Metta for someone difficult
Twenty minutes with someone you find mildly difficult — not the hardest person in your life. The instruction is to stop at the edge of what you can actually do and stay there, rather than performing a forgiveness you do not feel.
- Length
- 20 minutes
- Suited to
- Longer sits
- Published
- 4 Oct 2026
The script
Pauses are marked inline. Read at the pace that suits you; the timer below can keep time for you.
Settle first, and do not skip this part. Three minutes on yourself and someone easy, because starting here with no preparation is how this practice fails. 180 s
Now bring to mind someone mildly difficult. A colleague who is dismissive. A relative who does not listen. Not your hardest case. 60 s
Notice what happens in the body before you even form a phrase: the jaw, the chest, the stomach. That reaction is what you are working with. 60 s
Try the traditional sequence: May you be safe. May you be well. May you be at ease. May you live with ease. 90 s
If those are impossible, go smaller. May you be free from this particular difficulty. Or simply: May we both get through this. 90 s
If the mind starts rehearsing the case against them, note it and return to the phrase. The case has been made many times; you know it well. 120 s
At some point you will hit your limit — the phrase will feel like a lie or produce anger. That limit is the practice. Stay just on the near side of it. 120 s
Do not try to expand the limit by force. Go back to someone easy for a minute, then return. 90 s
For the last few minutes, drop the phrases and simply sit with the person in mind, without the story. 120 s
Finish by returning to yourself: May I be at ease, whatever I feel about them. 60 s
Anchor
the tightness that arrives before you even picture them
If attention goes
Three things to do when the mind leaves — because it will.
- If you picked someone genuinely harmful, put them down — this practice is not for that. Pick the mildest person who annoys you.
- If anger arrives, that is not failure. Anger is often the first honest thing that has happened in the session; let it be there and keep the phrase small.
- If you find yourself wishing they would change, you have slipped from wishing them well into wishing them different. Return to the neutral phrases.
01Choose the difficulty carefully
The instruction says mildly. A person who hurt you seriously is not a training partner; working with them here tends to produce rumination rather than widening. The right person is somewhere between "someone I find tiresome" and "someone I have been avoiding".
A useful test: can you describe them in one sentence without your voice changing? If not, they are too far up the scale for this practice today.
02Stopping at the edge
The traditional instruction is to go as far as you can and no further. If you can wish them safety but not ease, wish them safety and stop there. Forcing the whole set produces either a lie or an argument.
Many people find it useful to write down where the edge was after each session. Over weeks, the edge usually moves — often in the direction of "may they stop suffering" rather than "may I like them", which is the honest version anyway.
03What this practice does not mean
It does not mean you should keep spending time with them, resume contact, or withdraw a boundary. Wishing someone freedom from suffering is compatible with never speaking to them again.
It also does not require you to conclude that they were right. You are working on your own reaction, not on their record. If someone tells you that anger is the obstacle to your practice and that you should get over the event, that is not what is being asked here — the reaction and the event are different things.
Timer
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Questions that come up
What if nothing softens over weeks?
Then the practice is still doing something: you are learning exactly where the limit is and how it behaves. Not softening is a result, not a verdict on you.
Can I do this about a group rather than a person?
Yes, and it is usually easier. Start with a category of people you find mildly annoying in aggregate — aggressive drivers, say — before narrowing to an individual.
Should I tell them I did this?
No. Announcing it turns a private practice into a claim about the relationship, and usually revives the whole argument.
Terms used here
- Metta — The practice of wishing well, offered deliberately and without conditions.
- Equanimity — Steadiness that does not depend on things going well.
- Wandering mind — Attention leaving the chosen object without permission; not a defect, but the raw material.
- Noting — Giving what has distracted you a one-word label, then returning.
Before you begin — Everything here is general information about attention and breathing, offered for educational use only. It is not medical or psychological treatment, and it is not a substitute for care from a qualified professional. If you have a heart or lung condition, a history of panic attacks or trauma, are pregnant, or are being treated for a mental health condition, talk to your clinician before starting breath-holding or long body-scan practice. Stop if a practice makes you dizzy, breathless or distressed.