Imagining the warm unconditional acceptance I feel for Ginny or for other animals or children and feeling that for myself. I was able to feel that a little bit as Jackie was explaining it. It felt like a warm, safe, bath. I thought of Nadine Sierra and how relaxed and happy she looks when she sings. And I thought, yeah well I couldn’t actually have this feeling when I’m singing with others. But actually why not?! This feeling is very deep. It’s not something I felt in the year of metta for myself meditations that I did. Because those came from a marshal feeling of “have to.” I felt I was lacking because I didn’t have self-acceptance so I set about GETTING IT! Now I see that is pretty funny. 🙂
I realise that I’ve wanted to be “correct” and “right” for much of my life. This has kept me from feeling what is correct and right because it wasn’t necessarily structured in the way I thought it had to be.