Loving-kindness · metta · outward
Loving-kindness built warmth. It did not wipe the bad days.
You already send a line like may you be safe toward someone else.
You want the day to feel warmer. Then a hard afternoon still shows up, and you wonder if the line even counted.
Loving-kindness, also called metta, is that outward wish. You pick a person and send the line toward them. The I-am cards can stay on the desk while you do it.
Send the line toward someone else
Sit with one person in mind, a friend or someone in the next room, and say the line toward them in a quiet voice: may you be safe.
You say the wish out loud and point it at them. You can send it while the afternoon is still hard.
People already do a version of this in a quiet room. Some use may you be happy. Some use may you be well. You still send the line outward.
People in the class got warmer
Fredrickson's group ran a loving-kindness class in 2008, printed it in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and gave the paper the title Open Hearts Build Lives so you can find the same file.
People in the class met for an hour, six times, across seven weeks, and daily warmth went up for that group while people who waited for the class stayed flat on the same daily reports.
Negative feelings stayed put. Nine of the eighteen resources they tracked went up.
Read the paper at doi.org/10.1037/a0013262 and at pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3156028.
A hard afternoon can still show up
Negative feelings stayed on the daily reports. People in the class still logged more warmth week by week.
You can feel a lift and still have a rough Tuesday. The people who waited never got that lift.
Kok ran a later study in 2013 with 65 people and a heart-rhythm score. That is a different study. The 2008 class is the story on this URL.
The I-am cards can stay
An I-am card is a line you say about you, like I AM ENOUGH, facing a mirror, and you can keep those cards on the desk if they help you stand up in the morning.
You point the same kind of line at someone else when you practice loving-kindness. You can run both in one week.
Open the affirmation page if you want the I-am walk-through. Open the memory reconsolidation page if you want the few hours after an old memory comes back.
Questions that come up on a hard afternoon
Does a hard afternoon cancel the class?
No. Daily warmth still rose for the people who took the class. The reports still showed the rough days.
Do I put the I-am cards away?
Keep them. You use the cards to talk to yourself. You use the kindness line to talk to someone else.
Do I need a weekly group?
The study used six hour-long meetings. This week you can still send one line toward one person.
Send one line this week
Pick one person. Send may you be safe toward them once.
Keep the I-am cards you already use. You wanted warmth, and a hard afternoon still showed up, yet people in the class still logged more warmth by week seven when they kept sending the outward line. Send the line anyway.
If a hard week needs a doctor, call one.
Sources
Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek, Finkel. “Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2008;95(5):1045-1062. DOI 10.1037/a0013262. PMID 18954193. Completers n=139 (67 class, 72 waitlist). Started 202. Six 60-min sessions across 7 weeks. Condition × week b=0.041. Class week slope b=0.03. Dose week 2 = 0.06 vs week 7 = 0.17. Nine of 18 resources. Negatives did not drop. doi.org/10.1037/a0013262 · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3156028
Kok 2013. Later different work. n=65. HF-HRV.