Please join me for a Loving-kindness meditation for dementia and cognitive change. Loving-kindness meditation, or "Metta" as it is known in Buddhist Pali language, is a time-honored practice for cultivating feelings of love, connection, equanimity, and acceptance of the things we cannot change.
I decided to create this meditation due to lived experience teaching seated exercise to folks with dementia, caregiving for my dad, John, who had frontotemporal degeneration or FTD until his death in 2017 and my mom’s mom, Grandma Jackie, who lived with Alzheimer’s until 2021. One year after my grandma’s death, I myself sat in a neurologist’s office, reviewing MRI’s as I was diagnosed with neurodegenerative disease, multiple sclerosis or MS.
I share all of this to demonstrate that I deeply understand changes in the brain. I also know that the dominant narrative around cognitive change is one of trauma and fear, and that this attitude can serve to dehumanize, isolate, and incite a lot of anxiety for caregivers and folks such as myself who are living, or anticipate living with cognitive change.
If you can relate, I assure you – You are not broken, you are worthy of respect, kindness, and life-long dignity. From my brain to yours, I can think of no more worthy practice than to consciously cultivate, again and again, loving-kindness for our loved ones, our communities, and ourselves.
The following is a transcript of the meditation (see below for the video of the guided meditation):
And so, let’s begin our practice by finding a comfortable position and turning down the volume in our bodies and our minds. I invite you to close your eyes if that is comfortable for you and to feel the weight of gravity hugging you to your seat. Allow your breath to slow down, inhaling and exhaling, not needing to change anything. If it feels good to you, you may wish to place a hand over your heart, a gesture of loving care.
I invite you now to call to mind someone with whom you have an uncomplicated relationship. They may be a child or a pet, or someone you love or deeply respect, but do not know personally. I like to imagine my niece – it’s just an instant *snap* connection to positivity. The idea is to simply visualize this being and allow the easy feelings of admiration and loving-kindess to begin to flow as you direct the following phrases towards them.
May you be filled with loving-kindness.May you be well. May you be peaceful, and at ease. May you be happy.
If you’d like, you may come up with your own phrases to send this person, repeating the phrases, showering this being with love, and radiating good intentions their way.
May you accept yourself just as you are. May you enjoy laughter and creativity. May you be treated with love, respect, and dignity. May your hopes be realized. May you be free from fear and physical pain.
As you recall this person, feel what it’s like to wish them well and allow that feeling to expand. Recognize that you truly do want them to be happy, and in wishing them well, you yourself are experiencing joy at the possibility of their happiness.
May you be filled with loving-kindness.May you be well. May you be peaceful, and at ease. May you be happy.
Moving on from this person with whom you find ease of connection to someone neutral now. Perhaps someone you don’t know very well, a cashier or someone whose path you crossed recently, someone whose health status you are completely unaware of, and you don’t have any particularly strong feelings towards.
Conjure an image of this person in your mind and feel what it’s like to wish them well.
May you be filled with loving-kindness. May you be well. May you be peaceful, and at ease. May you be happy.
Repeating these or your own phrases, recognize that you truly want them to be happy. Focus on the feeling that is generated when wishing them happiness.
May you accept yourself just as you are. May you enjoy laughter and creativity. May you be treated with love, respect, and dignity. May your hopes be realized. May you be free from fear and physical pain.
May you be filled with loving-kindness.May you be well. May you be peaceful, and at ease. May you be happy.
Now spreading this feeling of loving-kindness, allowing the feeling to grow and expand, and opening to the possibility that someone, somewhere may be wishing you that same loving-kindness, and begin to include yourself in the well-wishing.
May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful, and at ease. May I be happy. May I accept myself just as I am. May I enjoy laughter and creativity. May I be treated with love, respect, and dignity. May my hopes be realized. May I be free from fear and physical pain.
Repeating these phrases or whatever feels most potent for you, see how it feels to cultivate self-compassion and love in this way.
May I be filled with loving-kindness.May I be well. May I be peaceful, and at ease. May I be happy.
Whatever it is you need to hear today, grant yourself the compassion to say it now, hand on heart, and to really feel it.
Finally, we’ll expand our practice to include all beings, consciously calling in all of humanity and our natural world and wishing it well. Let’s spread this feeling of loving-kindess, a wide web, to our communities and beyond.
May we be filled with loving-kindness.May we be well. May we be peaceful, and at ease. May we be happy. May we accept ourselves just as we are. May we enjoy laughter and creativity. May we be treated with love, respect, and dignity. May our hopes be realized. May we be free from fear and physical pain.
Recognizing that we’re all in this together, take one more moment to spread loving-kindness and compassion to all.
May we be filled with loving-kindness. May we be well. May we be peaceful, and at ease. May we be happy.
Allowing these well-wishes to reverberate within and throughout the world, let’s return to our breath.
Breathing in – may the benefits of my practice be supportive to myself
And exhaling – may the benefits of my practice be a gift to our world
Together, we can harness the transformative power of grief for good. Thank you for your practice today.