13 Tips from Centering Prayer Experts for Meditators to Deepen Your Practice

Last updated on: January 11, 2023 at 2:00 am by Andrew Lang

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13 Tips from Centering Prayer Experts for Meditators to Deepen Your Practice 2023-01-10T14:04:34-08:00 Andrew Lang

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Centering Prayer Andrew Lang Contemplative Spirituality

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About a month ago, I was invited by my friend Keith Kristich to share my response to this question:

What is your best advice for someone who is starting or deepening a centering prayer practice?

And here is what I said:

“I struggled with Centering Prayer when I first started because it didn’t feel as though my mind and body were fully connected. A simple shift I made, that I highly recommend to anyone starting off, is to take 3 minutes at the beginning and end of each sit to engage in gentle stretching. In my experience, there’s something about grounding and settling our bodies that allow for our minds to receive the silence more fully.”

For me, Centering Prayer is a powerful spiritual practice – it can help us retrain our mind and shift it out of the default operating system it most often runs on. And, unlike many other forms of spiritual practice, it isn’t about adding more to our lives or rooted in patriarchal doctrine. It’s simply about connecting and resting with the essence of the Divine.

Learn from some of the great Centering Prayer teachers.

There are two awesome opportunities right now for those of you who desire to engage the deep spiritual practice of Centering Prayer.

Read these 13 tips from Centering Prayer experts on how to deepen your practice. This list includes amazing folks like Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Carl McColman, Rev. Nhien Vuong, Rich Lewis, and Jana Rentzel. Just reading it is a crash course in new things to integrate into your current practice. (Or to start up!)
In just under two weeks, the second annual Centering Prayer Summit will be held online featuring some of our wisest teachers, including Cynthia Bourgeault, Phileena Nikole, Adam Bucko, Colleen Thomas, and Carl McColman. This is a phenomenal opportunity – one that I’m extremely excited for! – to learn from some of the deepest wells of wisdom we have in our contemplative Christian tradition. Hope to see you there!

Want to read more on embodied spirituality and contemplative practice?

Connect with me on Instagram, where I write the most, and through The Wednesday 1-2-3, a weekly email where I share 1 contemplative and embodied practice, 2 questions for your inner work, and 3 resources to go deeper.

Contemplative

Spiritual Practice

Embodied Spirituality

Meditation

Spiritual Formation

About Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang is an educator in the Pacific Northwest, an alumnus of Richard Rohr’s Living School for Action and Contemplation, and author of Unmasking the Inner Critic: Lessons for Living an Unconstricted Life. Along with writing regularly, he facilitates workshops helping people to navigate their inner lives and explore their sense of identity and spirituality. You can read more about the author here.

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