Befriending Practice

Why we love: Friendliness and kindness are natural qualities within all humans. Even if we lose touch with it when it’s too muddy inside, we can always reconnect. Growing our capacity for friendliness from the inside out changes our experience of reality and allows us to develop more contentment in life. 

For who: This practice is particularly helpful when you feel ill-will, judgment, or negativity towards yourself or others.

How it works: The mind’s primary goal is to keep us alive, making it naturally inclined toward threat, judgment and negativity. The aim of a Befriending Meditation is to counteract this mental tendency by instead inclining the mind toward attitudes of friendliness, care, and compassion. Like lenses our moods, thoughts, and emotions are always colouring our view of the world. When we have a lens of kindness and friendliness the world seems a better place.

Helpful Hint! Sometimes it’s difficult to get in touch with a sense of friendliness, but just holding the intention in mind and opening up to the possibility of kindness is enough for it to have an effect.