Yoga to foster friendliness

Unconditional friendliness is the key to transforming your life, and it starts with the self. Harness the yogic concept of maitri to work towards conscious, radical acceptance of the self and invite more happiness into your life.

- RACHAEL COOPES

As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. ~ Pema Chödrön.

Unconditional friendship. Is there anything better? Those people who are there for you no matter what version of yourself you are. The ones who are your cheerleaders, supporting you in the good times and the bad, whether you are at your best or your worst. Those friends teach us so much about the power of limitless love; of what it’s like to be accepted, understood, acknowledged and supported as you are, warts and all. They bring a sense of steadiness, strength and peace that might otherwise be elusive in our lives. Without those friends around us, we may forget what unconditional love is, and inevitably end up feeling unworthy, unloved or like we have to be perfect in order to receive love.

If the friendship of others has the power to do that, imagine what showing unconditional friendship towards ourselves could do? Making friends with yourself is the key to transforming both your life and the lives of those around you. And it starts with the yogic concept of maitri.

At its heart, maitri is friendliness. From the perspective of Buddhism, maitri (or metta) is recognised as friendliness, benevolence, loving-kindness, amity, goodwill and an active interest in others. A key principle of Buddhism, maitri is the first of the Four Immeasurables, or limitless qualities, which have no measure or bounds. These boundless qualities dissolve the boundaries that limit or constrain us and our experience of the world.