I never thought about pursuing meditation until back in Spring 2017 when I hit a huge low-point in my life. I was lost in my head, and I did not know how to control my incredibly dark and negative thoughts towards people.
I kept wishing for the worst to happen, and I just could not see the good in any situation. I would try to control my thoughts, but it seemed to make things even worse. Even when I let my thoughts naturally flow, I would shift focus on the negative thoughts. I was forgetting to look for any positive thoughts making their way through my never-ending highway of thinking.
I just wanted happiness and peace of mind, but I didn’t know how to get that on my own.
Luckily, my brother showed me Headspace. Let me tell you, my life completely turned around. I felt light, I felt more at ease with my thoughts, and I felt genuinely happier.
I was finally learning how to naturally observe my thoughts and not put as much effort into “thinking happy”. I never knew that meditation could be enjoyable, and done within only 5-10 minutes.But, this post isn’t about Headspace. This is about “loving-kindness”, a concept that I first came across while reading Tim Ferriss’ book, “Tools of the Titans”.
Tim discusses how Chade-Meng “Meng” Tan, a former Google pioneer and engineer, implemented this into the Google culture.
Meng created “mindfulness training” courses to help Googlers find inner peace and free their minds to help manage stress and negativity. I had noticed an increasing distance from in my 5-10 minute morning meditations, so this became an easy substitute to boost my happiness when I began feeling low.
Meng’s instructions to increase your happiness with loving-kindness are as follows…
“Once an hour, every hour, randomly identify two people…and secretly wish for each of them to be happy. You don’t have to do or say anything—just think, ‘I wish for this person to be happy.’”
While doing this once an hour, every hour, could create a huge increase in your happiness, I personally have had a profound boost in my happiness and state of mind after doing this for just 20 seconds, once in a day.
I am more cheerful in my interactions with others, I am naturally having more blissful thoughts, and I am finding more pockets of gratitude each and every day.
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by doing this every hour, I’m here to tell you that doing this even once a day has the potential to create a lasting and positive shift in your mood.
Sending happy thoughts towards others may not be what we are constantly thinking about. But, if we can slowly begin programming our minds to wish others a “swell day” every single day, or something similar to that, then it’s possible we will naturally progress into having even more optimistic and positive thoughts towards the world around us.
With one mind at a time, we have the power to create a more loving, kind, and happy world.
