Description of the practice:
Imagine ideal parents or a deity or formless presence standing in front of you, loving and delighting in you and note how you feel from that place
Feeling _____
Being _____
Example phrases:
Loving presence
Being appreciated
Feeling safe
Being delighted in
Being liked
Being important
Being cared for
Notes on facilitation:
It’s a good idea to check in with people before the starting of the practice - weather they have an appropriate image to do the practice with. It’s not advised for the image to be a real person that they have a relationship with in their life because it can create a weird synchronicities with that person (even if it’s a teacher).
Ideally it’s an idealized image like a loving deity or ideal parent figures or the practitioner’s own image with whom they have a simple relationship with. The image should be such that it’s easy for the practitioner to see them loving them and delighting in them.
At the end - the image is just a placeholder for Source.
We should not use a lot of effort in order to make the visualization going. Ideally the practice should be effortless.
If we do it for longer than 20-30 min, we should remind ourselves to not loose contact with the image. Ideally the distance between us and the image should be quite low.
Observed Effects / Potential Benefits:
It’s probably the best practice that I found for experiencing Unconditional Love - that usually starts being available after the 30 min mark.
Has different results depending on the length of the practice
- At the 10-30 minute mark - it’s very well regulating for the nervous system
- At the 15-100 minute mark - it’s going into positive-imprint and purification territory - often triggering the resistances we have to feeling good
- At the 80-120+ minute mark - it may go into deeply nourishing the nervous system and cultivating worthiness and embodied sense of healthy self-esteem
Every person’s starting point is also very different, so the mapping above is just a rough estimate.
Attribution & Origin Story:
Created by Apostol when he first experienced the Positive Self-Esteem Mapping by Topi around Oct 2025.
“It’s an almost exact copy of the third phase of the PSEM. When I experienced it - I instantly had flashbacks with the Deity Yoga I’ve done in the past and the Non-dual Metta practices that Michael Taft teaches in which you are being loved by a deity. Also with the Ideal Parent Figure that I started doing in Mettagroup’s offerings. The name “Being Delighted In" just came naturally in that moment and it sticked.”
Commentary:
The practice is different from Deity Yoga (aka Yidam) in that you’re noting how you feel as the visualization progresses. That allows for the body & the somatic emotional system to open up in relation to the image and the intersubjective experience of the image delighting in the practitioner.
It’s also focused on the qualities of Love but also Delight which is one of the 5 characteristics of secure attachment (Safety & Protection, Attunement, Soothing & Comfort, Expressed Delight, Support & Encouragement for self-development).
It’s different from Ideal Parent Figure protocol and visualization in that IPF is a structured, guided visualization with Ideal Parent pair - either in a group or 1:1 setting. BDI is more spontaneous and dynamic interaction with an image that doesn’t have to be parental. IPF also doesn’t have “noting” in it.
Picture:
(A pic that I use when I facilitate the technique)
