Loving-kindness meditation, also called metta, springs from a basic understanding of human nature: On one hand, we might truly believe that compassion makes the world better—and on the other, we might struggle to offer it to ourselves and to others for various reasons.

Metta practices, like the one Dr. Emma Seppälä leads this week, offer a simple, structured way to help us gently expand our capacity to both give and receive love.

As a bestselling author, Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker, Emma Seppälä teaches executives at the Yale School of Management and is faculty director of the Yale School of Management's Women's Leadership Program. A psychologist and research scientist by training, her expertise is the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. Her bestselling book The Happiness Track (HarperOne, 2016) has been translated into dozens of languages. Her new book is Sovereign (Hay House, 2024). Seppälä is also the Science Director of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.

The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week.

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Show Notes

Find more from Dr. Emma Seppälä here.

Go Deeper

If you want to understand more about the practice of loving-kindness, why it matters, and how to build it—even with difficult people or in times when you aren't feeling very compassionate—here are some articles to get you started:

• Wise Engagement with the World: What to Do When You Wish Things Were Different
• Loving-Kindness Meditation with Sharon Salzberg

For more practice, here's another meditation to try: A 12-Minute Meditation for Self-Compassion and Loving-Kindness.

And more from Mindful here:

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