Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast Ep. 50 – JoAnna Hardy - Self Love and Metta Practice
Dec 24, 2019
JoAnna Hardy, an insight meditation teacher who leads dharma talks and retreats. She explores reframing love as simple ease, the role of Metta after life’s hard edges, and practicing forgiveness to open to self-kindness. JoAnna guides body awareness and classic Metta phrases, links compassion to social justice, and offers practical ways to weave loving-kindness into daily life.
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Teacher's Confession Of Skipping Metta For Years
- JoAnna Hardy avoided metta for a decade, privileging Vipassana as the "real" practice and skipping metta sessions at retreats.
- She was later instructed to practice only metta for three months, which forced her to face unworthiness and led her to add a forgiveness practice first.
Lower The Bar For What Counts As Metta
- Reframe metta as low-bar, ordinary moments of ease rather than grand unconditional love or romance.
- JoAnna suggests noticing when kleshas (greed, hatred, delusion) are absent and simply recognizing "there's nothing wrong" as metta.
Start Metta By Grounding The Body
- Practice metta with embodied grounding: get comfortable, let the body be supported by the ground, and soften the belly and chest.
- Use deep breathing to create spaciousness in belly, chest, arms, legs and allow the earth to receive tension.