Background: This prayer become popular in the centering prayer movement. It was originally written by Mary Mrozowski. It is a method of recognizing, then releasing difficult emotions.
Proponents of this prayer state that the focus should be on our feelings about life circumstances, rather than the exercise itself.
36 A
The Exercise:
Create a safe, quiet environment for yourself. Turn down your phone and consider lighting a candle.
Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Take a mental inventory of where you are, right now. List the feelings you are experiencing. Do your best to engage this with a nonjudgemental attitude. Your feelings are neither good nor bad. They simply are.
Choose the feeling which seems to be the most impactful. Think, or say “Welcome ___________” (E.G. ‘Welcome, Fear. Welcome, sadness. Welcome, anxiety. Etc.)
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire to change this feeling.’ or ‘I let go of my ___________’ or ‘God, I give you my _____________’
Progress on to the next emotion, repeating steps 4 and 5.
When you have worked through these emotions, spend a moment doing a mental inventory, assessing whether you feel differently.
36 B
Create a safe, quiet environment for yourself. Turn down your phone and consider lighting a candle.
Breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Take a mental inventory of where you are, right now. List the feelings you are experiencing. Do your best to engage this with a nonjudgemental attitude. Your feelings are neither good nor bad. They simply are.
Choose the feeling which seems to be the most impactful. Think, or say “Welcome ___________” (E.G. ‘Welcome, Fear. Welcome, sadness. Welcome, anxiety. Etc.)
Breathe once.
Say, or think “I let go of my desire for security and survival.’
Breathe again.
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire for esteem and affection.’
Breathe again.
Say, or think ‘I let go of my desire for power and control.’
Breathe.
Say, or think, ‘I let go of my desire to change the situation.’
If you wish, you can repeat this process for a second, troubling emotion.
If you would rather engage the welcoming prayer as an audiofile, consider this:
The goal of The Faith-ing Project is to enrich your spiritual life. Our hope is that this might be a gymnasium for the soul; a library for the spirit; and a toy store for the psyche.
I recently collaborated with the wonderful Auden Campbell to create a poem and video acccompanied by music. You can find it here.
To watch a delightful conversation I had the pleasure of participating in, click here.
These last months have been both strange and fruitful for me. I find myself exploring and considering the spiritual world from angles I’d never even considered. And when I think about a rather cruel boy scout ritual called ‘Snipe Hunting’ I see that this is a unique lens to explore the journey as a whole and these latest changes in particular. For now, Snipe Hunting is a podcast. I suspect it will become my next book.
There is this disconnect. We know that The Bible is important, but it sometimes can feel so distant from us. It does not need to be this way.
Four spiritual practices can help to bring these words to life. Prayer and journaling rooted in the scriptures can begin this process. The time honored practices of Lectio Divinia and Holy Imagining take it even deeper. When we put these to work we find that eternal truths come to life in a whole new way, deeply embedded in the workings of our own lived realities.
Words Made Flesh uses the four Gospels as a case study. The four practices are applied to the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection. As practices and events are explored in a chronological and systematic manner, we come to appreciate Christ’s life in a whole new way, even as we learn these new practices.
‘Words Made Flesh’ is now available. You can preview the introduction here. You can order it here.
If you’re interested in books more focused on spiritual practice without the exploration of deconstruction, take a look at the faith-ing project guides. Samples of some of the Faith-ing Project guides can be found here. If you would like to go straight to ordering the books at amazon, click here.
It’s such an honor to be involved with projects that I would listen to even if I wasn’t a participant. The ‘Be Still App’ is a prime example. They are an amazing resource and feature several meditations from this page and my books. Find out more here.
If you do not find what you are looking for here, click this link. Many of our resources, including audio files, strategies for bringing the practices home, contemplations built around the work of famous authors, and contemporary traditions can be found there.
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