Widening the circle with Loving Kindness - Mettā Meditation

This practice was recorded live during Anne’s program called 21 Days of Mindfulness and Loving Kindness. Anne guides participants through a transformative practice of self-compassion and compassion for others. 

Focusing our awareness on our moment-to-moment experience and the flow of life that is the breath, Anne starts by inviting us to rest with the waves of the inhale and exhale. We explore the quality and texture of the in-breath and out-breath, before leaning towards it with a tender curiosity. With each inhale we receive nourishment and care, allowing the breath to naturally carry qualities of kindness to every cell of our being.

As the practice unfolds, we are invited to extend this compassion outward, envisioning the exhale as a flow of goodness directed towards loved ones in need of support. Through this visualisation, we tap into a vast reservoir of compassion, allowing the breath to do the work of delivering kindness from our hearts to others. This act of giving and receiving is meant to foster a deep sense of connection and empathy, reinforcing our interrelatedness to all beings.

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Loving Kindness meditation is known as a practice for opening the heart that helps us develop compassion. This short practice, recorded live in January 2024, invites us to explore the practice of Mettā towards a benefactor. 

How it works: we silently repeat a set of phrases of well-wishing, like mantras laden with positive intentions, while we visualise someone in our life.

You may wonder who is a benefactor in your life. Here we mean someone who has shown you care,  inspired you, or looked after you. It can be someone close to you or someone you don’t know, such as a distant figure that somehow has brought good into your life. Overall, choose someone who brings a smile to your face when you think of them.

As Anne invites us to concentrate on our benefactor, she reminds us that the juice of the practice is in the combined power of our concentration meeting the intentions contained in the phrases.

Anne ends with a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that says: 

‘Only your compassion and your loving kindness are invincible and without limits.’ 

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Meditation teacher Anne Mühlethaler guides us into a mindfulness of the body practice, where we explore the points in the body that are in contact with the floor and the surface upon which we are seated. 

We are invited to find a posture that invites a sense of aliveness, energy as well as a feeling of relaxation. Then, noticing the quality of the support at each touch point, we learn to rest our attention to examine and be with the sensations that may be present in the body. 

As with other mindfulness of the body practices, we try to remain with the body as best we can, exploring this realm of pure sensations, without letting our mind wander off. But when it does (which it will), we gently come back to rest our awareness on the sensations, as they come and go. 

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This short guided meditation was recorded live in January as the first of a 21 day course on Mindfulness and Loving Kindness.

When we do the body scan in meditation, often our mind will default to try and visualise the areas of the body that we are guided to explore. Teacher Anne Muhlethaler here invites us to use our attention like a sensorial flashlight, in this short 15 minute body scan. 

Placing the power of our awareness on the sensations, whether external or arising from within, we are guided to examine and stay with our moment-to-moment experience. 

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

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IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

In this 12-minute guided meditation, teacher Anne Mühlethaler invites us to first explore the touchpoints of the body, making them the anchor for this mindfulness of the body practice.  

While we keep our attention focused within the body — on the hands, or the sit bones or the feet against the ground — we may feel a multitude of sensations. We are also invited to note what sensations may arise, careful not to narrate the experience but instead concentrating on the felt sense of what is occurring in the body. 

Anne notes that fluctuation is the only thing that is truly permanent. 

So we learn to rest our attention, and yet our attention is continuously moved and pulled by the river of the moment-to-moment sensations. 

In practising mindfulness of the body, we become intimate with the movements of aliveness within and, as best we can, we rest our awareness on the changing experience. 

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

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This is the first in a series of guided practices to teach new and curious beginners the meditation called Mettā, or Loving Kindness. Mindfulness and Meditation teacher Anne Mühlethaler has chosen to develop a short course to help newcomers to meditation trial this lesser-known yet powerful ancient Buddhist practice. 

Mettā is said to be a practice of cultivating unconditional love as well as positive energy towards oneself, others, and the world at large, by putting our attention on psycho-active phrases like well-wishes. 

Because it’s often hard to find more time in our day to add yet another thing to do, this series features short meditations. Each new step will build onto what’s been explored in the previous lesson, and the goal is to get us to start with five minutes a day. 

The most important thing is to start! The entire course will be available shortly on Insight Timer, you can follow Anne’s teacher page to find out more. 

This first episode starts with an introduction to Mettā, to its benefits, the mechanics, so to speak, and Anne shares some recent academic findings about the minimum effort required to start feeling said benefits in our lives. 

Now surprise, surprise, the first recipient of loving kindness is yourself. So for this lesson, we concentrate on ourselves. 

For any questions, queries, and support, please contact Anne.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

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For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

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For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

You’ve heard Anne discuss Mettā and Mindfulness here. But what are their benefits? Do they offer different results? Should you pick one over the other?

In this episode, Anne shares her takeaways from a lecture she heard by renowned teacher Sharon Salzberg on these very questions.

The short answer: Although Mettā and Mindfulness are designed differently, both forms of meditation have the benefit of bringing us a sense of centering and the ability to become more sensitive.

Listen to hear Anne reveal more of Ms Salzberg’s perspective — including how you can sense when the meditation has started ‘working’.

***

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and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

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and follow Anne on social media:

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We are born in this strange lifestyle that we rarely admit to experiencing: we sort of live with someone else, an ever-present inner roommate, that is oftentimes the greatest source of distress, anxiety and discomfort in our lives. 

Have you ever considered what could be done to make it a better relationship? Or, let’s say, to create a better living environment in your own mind?

Meditation mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler leads us in a guided visualisation first to imagine our ideal home where we can feel at ease, then to observe the presence of a roommate that shadows our every move. Once we can see how the invading being disrupts the peace and calm of our home, Anne guides us to reflect on our relationship with our inner roommate — that constant narrator in our lives — and consider how it can be improved. 

***

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and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

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Khyentse Rinpoche, the Tibetan teacher, wrote, "Mind creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there's nothing much to it. It's just thoughts."

Maybe one of the biggest hindrances to meditation is what is referred to as the waterfall effect. As soon as we close our eyes, with the idea that we will somehow find some peace and quiet, we realise that we can’t stop thinking. We feel like we are drowned under the torrent of thoughts coming down on us. Faced with this onslaught, we open our eyes, and at the first chance we have, we'll tell our friends: “Meditation? Oh it’s not for me. I absolutely cannot meditate, I have way too many thoughts.” 

In this guided meditation, Anne Mühlethaler offers a metaphorical journey where we get to observe the mind with the mind, where we approach the contents of our mindstream from another angle. 

Becoming mindful of our thoughts is subtle, and not easy, but it is also revolutionary. As soon as we start to become an observer of the thoughts coming in and out of our mindstream, we gain perspective — starting with this big a-ha: we are not our thoughts.

As Anne explains, we’ll come into contact with the fact that while some of our thoughts are brilliant, others are not so useful, some harmful, others reruns (recurring constantly) or are even fake news. 

In this practice, using the metaphor of a river, we first settle and ground through feeling the sensations in the body before looking at the contents of our mindstream. We learn to notice the thoughts that are supportive, and we practise lovingly letting go of those that aren’t so useful. And using that muscle of mindfulness, we discern that we are the clear nature of the observer, seeing all that moves through the stream, but no longer identifying with it. 

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

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and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

A short and sweet meditation where we are invited to connect with the breath and the sensations in the body, to cultivate a sense of grounding and quieten the mind. 

We often tighten the body without noticing, and in this meditation mindfulness teacher Anne Muhlethaler (@annvi and @_outoftheclouds) invites us to find release, softening and a relaxed presence. And while the body settles, so does the mind. Once grounded, Anne guides us to notice what arises with a gentle awareness, whether it be stirrings, itches and tingles, memories, future thinking, all that is occuring in the mind and body. 

Resting as an observer of our experience, we explore it with a gentle awareness, being with, but not identifying with, the aliveness that arises and dissipates, moment by moment. 

Not pushing any of the experience away, the aim of this meditation is to explore how we can find a sense of calm and stillness, steadily, all the while being present with any and all sensations, thoughts and feelings, and not getting carried away. 

In closing Anne reads a quote from Deepak Chopra: 

‘In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.’

***

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp or Luma

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi

If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. 

And thank you  so much for listening! 

For monthly mindful updates, sign up for Anne's email newsletter at https://annevmuhlethaler.com. 

Find Anne's guided meditations and courses on Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/annevmuhlethaler

For live meditations on Zoom, look up the schedule on MeetUp. 

and follow Anne on social media:

IG: @_outoftheclouds  and @annvi