Sow starts: The budstands for all things,even for those things that don\u2019t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on its browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[171,137,170,32,41,48],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jan-2019","tag-bell-hooks","tag-christina-feldman","tag-galway-kinnell","tag-jeanne-corrigal","tag-metta","tag-sharon-salzberg"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1805,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grzesina.net\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
stands for all things,
even for those things that don\u2019t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing<\/p>https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/42683\/saint-francis-and-the-sow<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
May I know the joy and happiness in small things every day.
May my body support me as best it can.
May I live with ease and peace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Andrea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"