How to Use Metta to Calm Your Mind

Metta is the Buddhist practice of feeling love and compassion for all beings.  Sometimes, it’s referred to as a “loving kindness” practice.  A metta practice is incredibly powerful.  It’s a practice that can help you feel calmer as you navigate life. 

First, a metta practice is a way for you to develop positive feelings toward all people.  It’s easy to be annoyed by the things that other people do and say. But when we feel generally positively about other people, it’s easier to shrug off their occasional insensitive comments or behavior.  And when we aren’t annoyed with other folks, we feel much more relaxed. 

A metta practice also can help us to be kinder to others.  When we commit to a lifestyle of loving kindness, we aren’t focused on criticizing other folks. We aren’t trying to find fault in other people as we go through the day. Instead, we spend the day asking ourselves, “What can I do today to encourage another person? How can I make someone else’s life just a little bit easier?” And when we’re focused on being good to others, we naturally feel calmer!

Now, given that a metta practice is the key to having a calm, happy life, why doesn’t everyone practice metta?  After all, doesn’t everyone want to be serene and calm?  Well, yes.  But sadly, lots of folks don’t realize that a loving-kindness practice is the route to happiness!

So, if you want to be calm and happy, consider starting a metta practice!  Below are six ways that you can practice metta every day:

Do A Daily Metta (Loving-Kindness) Meditation

One way to develop a metta frame of mind is to practice metta meditation.  Metta meditation is a way for you to develop your feelings of goodwill toward all. It’s very simple and can be done anywhere.   You simply start by repeating the following phrases to yourself:

May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I live with ease.

Then you extend these feelings of goodwill toward those closest to you.  For example,

May my child be happy.  May my child be healthy.  May my child be safe.  May my child live with ease.

And from there you can extend these wishes to people you don’t know, or to the creatures of the earth.  For example, you might say:

May all the children in foster care be happy.  May they all be healthy.  May they all be safe.  May they all live with ease.

And at this point in your meditation, you truly can expand your loving-kindness practice by extending your meditation to include those folks who you don’t like very much!  I’ll concede that’s difficult.  But the test of our goodness isn’t whether we can have loving thoughts toward the people we like.  Rather, it’s about whether we can have loving and compassionate thoughts toward those who we don’t like at all.

The benefit of this structured meditation practice is that it trains us to have feelings of love and friendliness toward all.  When we have those feelings of goodwill, we more easily can respond to all people and creatures with compassion and kindness.  And it’s from that place that we can enjoy a calmer, more relaxed state of mind.

Practice Kind Speech

Once you’ve developed the metta mindset, then it’s time to put your loving-kindness into practice.  The first step is to practice kind speech. 

You would think that speaking kindly to others would be a very easy habit to adopt.  So, why do folks struggle to do so?  Well, because we don’t always have nice thoughts.  Now having unkind thoughts from time to time is natural.  After all, we’re all human, and not one of us is going to have beautiful thoughts 100 percent of the time.  In fact, on occasion, we all can have some fairly nasty thoughts.

But when we practice metta, we choose not to say every unkind thought that pops into our heads.  That takes self-control.  And emotional maturity. 

If you need inspiration to bite your tongue and only say kind things, consider how much more peaceful your life would be if you committed to practicing kind speech.  Why would it be more peaceful?  Well, because arguing and telling people off only creates conflict. There is no scenario in which you are going to improve your personal relationships by saying mean, rude things. You’ll only make your life less peaceful and more stressful. So, why do it?

Instead, practice metta and use only kind speech. Be careful with your words when speaking to others.  Focus on using your words to uplift and encourage others. If you do so, your relationships will go so much more smoothly, and you will feel calmer and more at peace.

Perform Acts of Kindness

The second way that we can adopt a metta lifestyle is by performing acts of kindness.  Now, there are all kinds of ways that we can be kind to others.

One act of kindness is gift giving.  Unfortunately, over the years, I’ve known people who just hate gift giving.  They get aggravated any time they have to give other folks gifts for birthdays or Christmas.  They prattle on about the “commercialism” of gift giving.

To be clear, there is nothing inherently “commercial” about gift giving.  When you give thoughtful gifts, you show other people that you care about them, and that you want to do something to brighten their day. 

The value of the gift isn’t the point.  The point is whether you’ve gotten out of the world of Me, Myself and I, and you’ve taken some time to think about another person. You’ve spent some mental energy choosing a gift that you believe the other person might enjoy.  And then you’ve used your money to do something nice for that other person.

The same holds true for anything you do for someone that is out of the ordinary.  For instance, when you notice that someone is struggling and needs help, and then you actually help them, that is huge!  So, often we see people in our lives who are worn out and struggling.  But then we don’t take action and do something to make their lives just a little bit easier. 

So, make acts of kindness part of your metta practice! Regularly perform acts of generosity or service that are of no benefit to you, but that benefit another person (or creature).  When we perform selfless acts, we use our metta practice to be good to others. And the added benefit to us is that it feel great to be someone who is making the world a better place.

Reflect on Your Interconnectedness

One way to develop your feelings of loving-kindness toward all is to remind yourself of this very important fact:  On this earth, we are interconnected.  And by “we,” I mean everyone and everything.  Of course, we’re connected to other human beings. But we’re also connected to the animals and plants that inhabit our earth.  And if we want the earth to be a pleasant place, we need to show love and compassion toward all.

Unfortunately, as human beings, we can be very tribalistic.  So, we care about some people, but not others.  For instance, we’ll get upset if certain people on the earth are suffering.  We’ll worry about the suffering of other folks if they have the “right” nationality.  Or politics.  Or skin color.  But we don’t care about the suffering of all. 

We even make distinctions regarding which animals we care about.  If our domesticated animals, like our dogs and cats, are suffering, we become very upset!  But we’ll gladly slaughter other animals for food.

That’s how human beings operate.  But a metta practice asks us to elevate ourselves out of that tribalistic thinking, and instead have feelings of goodwill for all.  It asks us stop making the kinds of distinctions that make the world great for some and terrible for others.

The good news is that understanding your interconnectedness will make your life better.  Because when you start caring about everyone and everything, the world becomes a better place for you – everyone else.  Let me put it this way: The world cannot be a truly beautiful place if even one person or one creature is suffering.

I’d encourage you to try this thought experiment: Envision a world in which we care about every person, and we ensure that every person is safe and has sufficient food, clothing and shelter.  Consider a world in which we treat all animals gently.  Think about a world in which we are careful with how we interact with nature.  Take some time to think about what that kind of world would look like.

That world doesn’t just look different from the world we live in today.  It looks a whole lot better.  It’s a world in which all people and creatures can feel calm and safe.  And isn’t that the kind of world we all want to live in?  That is truly what a global metta practice could do for our world.

Practice Forgiveness

We all, on occasion, have been treated poorly by others.  Unfortunately, that’s a part of the human experience.  Human beings are imperfect, and on occasion, other people will hurt us.

What do we do with that fact?  Do we forgive the people who have hurt us?  Or do we go through life holding a grudge? 

A metta practice asks us to feel loving kindness toward all. So, if you want to practice metta, you have only one possible response when others hurt you: Forgive. 

I know forgiveness is hard. But I encourage you to do it anyway. Forgive other people not because they deserve it.  Rather, forgive other people because you deserve to live a calm and peaceful existence.

When we don’t forgive, we are miserable.  We go through life agitated, angry and mean.  When we forgive, we let our angry feelings go, and in doing so, we feel calmer.  We are more at peace with ourselves and with the world.

Now, forgiving people doesn’t mean that, as a practical matter, you now have to deal with them.  Some folks just aren’t worth having in your life.  They create too much stress and aggravation.  It’s fine to just eliminate those folks from your life.  In fact, it’s recommended.

So, forgiveness doesn’t require you to keep interacting with difficult people.  It just requires you to let go of your anger toward them.  If you do so, then you can feel relaxed and calm.

If you are struggling to forgive, here’s my advice:  Think about the worst thing you’ve ever done.  Be honest with yourself.  Don’t make up a pile of excuses for why you did that crappy thing.  Just acknowledge that at one time or another, you did something highly regrettable.  (Realize that you aren’t alone.  We’ve all done something pretty regrettable at least once in our lives.)

And then acknowledge that we all do crappy things once in a while.  Which means that you’re no better or worse than anyone else.  So, forgive yourself.  Then forgive the person who you’re really mad at.  Decide to let all your anger toward yourself and all your anger toward that other person go, and just get on with your life.  Because you have a great life ahead, which doesn’t need to be burdened by past disappointments.

The good news is that once you forgive, you will feel lighter.  And it will be far easier to have those beautiful metta feelings of goodwill toward all whom you encounter.

If you are seeking to develop a calm mind through a metta practice, consider using the methods outlined above.  By incorporating these methods into your life, you can nurture metta within yourself and then show your goodwill to all those around you. (To read more about how to develop a calm mind, click here.)