Loving Kindness

It seems so simple.  Love.  Be kind.  Somehow this can become an elusive art.  Most especially with those we hold the closest.  It seems an almost innate behavior.  Young children reserve their outcries and outbursts for their parents.  As teenagers, the words "I hate you" seem to slip effortlessly from our lips.  And now- I find the person I rage with and at the most is my partner.  This person with whom I've chosen to spend this live... this person who I agreed to love and care for... this person who has chosen the same.  Somehow, he bears the brunt of it.  It is commonly understood that we reserve our worst behavior and our worst selves for those we trust and love the most.  As if that was a good reason.  As if this excuses the bad behavior.  "See, this unbridled anger and frustration and exhaustion is really showing you that I trust that our relationship can sustain this assualt."  Bullshit.  I think the reasoning is probably right on... but I think too often it is used as a way of abdicating responsibility.

After getting into an outrageously loud and non-sensical fight today, a friend simply suggested "Remember to be kind".  It seems so simple.  At its core and in its practice it can be more challenging. 

I'm not one to meditate.  It takes the practice of sitting still and quieting one's mind.  Not something I (or many of us these days) find easy.  One meditation I have worked with in the past is on Loving Kindness.  It begins by working first with focusing on being kind to yourself- as a foundation of loving others and the universe.  

May I be filled with loving kindness

May I be well

May I be happy

May I be at peace.

Seems like a radical first step.  I'm going to try being with this for awhile, repeating it in my heart.  Turning off the radio and reciting it while I drive.  While I do the dishes.  While my mind drifts off to sleep.  

And you?