Coaching practices for Common Humanity Meditation

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Common Humanity Meditation, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • Right now, in this exact ache, I feel cut off from everyone
  • My pain comes wrapped in this lonely conviction that I’m the only one who feels this exact thing, that something’s uniquely wrong with me
  • People feel out of reach right now and the connection I want from others just isn’t there
  • I can feel warm on the cushion and then snap right back into judging everyone the second I’m out in the world
  • I’ve had glimpses of a deep stillness underneath all the mental noise, a kind of bare awareness that’s just quietly here

Practices that may help

  1. Shared condition meditation
    Sit briefly with the awareness that right now, thousands of people are feeling exactly what you feel.
    Common Humanity, Made Practical
  2. Common Humanity, Made Practical
    Common humanity — one of the three components of Kristin Neff's self-compassion framework — is the recognition that suffering, failure, and inadequacy are universal human experiences, not personal defects. Activating this awareness interrupts shame's isolating story and reduces its intensity. It has observational support as a component of the self-compassion construct and is taught across evidence-based programs including MSC.
  3. Expand tonglen to include all beings who share this suffering
    Whatever you are suffering, countless others feel it too — breathe in the shared pain, breathe out shared relief.
    Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending
  4. Find belonging in nature and the cosmos
    When human community feels inaccessible, find the sense of belonging in the natural world you are part of.
    Sympatheia — the Stoic Practice of Universal Interconnection
  5. On-the-spot metta in real interactions
    Silently offer a quick well-wish to people you encounter during the day.
    Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
  6. Practice inquiry into the ground of your experience
    Investigate the aware presence that underlies all mental content as a way of touching the real.
    The Perennial Philosophy, Made Practical
  7. Bring contemplative attention to ordinary moments
    Practice full presence in mundane activities as a form of sacred attentiveness.
    The Perennial Philosophy, Made Practical
  8. Metta at the close — sharing merit and goodwill
    End each sitting by radiating goodwill outward, softening any self-critical edge the practice surfaces.
    Vipassana Meditation, Made Practical
  9. Finish the sentence: "Others also feel this when..."
    Complete a specific bridge between your pain and others' shared experience.
    Common Humanity, Made Practical
  10. Tonglen: sending and taking
    Breathe in suffering (yours and others’); breathe out relief and well-being.
    Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training

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