Start Your Week  Alive, Empowered and Connected!

June 6, 13, 20, 27, 2016, 7:00pm-8:00pm
July 11, 18, 25, August 1, 2016, 7:00pm-8:00pm
August 15, 22, 29, September 5, 2016, 7:00pm-8:00pm

4-week course $72 ($18/class) or $20 Drop in

When we cultivate our natural capacity for opening the heart and allowing it to blossom, we get closer to the best versions of ourselves. Metta or loving kindness is a powerful transformative practice that deepens recognition of our profound interconnection with all living things, allowing us to experience this sense of connection, even with the difficult people in our lives. Insights are sharpened and equanimity is accessed when we integrated Mindfulness Meditation and Metta with Contemplative Writing, This course, based on the teachings of Sharon Salzberg, will help you develop and deepen your:

• Concentration
• Connection
• Courage/Fearlessness
• Authentic Happiness
• Discernment

Metta helps us awaken our hearts into a sense of spacious freedom, allowing us to bring greater loving kindness into everyday life, work and love. As we gain greater clarity and insight into our own hearts and minds by bringing attention to how we think, speak and act, we can open to a whole new, more discerning and caring way for engaging with ourselves and others.

As you develop your practice, you’ll see the fruits of greater loving kindness everywhere. This ongoing/repeatable class will help you sustain your practice and nurture the qualities of loving kindness with direction instruction, guided meditation and contemplative writing. There will also be plenty of opportunities for conversation and communal support for your practice.

The more you practice, the greater the gifts. You will:

1. Feel your stress and tension dissolve.
2. Loosen the grip of tightening fear in the heart  and feel it turn into open and spacious caring.
3. Experience a sense of ongoing renewal, peace, and confidence arising from your own loving kindness practices

It’s not surprising that many people consider calming the mind through meditation as first step to a more peaceful, less stress-filled life. Yet, compassion and loving kindness have the power of water, a gentle force for courage allied with wisdom. Enjoy the peace of offering the gift of your compassion for others as we hold them quietly in our hearts.

Through cultivating empathy and understanding we expand our capacities for resolving conflicts and strengthen and multiply our possibilities for creatively easing suffering in the world and in our own hearts.

This course is for both new and experienced meditators. Bring a notebook and your favorite writing implement. You may bring a meditation cushion or bench if you like, but we also provide everything you need to be comfortable.

Register by calling Hillary at  312-714-4563 (Please leave a message if no answer)