Find Clarity & Peace of Mind: Experience Christian Centering Prayer
Many of my clients have seen much written about the benefits of meditation and mindfulness.
The American Psychological Association cites reduced rumination, stress reduction, boosts to working memory, focus, less emotional reactivity, more cognitive flexibility, and relationship satisfaction as empirically support benefits of mindfulness.
But meditation and mindfulness seems inaccessible to certain faith backgrounds as yogis in praying mantis poses or Zen monks cloistered by silence in faraway monasteries comes to mind.
But there's a long history of mindfulness in various faith traditions.
I like to introduce my Christian clients to the practice of Centering Prayer as it fuses the benefits of mindfulness with a deeper relationship with God.
David Frenette, in his book The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God, explains how to incorporate this spiritual practice into your prayer life:
"Centering prayer, as taught by Thomas Keating and the organization he founded, Contemplative Outreach, is a very simple yet profound contemplative practice that orients you on the path toward transformation in Christ. The basic guidelines are:
Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God's Presence and action within.
Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God's presence and action within.
When engaged with your thoughts (which include body sensations, feelings, images, and reflections), return ever so gently to the sacred word.
At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes."
Try this practice 5 minutes a day at first and see if you can gradually rise to two sets of 15 minutes, once in the morning and once in the evening.
I sometimes experiment with other engagements with my sacred word. For instance, when I take my dog for a walk in the evening, I slowly breathe in and out, saying half of the word on the in-breath and the latter half of the word on the out-breath.
No matter how an individual practices finding greater interior silence, I'd love to hear about it in one-on-one work with you! All faith traditions have the ability to benefit from learning from one another's way of deepening their spiritual connections.
Patrick M. DeCarlo is a Catholic Licensed Marriage Counselor located in South Florida.