Maitri, is loving kindness to oneself and it is a foundation to Buddhist practice which is often a challenge for western students in particular to comprehend. We are far to hard on ourselves as a culture, and so compassion which can come from this loving kindness or is a variation, as it extends to others can be elusive as it all begins with you. This is also news you can use in your life wherever your faith leads you, whatever your belief. Beginning with yourself, loving kindness, is sometimes a challenge, to respect and honor what you need, the time you require to get clear in the morning, the golden pockets of timeless space you may experience, which allows you to drink in this sustainable nurturing, which is truly inexhaustible is yours to behold.
Self love, loving kindness, maitri, many words similar meaning of taking time, taking care, of nourishing yourself in a loving way which allows you to blossom into joy, into ease, into contentment, and this feeling good is Good! This actually is a key to unlocking what you desire in all ways. This feeling of good, of expansion of ease, of happiness, is part of the unobstructed field of creation which you can tap into at will. How you do this is up to you. One thing for sure it is virtually impossible to create or to attract from a feeling of tightness, contraction or being ill at ease. The secret is to feel good, to lean into that abundant, expansive and encompassing feeling as a reference point for more feeling good and for bringing into your world more of what makes you feel good.
Loving kindness is a foundational practice and yet in the Mahayana tradition it is a main one, which allows for you to cultivate kindness in a loving way to yourself and to others. The essence of Bodhicitta, the heart of compassion, begins with recognizing what occurs with others, their pain, or distress affects us and to place ourselves in exchange for them. When I was little I would have dreams where I had to choose which parent I would save, and it would involve me giving up myself to save one of them. This is a bit extreme in one way except it made an indelible impression on my mind of how we are choosing in every moment to exchange our own blessed energy with the energy of all humanity. Cultivating loving kindness to yourself and extending it to others allows a pure field of experience to unfold, and for you to experience the connectedness of all things in time and space.