Week 6: Evening Examen
Practice of Contemplative Pauses: Resting in the Gaze, Examen of Consciousness
Hello all!
Thank you for reading this newsletter! It is an honor to provide these offerings to you on your journey. I welcome hearing your thoughts and reflections as I wrap up this series. One more next week! -Bethany Dearborn Hiser
Opening Meditation
“Give me the courage to live!
Really live--not merely exist.
Live dangerously.
Scorning risk!
Live honestly.
Daring the truth-
Particularly the truth of myself!
Live resiliently-
Ever changing, ever growing, ever adapting.
Enduring the pain of change…”
-Howard Thurman
Ignatian Examen of Consciousness
The Ignatian Examen invites us to prayerfully look back at events and interior movements during a particular period of time, be it a day or a season. We look for movements of grace, times when we turned toward our true selves and the Divine in our midst, and times we experienced the lack.
We press forward, emboldened by love and God’s gaze of love, “Daring the truth-Particularly the truth of myself!” as Howard Thurman encourages in the opening quote.
Some might call self-reflection nasal-gazing, yet it is in doing the inner work in the embrace of Love, that we see more clearly our disordered attachments.
Humbled, cleansed, we experience grace and freedom to look up and love others from a healthier and more grounded place. Perhaps, this inner examen and purification of heart also frees us to behold the face of God. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”
I want to invite you to engage in your own reflection or Examen that typically follows the below structure:
o Start in the Gaze of God’s love
o Choose Gratitude
o Name Significant Feelings; Moments of Consolation or Desolation
o Recognize & Release what holding on to
o Look Forward
Resting in the Gaze of Love
In whatever way works for you, start this time by resting in Love, being aware of God’s presence within and around you. Perhaps noticing your breath and intentionally breathing for a few moments, practicing stillness in the way we’ve been starting each week and then a slow reading of the below scriptures passages we’ve been moving through.
Here’s a meditation I recorded if you would like to be led in a practice:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Soul Care for Wounded Healers to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.