What Inspires You?
So often we start a new year making a list of all the things we think we are suppose to do. Yet, what if we started the new year by pausing for a moment and connecting to all the things that inspire us.
What Inspires me?
- a gratitude practice
- the orange sky at sunset
- being honest with someone I love
- reciting the Psalms in the morning during my prayer time
- reading a great Children’s book
- deepening my yoga practice
- clearing out things in my house that I don’t use or need
- writing to make discoveries
- having fun with my husband
- And more…..
As you step into a new year, pause and ask yourself: Who or What is inspiring me at this time in my life?
Can you add more of what inspires you into your daily life?
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The flip side to what is inspiring us, is what is draining us. I am asking myself if I can have less of what drains in my life, like:
- judging myself; judging others
- being impatient with myself; being impatient with other
- not appreciating myself; not appreciating others.
Can I have a less judgmental relationship with myself this year? What would that look like, sound like, feel like? Just today I found myself with that nagging judge hanging around. Rather than judge myself for being judgmental again, I am trying the Welcoming Prayer. This is a contemplative practice that invites us to acknowledge what we are feeling or thinking, and let go and release it. Here’s a short video on the Welcoming Prayer if you’d like to try it along with me.
The Welcoming Prayer Method
“Consent on the Go”
There are three movements of the prayer:
Feel and sink into what you are experiencing this moment in your body.
“WELCOME” what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling.
Let go by saying: “I give it to God,” or “I let go of my desire for security, affection, control and embrace this moment as it is.”
Contemplative Outreach, Revised 5/13/2016
Some important points about The Welcoming Prayer:
• It is important to be aware of how emotions manifest in the body. This looks and feels different for each one of us. For some, fear might be expressed by holding the breath or by cold hands and feet. Anger might be expressed as flashes of heat or a surge of rising energy. Resistance might be expressed as numbness or coldness. The Welcoming Prayer helps us understand and connect with how our own body manifests reactions and emotions.
• We are welcoming what we are experiencing in the moment and cooperating with the Divine Therapist, knowing the Spirit is always present and active with us in our experience of what is happening. By letting go of our overidentification with security/affection/control, we allow ourselves to fully embrace this moment as it is.
* We are not welcoming the events, people or circumstances; we are welcoming and accepting our experiences and reactions and we are affirming the Indwelling Presence is with us and loves us, no matter what.
• We are not fixing anything — ourselves, others, or situations. There is no success or failure; there are just feelings and experiences. Our intention is not to fix, but to consent to the Spirit’s presence and action in the feelings, emotions, thoughts, sensations, or commentaries, i.e. to whatever we are experiencing in the moment, especially in the body.
• Letting go allows us to appropriately respond under the guidance of the Spirit to what is happening, instead of automatically reacting or repressing what we are experiencing. Under the false-self system we usually have two choices: to inappropriately express or to repress what we experience. Welcoming allows the Divine Indwelling to motivate our action or confirm our inaction.
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