Anchoring with Prayer
It’s been hard to find words lately. So much change and disruption on so many levels of our lives. Information coming at us with an intensity and a volume we’ve never ever before experienced. Even more challenging than the firehose of information is the fact that what’s reported about something changes quite quickly, how it’s reported depends on who is reporting it, and confusion abounds. In that confusion we are debating, dividing, and blaming. Nobody seems to be on the same page as people wrestle with how to handle the crises we face.
In the pandemic we’ve faced an ever changing situation with covid-19. The protests have drawn attention to the fact that our nation is not yet a country of racial and economic equality. Conversations around mask-wearing, protests, and what’s around the corner can quickly escalate. None of this is easy. Schools aren’t able to provide solid plans for the start of the school year? How could they? The one thing that’s for sure is that we are in a mess.
People are fighting. Families are divided. In the panic being created by information overload and too much scrolling, we are losing our souls. Our sense of humanity in its very best sense is being compromised.
A researcher by nature, curiosity and openness define much of who I am and how I operate in the world. As a therapist, I live in gray (I wish we’d call it colorful) and I rarely jump to black and white in my positions and thinking. Except for one thing. My faith practices. Where I go to find my anchor and sense of safety in this world. That’s been pretty black and white since I started my own recovery 25 years ago this month.
Our spiritual practices have always mattered. Yet this season helps us to realize their importance in ways that easier times do not. We will not navigate the chaos of our times without finding our heart center in Jesus. We will not have a sense of the Father’s heart and compassion on these issues if we don’t get quiet, take deep breaths and seek His peace and perspective on what matters most and how He wants us to be through all of this.
So here’s what I want to tell you is one antidote to the fear, the chaos, and the escalating emotions over people holding fast to their positions on these great big matters: Prayer.
It took me way too many words to set up this post, but I want to tell you the simplest forms of prayer that will maximize the growth of your heart.
1) Breath prayer: First, learn the rhythm of 4-7-8 breathing. Inhale for 4 seconds. Hold the breath (belly full) for 7 seconds. Exhale for 8 seconds. Make sure your belly expands on the inhale. Then, once you have that down, fix your mind’s eye on what you imagine to be Heaven. I almost picture the North Star. On your inhale, breathe in His Spirit, fill your lungs with all the goodness, peace, wisdom, and love that Heaven has for you. Let it connect with His Spirit that resides in side of you (Remember, it’s “Chirst in you, the hope of glory.”) On your exhale, release all that is in you that you know is not Heaven. Try and do this for a series of 5 breaths and build from there.
2) Centering prayer (sort of): I took this from Jeanne Guyon’s book Exploring the Depths of Jesus Christ. I’ve been using this for almost 20 years. Instead of praying your list of concerns. Simply, get still and quietly say, “Lord, be my all, let everything else be as nothing to me.” Or the other phrase she taught was, “Lord, let me love you purely for yourself, for you are infinitely lovely.” Once you practice this for a while in a quiet place, in other life moments when you need peace but are on the fly and in motion with life, under your breath you can mutter a phrase like one of these and come back to heart center in Him pretty quickly. You can also make a phrase of your own to use in this process.
3) The Serenity Prayer- Pray your current concern whether it be health, relationship, financial, etc through this prayer as your filter for letting go:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
4) Spend time in nature. Nature helps us to remember that we have a Creator- we are not God, He is – and it’s also much easier for me to trust Him with what’s hard when I’m surrounded by the beauty of what He’s created with no help from me/humankind.
We will not navigate these times well without learning to pray. As summer ends and the fall hits, things will get harder and not easier.
Without prayer we will struggle to find our way to hope. Without prayer we will foolishly allow our differences to divide us rather than focusing on our shared humanity and responding to one another with a sincere desire to understand. We also won’t be the place of calm and peace for our children and loved ones if we don’t work to create the simple and portable rhythms of prayer that anchor us in a higher sense of peace and existence. Our time here on earth represents a small portion of our eternal existence. Anchoring ourselves in eternity, even if for only moments and breaths in a day, enables us to withstand the losses and challenges and disappointments that are part of life. Give it a try. Enjoy learning what practices work best for you.
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