I recently went to visit a friend in the hospital who was
diagnosed with a heart ailment. She wore
a monitor around her neck and as we talked I saw the heart rate move up into
the 80’s and when she was quiet it lowered into the 70’s. I don’t know if all hearts beat like
this. Not many of us wear monitors throughout
the day but I bet if we did our heart rate would rise with our stress and lower
in our silence.
I asked her if she had a mantra to recite when she was
feeling worried or frightened. It often
helps our bodies to relax when we reassure ourselves that it will be okay, that
at this moment we can move into a personal way of healing. This kind of healing doesn’t always mean
complete restoration, but momentary peace and quiet. This in itself is healing for it is where the
comfort of God lies, or whatever Higher Power in which you put your faith.
I found a meditation called “Be Kind to Yourself” in
the November 2015 issue of Shambhala Sun, written by Kristin Neff, associate
professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She
also does research in the field of self-compassion and has written a book about
her work. The meditation is a three-step
contemplation that offers a way to bring compassion within yourself through
affirmation. Here is the process:
1. Put your
hand(s) on your heart, pause, and feel the warmth.
2. Breathe
deeply for a few seconds then relax your breathing.
3. Speak
these words out loud or silently to yourself in a warm and caring way:
This is a moment of suffering
Suffering
is a part of life.
May
I be kind to myself in this moment.
May
I give myself the compassion I need.
When doing
meditation or mantras it is important to know that you can change any of the
words to fit your personal needs. So
depending on how you feel, you might change the first sentence to say, “This is
a moment of pain, or a moment of sadness, a moment of grief or a moment of
anger.” You are recognizing that there
is a feeling that is very much centered in your body and you are holding it,
being at one with it. (You may place your hand(s) on any part of you that feels
pain or discomfort.)
The second
sentence addresses the fact that the emotion or feeling you are having is
legitimate and is “a part of life.” You
are not the only one who experiences these feelings, emotions, pains. Neff says
that this “is a part of the shared human experience.”
The last two
sentences enable you to be kind to yourself, to take care of that part of you
that hurts, to give yourself the love and attention you need when others are
perhaps being unkind or unforgiving, or if in the case of hospitalization,
others are busy doing “to you”—what you need is a personal hug and
reassurance. Certainly many turn to God
or a Higher Power during these times, and if we think about the Oneness of all
things, then perhaps our taking care of ourselves in this way is God within.
I once
shared a similar mantra with a directee and asked how it worked for her and she
said it was too long to remember. I
understand this as I often want something short and quick that I can use in the
moment of driving, or being confronted with an adversarial situation; something
simple enough to repeat over a few times until my heart rate and tension
stabilizes. So I offer this:
I give myself the compassion I need in this moment – all is well
