“Immediate complete compassion to everything. It’s possible. And it’ll change everything.”

- Danielle Laporte

I heard this really great ideology while listening to a podcast the other day that spoke about compassion. It said; “compassion is concern for oneself. It’s making sure that the tone you take with yourself is always a loving and understanding one, and it’s about developing an immediate complete compassionate response to every single one of your feelings. Even the destructive ones. The damaging ones. The things you would never want to tell someone else.” 

It’s easy to be compassionate towards the people around you. It’s much more difficult to be compassionate with yourself. Which, in my opinion, is the most important relationship to have empathy towards. The most important relationship you can build. 

Here are 3 ways your meditation can lead to a kinder mind…

#1: You learn to listen to yourself & start to understand how your inner world works.

By watching where your mind naturally takes you in meditation, you start to develop a kind of curiosity and friendship with your brain. You are the only person who has direct access to your mind, meaning the more time you spend with it in a quiet, non-judgemental space, the more you start to befriend it. From there, it’s a ripple effect. How you speak to yourself shifts. The actions you take become more loving ones. You start to root for yourself! Metta Meditation (otherwise known as Loving Kindness) in specific can be huge for this! 

#2: You physically change your brain chemistry!

Studies have shown that meditation can actually change the structure of your brain. When compassion & empathy came into play, scans showed significant amounts of activity in the insula (a small region located in the cerebral cortex) in the brains of meditators and less activity in the brains of people who had never practiced before. The insula helps to regulate empathy, emotions, social engagement, pain perception & numerous other vital functions. Our brains are neuroplastic, meaning they aren’t fixed. Certain regions can be trained & change over time! This was a study led by Richard Davidson & Antoine Lutz at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

#3 Then, comes gratitude.

I remember it really clearly. It was at the end of one of my meditations a couple years back. I put my hands over top of my heart, looked down towards them & down at the rest of my body and I thought; “Thank you. I love you. For real. I really really love you.” My body & mind both hesitated because that’s not something they were used to hearing. As cheesy as it may sound, I achieved this through a consistent practice. Meditation gave me the freedom I needed to feel at ease with both the person I was, and the person I was becoming.

If I can do it, so can you! 

A Kinder Mind Online Meditation Program

We start on Monday, June 22nd.

Grab your spot today! I can’t wait to meditate with you.