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3.1 | What have you learned from / observed in your formal meditation on continuing to practice mindfulness of the body and cultivate goodwill for the person with whom you are having difficulty?
Below, you will see the Session #3 reflection questions. Please answer these questions at the bottom of the screen.
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51 Replies
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I find Metta practice to be THE MOST VALUABLE, go-to meditation in my decades-long practice that helps me with people with whom I have challenges. Sometimes it feels rote, but even THAT is ok, I’ve learned through experience!
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I’ve learned that it’s a process and requires a commitment to returning multiple times to this practice which I found difficult. I tried to consider the value of this person in my life and set a clear intention and goal for what I was hoping to achieve. Therein lies a pre-existing heaviness. Whereas with the other metta practices, I was comfortable going into the practice more freely and open in my heart and mind.
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While practicing goodwill to those I find difficult, I’ve observed that I suddenly perceive them as doing their best and at times I’ve even found myself perceiving them as vulnerable. For instance, if they are agitated or defensive, perhaps this is due to their own insecurities and itnernal struggles. This practice has given me patience to fully accept their behavior and take a moment to choose how to respond to them mindfully and compassionately, rather than a thoughtless and emotion-driven reaction.
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I’m reading the book ‘Bewilderment’ right now. A big part of the book is about a boy who undergoes training to change his mind, to be less reactive, more open, calmer, assume more positive intent in others. He goes from being an anxious, angry overactive, even violent kid, to nearly a Buddha during this training. And it has to do with him working on feeling a certain way, not unlike meditation, matching a feeling he’s being told to sense (not unlike sensing metta). This reminds me of the meditation metta practice. I feel that I am training my brain, my mindset, to match metta. It feels like I am changing my mind, when I do metta practice, for a person I easily love, or one more difficult, it seems to improve my overall outlook. It makes me less reactive, more open, kinder, and more peaceful. The metta wish for all beings is contagious. I become metta in thinking about metta for others. It’s truly a curiosity for me to explore this, to know and observe this happening and its impact on my outlook, reactions and ability to be calm and present.
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Wishing goodwill and practicing Metta for the people I have difficulties with has helped to create softness in my interactions with them and others. I am finding that I attempt to feel things from the other person’s perspective a bit more regularly, and the growing awareness that someone may be difficult for me and perhaps not to someone else allows me to see more of what is probably reality vs a skewed emotionally fueled narrative.
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The metta with for people I am having difficulties with has been the hardest part of this class for me. I do it but I don’t love it. I’ll keep doing it. I have noticed that while I have difficult conversations all the time, the difficult people seem to have lessened since I started this. I suppose the metta practice helps to soften them (my perception) and myself.
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It makes a big difference to practice goodwill for them. It develops a tenderness and compassion for them in me and I realize that we are all just doing the best we can with the tools we have on any given day. Then I begin to focus on places of growth for myself. I do have to come back to this when a new trigger shows up but I’ve found fewer and fewer things to be a trigger given that my compassion wins over my unpleasant feelings every time.
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I have been watching how and when I am more or less distracted during my formal meditation practice, times when I am aware of my body and times when I’m too distracted and can’t keep my focus. I continue to notice all of the blocks and resistance that come up when I’m trying to cultivate goodwill for the person with whom I have difficulty. At a high level the goodwill is there, but when I observed more closely I notice all the thoughts and voices that are clamoring with the ways I’ve been hurt all the opinions I have about that. There’s a difficult conversation in the making there that just needs the right time to happen.
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Something shifted positively in my practice when I shifted from repeatedly attempting metta for a previous boss who abused a position of power. The organizational structure had been such that he could deny any requests for mediation, among other challenges, not about the work but work-culture. Recently I heard a helpful teaching from Tara Brach that indirectly addressed metta practices in situations like these, leading me to see how my repeated attempts at metta for this person was setting back my broader metta practice. Even after I resigned and geographically moved, I essentially still felt unsafe trying to practice metta for him. Stopping to redirect my practice beyond this person opened new spaces to start growing metta again, letting in more light.
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I learned that I am able to create a bit more space around a difficult person when I am grounded in my own body, first, and then breathe in the difficult feelings surrounding that person, breathing out and then releasing some of the difficulty (and the story surrounding that)
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I have observed a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for the parts of my body that I often take for granted, yet keep me functioning on a daily basis. I have also experimented with focusing my attention not just on limbs and external body parts, but internal organs like my lungs, my stomach, the bones in my feet (I’m a runner :)), and so on.
I have learned that my cultivation of goodwill can feel genuine even amidst other emotional states such as disappointment, sadness, or anger. Finding a place of compassion and sending out goodwill to others can coexist with other emotions; it does not make any one emotional experience invalid or disingenuous.
I’m reminded of this quote by Bryan Stevenson — ‘Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.’
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Honestly I don’t have much to add here. I do not struggle with cultivating goodwill for anyone and it has not had much of an impact on my practice or my work.
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I’ve been practicing metta for a difficult person for quite a while. My biggest turnaround was when I heard a story that Sharon Salzberg shared about saying metta for a difficult person – she realized something like, “I’m someone’s difficult person!” That did it for me. We are no different than anyone else. I have no problem or reluctance to offer metta for a “difficult” person. I hope that would offer it for me.
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For the mindfulness meditation, I did try paying close attention one time when my back was bothering me, trying to isolate it to which vertebrae were giving me trouble.
For the person with difficulty, I found it challenging. I would occasionally drop back to a benefactor instead. I chose people that I don’t know personally, and found myself using my good wishes as hopes that they would change their behavior. “I can wish for their happiness, because it feels as though some of the things that offend me about their behavior come from unhappiness.” I think this is not fully in the spirit of acceptance and recognition of commonality, but it was my crutch.
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This practice has opened up space in my mind and heart for myself in the midst of difficulty. Breathing into my own body and my own awarenesses and keeping the camera focused on myself through the formal mediation practice has opened up more relationship with people, especially “difficult” people. How much energy have I been bringing to these interactions unconsciously that has not been helpful? Definitely more than I can see, especially when proceeding without mindful awareness. This practice has been a huge blessing in providing psychological safety internally. Thank you
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