Practicing the Welcoming Prayer

The Welcoming Prayer Movement One:

“Feel and sink into” what you are experiencing this moment in your body.

Movement Two:

“Welcome” what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling.

Movement Three:

“I let go of my desire for security, affection, control and embrace this moment as it is.”

“The reason that Centering Prayer is not as effective as it could be is that when you emerge from it into the ordinary routines of daily life, your emotional programs start going off again. Upsetting emotions immediately start to drain the reservoir of interior silence that you had established during the prayer.

“On the other hand, if you work at dismantling the energy centers that cause the upsetting emotions, your efforts will extend the good effects of centering into every aspect of daily life.”

— Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart

The Welcoming Prayer is a practice of letting go in the present moment, in the ordinary routines of daily life. It is prayer because of our intention and consent to God’s presence and action in our lives, helping us to remember that the Indwelling Presence is always with us in our experiences.

The daily reminder to practice the Welcoming Prayer is our body. By learning to notice what’s happening in the body in the moment, we can use this new incarnational awareness as our reminder to practice the prayer. That’s why it is so important to practice the scanning exercise given in this Monday’s lesson. We’re developing a new muscle of consciousness, a new way of becoming aware of our next opportunity to consent to God’s presence and action in the ordinary activity of our lives.

The Three Movements of the Welcoming Prayer

The three movements of the prayer are:

Feel and Sink Into

Welcome

Let Go

1. “Feel and Sink Into” what you are experiencing this moment in your body.

Feel what is happening in the body. Sink into — do not resist — the body sensation. Simply experience the energy.

Using your intuitive eye, move gently through the body, scanning for any discomfort, pain, uneasiness, itching, heat, cold, tension, tingling, or any other sensations. When you become aware of any body sensation, rest (stop) and sink into (experience) it. Be alert to any uneasiness in your body — a sensation of heat or cold, itchiness or tingling, tension, or pain.

All feelings, whether perceived as positive or negative, are welcomed. Feelings may intensify, dissolve, or change as we are present to them in the moment. Simply follow their movement.

The body, from the top of the head all the way down to the tip of the toes, is the warehouse of the unconscious. All of our experiences are carried in every cell of our body and imprinted there — the “issues are in the tissues.” The first movement of the prayer helps us to access the unconscious through the body, in the moment.

2. “Welcome” what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling.

“Welcome” is the sacred word, the symbol of our consent to the presence and action of the Indwelling Spirit, the Divine Therapist. “Welcome” is to embrace what we find happening within. Saying the word “welcome” interiorly is the action of embracing the Indwelling Spirit, whom we know by faith is always present, in and through our experience.

3. Next, we say the “Letting Go” phrase.

“I let go of my desire for security, affection, control and embrace this moment as it is.”

Attachment is an important concept to explore here. Attachment can be defined as something that fastens one thing to another (clinging) or an attempt to possess and control the perceived source of happiness. Attachments imprison us, like a fly stuck to fly paper. Attachment to the instinctual drives for happiness (security, affection, control) creates compensatory needs, like when we eat or drink when we feel in need of love and affection. We let go in order to open to the will of God in our life. We “let go” and “let God.”

“Letting go” means passing through the energy and not around it, not running away or pushing it back into the unconscious through denial or distraction. One does not identify with the feeling, emotion, body sensation, thought, or commentary, and act it out, but allows it to be transformed by the simple act of sticking with it and experiencing it.

Saying the “letting go” sentence helps to dismantle the emotional programs for happiness that can’t work, uprooting the dis-ease in the unconscious. As we “let go,” it is not necessary to identify which energy center was triggered, or focus on one or the other of them.

It is important to say the “letting go” sentence, even if one has experienced a release of the energy after the first two movements of “feel and sink into” and “welcoming.” There is no need to try to determine which of the three energy centers is the source of what we are experiencing – they are all inextricably connected.

Energy is a force for expression. It desires to express itself somehow. Releasing energy by “letting go” is a healthy and useful way to handle a feeling. Each release undoes a bit of the repressed energy. As time goes by, we become freer and have greater clarity of mind. Purpose and direction become more positive and constructive, resulting in more conscious choices, decisions, and actions.

“It is the most difficult thing for us to let go.

We have a mind that tells us that we’re always right;

everybody else is wrong, but we are right.

Then we have emotions and feelings

that sort of validate those thoughts.

And what we need to do is to let go of

whatever is happening on an interior level

and surrender so that we can see reality

and what is actually happening

instead of perceiving through our thoughts and feelings.”

• Mary Mrozowski, creator of the Welcoming Prayer

From Contemplative Outreach Ltd

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