Coaching practices for Loving Kindness for Enemies

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

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

• There’s one person I can’t stop resenting, and the bitterness loops in my head and exhausts me
• I can feel warm on the cushion and then snap right back into judging everyone the second I’m out in the world
• I can wish other people well easily but the moment I try to turn that same kindness toward myself it feels false or even selfish
• When I do this practice I can’t always tell what I’m actually feeling
• My care only reaches the handful of people closest to me and stops cold at strangers, and I want to slowly stretch that circle outward

Practices that may help

1. Work the difficult-person stage without forcing
   Extend metta to a difficult person not as approval of their actions but as unconditional goodwill for their wellbeing.
   Metta Bhavana: The Practice of Loving-Kindness
2. On-the-spot metta in real interactions
   Silently offer a quick well-wish to people you encounter during the day.
   Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
3. Loving-kindness toward yourself
   Begin by directing the well-wishes inward — “may I be safe, happy, healthy, at ease.”
   Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
4. Investigate near and far enemies as they arise in practice
   The near enemy of metta is sentimental attachment; the far enemy is ill-will. Both block genuine goodwill.
   Metta Bhavana: The Practice of Loving-Kindness
5. Widening the circle of care
   Extend the well-wishes outward in stages: loved one, neutral person, difficult person, all beings.
   Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
6. Send yourself the same loving wishes you send others
   Expand loving-kindness practice inward — toward yourself as you would toward a beloved friend.
   The Self-Compassion Break
7. Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
   Loving-kindness (metta) meditation cultivates warmth and goodwill by silently repeating phrases of well-wishing — first toward yourself, then widening in circles to loved ones, neutral people, difficult people, and all beings. Research suggests it can increase positive emotion and feelings of social connection; its links to self-compassion are promising but the literature is smaller and more mixed than for mindfulness.
8. Include acts of kindness toward yourself
   The kindness architecture that builds well-being includes self-directed kindness — not just other-directed.
   Acts of Kindness, Made Practical
9. Loving-kindness toward a difficult person
   Deliberately offer goodwill to someone you struggle with, to loosen resentment’s grip on you.
   Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation
10. Expand metta through the five traditional stages
    Systematically extend goodwill from self to benefactor to friend to neutral person to difficult person.
    Metta Bhavana: The Practice of Loving-Kindness

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.