Soft Spot
Posted By sharon on April 14, 2009
Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chodron http://www.shambhala.org/teachers refers to getting in touch with our soft spot inside. This can be a beautiful practice to do as an antidote to feeling separate, alone or disconnected from another or others. I’m suggesting it here as a shortened version of the Metta or Loving Kindness practice.
Give yourself a little time to be quiet and sit with yourself free of day-to-day responsibilities. Let your body relax and consciously release any tension. Feel the breath coming and going in the chest cavity without any effort. Notice if the movement of the in-breath and out-breath also create minimal movement in the abdomen or elsewhere in the body. Use the feelings in the body and with the breath to be focal points of settling, and ignore any random thoughts that come in.
Now get in touch with the feeling inside of being a warm, friendly, caring person. It may help to remember a situation or moment when that feeling was genuinely there for you. Let yourself feel that warmth, kindness, softness toward yourself as you breath. Just breath and feel each breath increasing your sense of innate kindness. Stay with this feeling as long as you can. Feel how getting in touch with the soft spot inside of you melts some
of the hard edges of the body and mind.
This practice is particularly helpful if you have had a difficult day or are feeling down on yourself.
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