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If you had a rough day at work, your inner critic was overactive or are just feeling a little down, try this as lovingkindness meditation.. It can be difficult cultivate self-love but it is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. The very peacefulness you create with this ritual, you can also send to another,  Begin by sitting quietly, taking relaxed, slow, deep breaths and wishing yourself happiness. After sitting quietly begin to speak this mantra aloud::

May I be happy.

The sun reaches its highest point of the year, like the culmination of a full moon's waxing. In order to stay steady in this full solar power, we ground ourselves by inviting the earth and the sky to meet in our bodies. As stewards, we take stock of self and world. Has an old teacher, perhaps the Dragon of Not-Enough, melted in the fires during the first half of the solar wheel? We bow and thank her before turning to discover the new teacher, who, as the waxing year gives way to the waning, will wrench our perspective wider. 

Today we sit with the expansion of light, taking it in. To claim the new and larger boundary of our personal fire, we join it in ritual to that of others, and together, dance it outward. We make sacred ceremony not only for and with our immediate community, but for all our relations. The Lakota phrase mitákuye Oyásin reminds us, "I am related to all things, and all things are related to me." 

I've taken some of my group material I used as a Chaplain Fellow with my PTSD and substance abuse program veterans and modified it here as blog material. I feel the content and message of the material is universal enough that it needs to be shared, even if the context is different. I hope you enjoy.

Matthew 22:39 tells us to "Love your neighbor as yourself," but is not very specific as to what love looks like or how to go about loving either your neighbor or yourself. Luckily, the Greeks were helpful in providing eight types of love for us to examine to help us determine what type of relationship we are in with not just ourselves, but with others. Are our relationships healthy or unhealthy? Do they need to be adjusted? Do they need to be amended or cut off?