More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
find freedom from the inner drive to meet the needs of those they love, allowing their own needs to be seen (by themselves and God) and met.
the types most dialed into figuring out and preventing threats to certainty, safety, and freedom, require a healthy dose of silence to quiet the constant churning of their thoughts.
When we turn down the inner distractions and learn to listen to our breath, our body, our instincts, and the voice of God, we are able to hear what we’ve always known: that we are enough, that we have enough, and that God is enough.
For type Seven, resting in silence helps muffle the ever-persistent, future-forward mental activity that frustrates their ability to remain content in the present moment.
Practices marked by stillness help dismantle the lie “I am what I do” and loosen the addictive grasp that power and control have in and through this center.
Stillness teaches us restraint, preparing us for proper engagement and compassionate action.
For type Nine, engaging stillness is a reminder to be intentional about their inner calm, not merely to opt out or check out but to be attentive to the gift of stillness as a discipline.
THE WAY HOME FOR TYPE TWO:
Sevens looks for security outside of themselves: in people, places, things, and experiences.
The journey home requires truthfulness in facing what, for many Sevens, is the undramatic pain of the ordinary; it requires them to welcome the emptiness they are afraid awaits them in silence.
Sevens find that rest allows them to take a break from the exasperation of feeling like they never have enough of what brings them pleasure.
When Sevens do make room in their minds for silence, it is often filled with imaginative ideas and dreamy visions of all the bliss they yet anticipate. The pleasure they explore in their head adds to the frustration
making space to cease the constant mental activity brings inner refreshment for rootedness in the present moment.
For a Nine coming home means engaging their own body, but not over-identifying with the activity tied to the instincts of their body
they lethargically check out of life. The spiritual growth invitation for the Nine is to move from this natural tendency to an attentive stillness in their prayer practice.
stillness, learning how to show up when they’d rather check out.
Actively participating in intentional stillness
Stillness then is a gift helping Nines get back in touch with their own needs: genuine self-nurture and self-protection.
Centering Prayer is a silent prayer that prepares its practitioner to receive the gift of loving presence in contemplative prayer. Centering Prayer complements and supports other forms of prayer by facilitating rest in God.
For those in the Head Center, Centering Prayer is an invitation to inner silence. The silence of God as a divine language
arrest their mental obsessions and cultivate quiet to achieve a grounded peace.
For those in the Feeling Center, Centering Prayer is an invitation to inner solitude. By dialing down compulsions for connection and comparison, inner solitude enables heart people to face themselves in relationship to God.
instinctive Body Center, Centering Prayer is an invitation to inner stillness—stopping and ceasing, resting in God.
prayer of Examen.
Examen begins by recognizing God is with us as we are, always present and always loving.
Next we move into reflective thanksgiving. When we open our hearts to gratitude, we open our souls to hearing from God.
At this point we take a practical survey of the day. The heart of the Examen uses memory to explore the day searching for a consolation—a moment, memory, or experience in which we felt God moving toward us or in us.
Whatever the consolation is, once it is discerned we allow ourselves to be held by it, listening to what God may be trying to say to us through it.
This step of the prayer also invites us to find the courage to search for a desolation—a moment, attitude, or experience in our day in which we found ourselves moving away from God’s love and presence.
Whatever the desolation is, we acknowledge it as an invitation to grace so as not to be overcome or overwhelmed by it.
After identifying our consolation and desolation, we express contrition or sorrow. Once we’ve found the honesty to face our desolation, we pray with it.
This step of the prayer is a time to rest in the grace that God is bigger than our biggest problems, failures, hurts, or concerns.
Finally, we close with hopeful resolution for the future. We turn to the coming gift of a new morning,
