Literally, it’s just a thought. Possibly the single most effective practice for living a happy life is training yourself to stop giving your thoughts so much power. The current term is mindfulness but the concept has been around a long time, it is one of the main Buddhist philosophies taught by the Buddha to reach enlightenment.

A good starting point for your meditation practice is a breath focused meditation. Breath work or Prānāyāmā has many benefits; as well as creating a focus to help you slide into your meditative state, particular breathing techniques can help to reduce anxiety, stress and tension and help to flood the body with energy and blissful feelings.

I wanted to write a little bit today about mettā and try to give you an idea of what it is and hopefully try to articulate how it feels. I would love for some of my readers to feel encouraged to begin cultivating mettā in their lives and there are two reasons for this, the first is that I believe it is beneficial to all beings for us to live practicing loving kindness and the second is that my own loving kindness wishes this sense of peace and happiness within for you all.