Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

Bonus Episode: A Three-Minute Invitation to Peace

March 24, 2020 Amy Julia Becker Season 2
Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker
Bonus Episode: A Three-Minute Invitation to Peace
Show Notes Transcript

For all of you who are stressed, and fearful, and worried—for yourself, for your family, for those you love, for our whole world—I want to share a practice that has helped me. I invite you to give yourself three minutes today.

Connect with me:

Thanks for listening!

Note: This transcript is generated using speech recognition software and does contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

0 (0s):
Hi friends in keeping with episode two of this season of the love is stronger than fear podcast. I wanted to just offer a brief invitation to learn a prayer practice that can help to bring peace into our bodies into our days. It's an invitation to receive the peace of God and to cast our cares. That's some of the biblical language for it, or to present our worries and fears to God.

0 (33s):
So I'm going to take a few minutes just to guide you through this so that you can practice along with me, but then so that you can make this into your own practice. You can do this for one minute. I would recommend at least three. And ideally you go for seven minutes for 10 minutes and allow yourself to receive the peace of God through breathing and prayer, offer back your worries and concerns, and then carry that through the day, especially in these days, that can carry with them the stress, whether it's the stress of knowing that your job has just been lost, something really major and significant like that, or just the stress of a small child who's home all day and whose demands seem really hard to meet.

0 (1m 25s):
So here's what I do in order to pray. In stressful times, I tend to sit cross legged, but I'm pretty short. So that's easy for me. If you are taller, you might want to have your feet on the floor. You can lay your hands gently on your lap. Or what I often do is actually a hold my hands crossed over each other at my heart, just as a posture of reminding myself of the care that God has for me. And you also can open your hands as a posture of openness to what God has for you in that place.

0 (2m 0s):
I go in with my eyes closed into trying to get some cultivate, some inner stillness, and then I begin to breathe. And there's a pattern of breath for this prayer. I'm just going to let you know it before we do it. It's to breathe in with your nose out with your nose, to breathe in with your mouth and out with your mouth. And then this is a change to breathe in with your nose out with your mouth in, with your mouth and out with your nose.

0 (2m 34s):
And what I've found is that breathing in that pattern keeps me so focused on what am I supposed to be doing now with the breath that my mind doesn't actually wander to whether or not I've got a plan for dinner tonight or my other things on my to do list. So that breath pattern really helps me to stay focused on prayer, uh, while I'm doing this. Alright, so let's try. So sit in comfortable position eyes, closed, body calm and take a moment to breathe in through your nose.

0 (3m 12s):
And as you're taking that breath in, just breathe in the word peace And let that piece enter your body and enter your consciousness. And then after you have done that, exhale through your nose and breathe out your worries. This is an opportunity to give your worries to God. Then breathe in again, this time with your mouth, Breathing in again, that word peace And exhaling, almost like a sigh Exhaling your worries, your fears, your concerns.

0 (4m 0s):
It might be very specific. It might be very general. Then go back to breathing in through your nose, breathing in the peace of God. Again, maybe to a specific situation or just more generally. And now you're going to breathe out through your mouth again, that sigh Breathing out the cares and concerns, breathing in through your mouth for peace, Breathing out through your nose For worry.

0 (4m 39s):
And then you start over again, breathe in the peace of God through your nose, Breathe out. Whatever is worrying you Through your nose, Breathe in the peace of God through your mouth And breathe out your worries With a sighing, exhale, Breathe in peace.

0 (5m 14s):
There, your nose, Breathe out one more time. Those worries through your mouth, Breathe in that piece, through your mouth And breathe out. Those worries through your nose. You can continue this pattern for as long as you like. You can change the pattern if that's better for you and you also can change what it is that's coming to your mind as you breathe and pray.

0 (5m 51s):
There are times when I do this with peace and worry. There are times when I changed the words to love fear. So I'm breathing in the love of God and breathing out everything that I'm fearing today. And then finally, there are times where I actually breathe in the love of God into my body, into my little world, but then on the exhale, I'm also just thinking about the love of God, extending all around me. So that's three options for using this breath, prayer and this prayer practice.

0 (6m 24s):
One to breathe in peace and to breathe out, worry for another, to breathe in love and to breathe out fear, and then finally to breathe in love and to breathe that out as well. So I hope that this is a simple, just a few minutes, a day, a way for you to connect, uh, to the peace and love of God for you to bring your fears and concerns to God and ultimately to carry that peace and love through your day so that when the moment of stress or a fear comes, you can return to that breath in the middle of the kitchen, in the middle of a conversation, just by taking a moment to inhale deeply, it'll be a little reminder to your body, your mind, and your spirit, that the peace and the love of God is still present.

0 (7m 18s):
It's still real, and it will carry you through. Thanks for joining me for this audio appendix again, I hope it proves helpful to you in a practice of prayer that will connect you to the love that is stronger than fear.