HealthyGamerGG - How To Love Yourself | Meditation

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Today Dr. K talks about loving yourself and a meditation for kindness towards yourself. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and even boxing everything you need on and off. The Peloton Tread. Experience it all for yourself with a 30-day home trial. Learn more at OnePeloton.com. So we're going to talk for a second about metta meditation. So metta meditation is called loving, also known as loving kindness meditation. And we're going to talk to you all a little bit. We're going to go through it.

We're going to do it at the end of stream today, together. But before we do that, we're going to go ahead and take a look at some of the components of it. Okay. This is where what we want to kind of look at is, first of all, metta means kindness. And I think metta is a poly word, so it's not Sanskrit. So what we want to do is cultivate a capacity for kindness. And why is this important? So let's remember that if we're talking about someone who is, let's say, the lonely, desperate male or person, the first thing to understand is that oftentimes, you know, you have thoughts like ugly, I'm desperate.

These are people who are starved for affection. So how do you think they feel about themselves? right? So they have a very, what's the right word, harsh view of self. And then this then projects out into a harsh view of the world, right? Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And when my eyes are so used to seeing a harsh view of the self, what I end up seeing is a harsh view of the world as well. And if we look at these people, they have difficulty with empathy. They have difficulty with compassion. They have difficulty with social connectedness, as we've sort of already talked about. They also have difficulty with things like depression and anxiety. Negative feelings, worries is maybe another way to put it. And then they also have difficulty with like life forward choices, for lack of a better term. So this includes things like health promotion behaviors.

But I would say on a deeper level, it's more like when we say work on yourself, That involves all kinds of things about moving your life forward, and they struggle with motivation in these things. And let's understand how that works. So now, how can cultivating a capacity for kindness help with these sorts of things? So let's kind of think about that. So the first is, so method meditation involves kindness towards the self. and this is important for the life forward motivation.

And why is that? It's because when I don't think I'm worth it, I'm not worth fixing. So it's like if I have low value, like I want you all to think about the oldest computer you have in your house that doesn't work anymore. And I want you to think about how worth it is it to fix that computer,

which is probably why it's like sitting. If you're like me, it's like sitting in your garage. It's like two decades old. And it's just like, we haven't thrown it out because we may need it one day. But it's not really worth fixing. And so when we think a little bit about, you know,

how our brain calculates like what's worth fixing, it's the things that are valuable. And if I'm not valuable, I'm not worth fixing. And this is what makes it hard to work on myself. So we can say work on yourself. but like, it's hard because it's not, you know, it's like, what's the point? So this is important to develop kindness towards yourself. And I think met the meditation needs to be modified, in my opinion.

We'll talk about that in a second. So we sort of dealt with this, okay? Second thing is when we develop empathy and compassion, there's room for someone else in the relationship. And this is important because generally speaking, I don't think it's the desperation. that drives people away. I mean, it can for sure. But I choose to believe that people are not so selfish as that.

And like, it's not the desperation, which you can also get cognitively reinforced because if they try to help you and like you're so unwilling to help them or be helped by them that eventually they get fed up and they have to leave. And then what you conclude

is that, oh, I'm too desperate. And they smelled it and they ran away. Whereas that person is going to have an experience of that relationship, which oftentimes is where the misdiagnosis comes in, we don't really like talk to them about it, right? Because we're not really able to hear it. And when I have a cognitive bias that I'm a low value person and someone says, yeah, like, I tried to help you and I just like, it wasn't working. And you're like, oh, that means I couldn't be helped. I'm unhelpable. So that's what your mind is going to conclude with. This is exactly

what you see in therapies. Like, when you have people who have very low self-worth, they will take whatever you say, and they will spin it in the worst possible thing, and they will use it as evidence to reinforce their existing beliefs. So when you develop empathy and compassion for other people, there's going to be room for someone else in the relationship. And then this, in turn, is going to reduce the feeling of being an object, potentially for you and the other person in the relationship. This is huge. So then we kind of talk a little bit about social connectedness. And I think this essentially follows from this. Right? So, like, as you connect with another human being, as you acknowledge yourself as a person,

as you acknowledge the other person as a person, now two people can connect. And now it's not about desperate getting your needs met in starvation. It's about two human beings forming a relationship. And as we do all these things, we can actually set ourselves up to, like, actually engage in healthy relationships. So now the question becomes, okay, so if I've convinced you at this point, then like, now we get to the how. So what is this method meditation and how does it work? So I'm going to talk to you all about traditional met the meditation. And when I do met the meditation, my kind of modified or digital gen generation met the meditation, because I think some things have changed. So traditionally when you do met the meditation,

what you'll do is you'll start with some kind of phrase. So like, may you be happy, may you be free, may you be at peace. So you'll repeat this thought directed towards a particular group of people or person. So like you'll just literally practice like wishing for the object of your metta that these things happen to them. May this person be happy, may this person be free, and may this person be at peace. Now, there are a couple of important things here. Three really important elements. The first is the word may.

This moves away from determinism. And if we look at this, this is all deterministic. Like if we talk to people who are desperate and alone, they have a very deterministic view of the world. No women will love me because I'm ugly. Deterministic statement. I don't talk to women and none like me, deterministic statement.

I'm emotionally abused. and don't know how to talk to women. Deterministic statement. I don't feel comfortable with women. Even deterministic. It doesn't say sometimes. It's all flat. It may be valid.

We're not saying it's wrong, but it's deterministic. So, like, I want you to just think about this for a second. If this person said, you know, it may be hard for some women to love me because of the way that I look versus no women will love me because I'm ugly. Which of those statements is healthier?

I don't talk to women and none like me versus it's hard for me to talk to women and some of them don't like me. Do you all see the difference between those two statements? So literally met the meditation starts by getting away from determinism. It acknowledges that there are things outside of my control and that the future is not set in stone. So it practices this faculty. Second thing that it does is moves focus away from the self. there's the other problem that these kinds of people have is that if you look at this sort of internal sense of distress

this is a very self-focused distress personal distress so we need to move away from that personal element we need to start we need to practice and train our mind to think about the thoughts and feelings and experiences of others sure I'm lonely and starved for affection but what is this person need what is their experience of this in-reiber action. So we need to move away from the I and move towards the you. And the third element,

which is really important, is just the cultivation of positivity. Now, this is sort of a, this is a tightrope, to be sure. So it's very easy for the cultivation of positivity to move into denial of toxicity. So we don't, we want to be accepting, we want to be positive, but we don't want to invalidate or deny the experience of negativity or toxicity. But we can absolutely hope for and wish for positivity. So may this person be free, may this person be happy, may this person be a peace. Now traditionally, so these actually we're going to keep, these are all the same. And in terms of the modified, I think what we've really done is understand the components of methammeditation. I don't know that people explain this stuff when they teach methammeditation. They just say,

you just need to repeat this stuff. So what we try to add in our modified method meditation is an understanding of the psychology at play here when you cultivate these kinds of thoughts. Now, traditionally, these thoughts are directed towards five sets of people. The first is they're directed towards the self. So you say, you know, may I be happy?

Or like, you kind of externalize yourself a little bit, so we'll kind of talk about that. But you don't say I. You say like, you know, like, envision yourself and direct that happiness towards yourself, almost as an external person. Like close your eyes and imagine like a bird's eye view of like you sitting in a room and like look at that person and try to say, may this person be happy. May this person be free and may this person be at peace. You can use eye if you want to.

Second thing is traditionally they would then direct it towards a guru or teacher. Okay. Third thing is they direct it towards a friend. Fourth thing is directed towards a neutral party. Fifth thing is they direct it towards an enemy. So if we kind of think a little bit about wishing these thoughts, traditionally they met the people believe that it's easy to wish for yourself happiness. We all want happiness for ourselves. Next thing is that this is back in the day of gurus,

so it's like easy to like want happiness and peace and stuff. stuff for your guru because they're your teacher, you respect them, et cetera. Next thing is it's easy to direct good vibes towards friends. Harder to direct good vibes towards, because this is someone who's doing a lot for you. So you have presumably natural gratitude directed towards this. So we all have self-love. We all have gratitude. Friends is like maybe less so than someone who's like teaching you this stuff, but, you know,

you have good vibes pretty easily. harder is towards people who are neutral, and the hardest is to try to love or wish good things for your enemies. Now, in the modern day, I think this changes. So the first is that I think this is just someone you respect. So I would start with someone that you respect and appreciate. It doesn't have to be a friend. So if you've had like, you know, a teacher who's had a large impact on your life, like an uncle or a family member who's been very positive towards you, I think we want to step away from sort of the spiritual traditions in some ways. So I think definitely here we want to do that. So you don't have to direct it towards a guru.

Second thing is we're going to do friend. And can you wish for your friend to be happy? Can you say to yourself authentically that may this person be happy? May this person be free? May this person be at peace. Can you say that for someone that you respect? Can you say that for a friend of yours? Generally speaking, I hope so.

Now, this is where things get interesting. Depending on how you feel about yourself, self is either number three or number four. So when you think about yourself, I think it's unfortunate, but a lot of people that I've worked with can't view themselves as even lower than neutral. So if they start to send good vibes towards themselves, and by good vibes, I mean, literally, repeating these thoughts with as much authenticity as you can muster and compassion as you can muster. It feels wrong. It's like, I don't actually deserve that crap. I'm a POS, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If that's the case, that's okay. We're going to move you down to the higher difficulty. No problem. So can you direct them towards someone you respect and someone you appreciate?

someone, a friend of yours, good, someone neutral, then yourself. And then lastly, an enemy. So this is what I would say is easier for modern day method meditation. Maybe self is number three, maybe self is number one, and you can do it, and that's totally fine. But the goal here is to try to remember that when we're trying to cultivate a new faculty in the mind, what we want to do is try to reduce the conflict in our mind. So we want to start with a thing that's easiest. It's almost like we're going to play the tutorial before we get to level one.

And then we're going to play level one, and then we're going to play level two, and we're going to play level three. Now the question is, like, back in the day, this was the tutorial, this was level one, this was level two. We may have to move that around a little bit because we've changed as people. And even if you look at like old texts from the karmic religions,

they sort of say that meditation techniques need to be sort of reinterpreted, which is why we have multiple teachers. So there were various incarnations of Vishnu, and these people got revered as divine, right? So we're probably spiritual teachers, essentially. Juries out on whether they're truly divine or whatever. We're going to stay clear of that metaphysics for today. And then, like, later, their teachings were reinterpreted by the Buddha

for a different group of people. and then he developed, you know, Buddhism. And then later those, you know, teachings have been reinterpreted by people like the Dalai Lama, by people like, you know, Eckhart Toll, like all these other teachers that have come. Even your local meditation teacher or yoga teacher will offer their own perspective and people will gravitate to them. So these teachings, which may be true, continuously get reinterpreted. And so based on like my understanding of the population that we kind of in the world that we live in,

like, this may be easier. And the goal is to authentically cultivate compassion towards these objects. And to formulate that compassion in this particular phrasing, which I think the phrasing is powerful and specific. And there's a reason why it's structured that way.

So now we're going to practice method meditation. And the goal here is that, like, you know, we're going to cultivate hopefully all of these things and we know, actually, interestingly enough, scientifically, that this works. Right? So we have data.

from scientific studies that show that these are the outcomes that we can expect from a rigorous method meditation practice. Okay? So let's go to the practice itself. So like I mentioned, there's going to be, may you be happy, may you be free, and may you be at peace. And what we're essentially going to do is direct, we're going to repeat each of these phrases three times

while directing it towards a particular person. and what I want you to do is just in yourself, try to muster up as much authentic compassion as you can. So you know when you really want something? Like, man, I really hope Eldon Ring is not a disappointment. Man, I can't wait to play Eldon Ring. Man, it's so awesome. Or when someone says, oh, yeah, I just started playing Eldon Ring.

You're like, dude, you are in for a treat. Or, man, that sucks. I'm so sorry for you. you know so this is where you can generate an authentic emotional experience when thinking about someone else i'm so excited for you oh you've never been to hawaii it's amazing man you're going to have the time of your life i really hope you have a fantastic vacation so you can generate authentic compassionate statements directed towards other people so we're going to try to do that with these three phrases and so what i want you to do is as best as you can hope that this

this person really kind of put it out into the universe that like, may this person be happy, may this person be free of worries or free. And may this person be at peace. I hope they don't stress. I hope they don't suffer. And so we're going to pick someone that you respect or you appreciate first. And we're going to say this three times. I'm going to do it silently, but you can do it out loud if you want to.

And so imagine that person. picture them in your mind and then repeat this each phrase three times. And you can do it kind of in order. So may you be happy, maybe free, may you be at peace. Maybe happy, maybe free, may you be at peace. And then what we're going to do is we're going to move on to a friend. And then we're going to move on to a neutral person. And then we're going to move on to ourselves.

And then we're going to move on to someone we dislike. Okay. And I want you to just notice the. natural cultivation of the feelings that you get. If you wind up feeling really positive towards yourself, then you can absolutely move yourself to the top of the list. You can also, you don't have to do the whole practice with all people right away, but we're going to do that today. Okay. So we're going to sit up straight. Who's first is respected, someone that you respect or appreciate. Okay. So close your eyes. Take a few moments to breathe in and breathe out.

and now imagine the first person, someone you respect and appreciate, breathe in and out, picture them in your mind, and repeat your metta phrases. Three phrases, three phrases, three times each, begin. And now we're going to move on to a friend. So imagine a friend,

someone who you care about, and now repeat our metha kindness, meditation towards them. May you be happy, may you be free, may you be at peace. Now we're going to move on to a neutral person. Just imagine someone that you've interacted with in the last few days. Picture them as best as possible. Take a moment to kind of focus your mind on that person. And now send them metta kindness through our three phrases. And now picture yourself. almost as if you were floating above in the room. See yourself sitting there.

And now direct metta towards yourself. May you be happy, may you be free, may you be at peace. And now direct it towards someone who you have negative feelings towards. Picture that person. Notice that it may be a little bit harder to recall or call up those feelings of compassion but try anyway fix that person in your mind

and send metta to them may you be happy may you be free may you be at peace two more rounds in your mind and now put your hands together in namaste position as we begin to bring the practice

to a close and notice all of the world swirling around you, things that you have to do, responsibilities that you have, goals that you have, wants that you have, unfulfilled desires, pressures, worries, and that in this moment, you can find some modicum of peace as the rest of the world feels outside of you. And give thanks for this moment and for the situation that you're in, for the person that you are, find gratitude for whatever you can in this moment, as authentically as you can. And with one final breath, as you exhale, give thanks, and open your eyes.