Will You Walk With Me?
"Be sure of this - that I am with you always, even to the end of the world." Jesus says this in the 28th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew when He tells the disciples that He will be with them as they go out into the world and face the many challenges that will occur as they travel on their journey.
Was this a story just for a select group of people at a particular time and place or does it apply to us today?
Have you ever taken one step forward and then taken two steps back? Or maybe 3 or 4 steps back?
Have you ever struggled to pick yourself up when you are in the depths of depression or anxiety?
Have you ever asked yourself, does anyone really care about me?
I'm sure we have all felt that way at one time or another and when we are in those spaces, we can feel isolated, cut off from family, friends, from everyone.
When we feel isolated, we start to wonder if we can ever really overcome the pain and isolation. We wonder if God is really there for me.
Join us, on Will You Walk With Me?, where we will explore ways to strengthen our faith through caring for our mental and physical health. We will do this in community, learning from those who join our episodes to share their stories, and through exploring ways to increase creativity and positive self esteem, while in the process studying sacred scriptural texts that can support your journey.
So I ask you, Will You Walk With Me?
Will You Walk With Me?
A Mindful Path to Peace in a Frantic World
When life's relentless pace left me gasping for air, it was the ancient practice of mindfulness that offered a lifeline. This episode is a walk through the transformative power of mindfulness against the backdrop of a Christian life, where I share the profound impact an online course from Brown University had on my journey to emotional and physical rejuvenation. As I open up about seeking solace in scriptures from Philippians and Romans, discover how these words align with the principles of mindfulness to guide us toward a life of harmony and peace, even amid the world's chaos.
The conversation then shifts to an intimate reflection on a simple, yet powerful meditation technique that can be woven into daily life. This episode stands as an invitation to explore the sanctuary that mindfulness can provide, while recognizing our worth as children of God, and embracing the strength that faith and awareness can bring to our lives.
Welcome back. This is episode four of Will you Walk With Me? Welcome. How are you doing today? What do you bring of yourself to our time together this day? Well, it may be morning, day or evening hey, it may be the middle of the night when you're listening to this but whatever time it is, take a minute to think about this and, if you have a pad or pen and pencil, write down a word or two about how you feel this very moment. When someone asks us this question, how are you today? Most people respond in one of two ways either yeah, I'm fine, I'm okay, and in your head you're going not really. Or you really don't want to know.
Speaker 1:When we identify with our emotions too strongly, we can get lost in them. When we think our words define us, we can start to judge ourselves. And when we can't seem to go easy on ourselves and forgive ourselves for the mistakes we make, then we can begin to feel bitter, withdraw and think that we just can't keep up. The mind is bigger than this. Life is bigger than this. How we come to a place of acknowledging this? One of the ways is through the practice of mindfulness or awareness. We might approach this as a particular way of thinking, as a philosophy of faith or with no official identification for it at all. This process of being intentionally aware, this place of introspection. In it we can see a thought for what we choose to do with it and then let it go with ease. We also can get so caught up in the spinning wheel of life that the goal just seems to accomplish all the things on our daily list and then collapse in front of the television or go to bed exhausted, only to get up in the morning and start the whole thing again.
Speaker 1:As I shared with you in my first episode, for me it seemed that around the fall of 2022, someone turned the switch of life on and everyone was trying to make up for lost time. I felt like I was being thrown out into the world and told to pick up where I left off two years before. I also felt like I hadn't been to the gym in over two years which is true and I was wildly out of shape emotionally and physically. I consistently felt like I was trying to catch my breath, getting back into in-person living. Well, now it's March 2024 and I am back in the gym, physically and mentally, and I'm getting back in shape, but life still happens and pressure builds and, as well as many others, we are all pulled in different directions. Some I love to go towards, some I say to myself why do I have to do this?
Speaker 1:I knew I wanted more. I wanted to experience for myself what it says in Philippians 4-7,. This is from the Amplified Bible, and the peace of God, the peace that reassures the heart, the peace which transcends all understanding, the peace which stands guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, is yours, it's mine. Well, I want to get me some of that peace. I felt God saying to me I'm trying to give you peace, but you're just not taking it. Well, what in the world does that mean? How am I supposed to receive peace? Well, I will just pray more, and that's a good idea. I'll read more scripture that's a good idea too. But I wanted something more. I needed transformation.
Speaker 1:So God led me to reflect on Romans 12, 1-4, and again from the Amplified translation. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies dedicating yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your act of worship, and do not be conformed to this world any longer, but be transformed and progressively changed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove for yourselves what the will of God is, the will that is good, acceptable and perfect in his plan and purpose for you. There's that word again you. That means me. Well, I thought to myself, if God is calling me to present myself as a living sacrifice, hmm well, I don't really think I'm doing that. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not putting myself down. I love my life. I'm grateful to God for all the blessings I have. But life is crazy, chaotic. Now, sometimes crazy creates beauty, sometimes crazy creates anxiety, which leads to being depressed. Could make one question their faith, isolate themselves. You know the story. Well, some people say just give some things up, free up some of your time. Well, that could be the answer. But what do I give up and what is really the issue? The question how do I live my life that I may be fulfilled and give glory to God? That's the real question, and I knew in my heart of hearts that if I could work towards answering that, I would have everything that I need. God heard my prayers, as God always does.
Speaker 1:On Facebook. One day I saw a post from Brown University about something called mindfulness. It was an eight-week class online but it was kind of stretching my budget so I said some other time. Then, a few days later, when I was super stressed and not very nice toward others or myself, I saw that post again. Can we say God calling? I signed up and my journey toward transformation was beginning. In 1979, dr John Cabot Zinn founded the mindfulness-based stress reduction center.
Speaker 1:Mindfulness is an ancient Buddhist practice that has compelling relevance for our present day lives. This relevance has nothing to do with Buddhism per se or becoming a Buddhist, but it has everything to do with waking up, finding authentic ways to live in dynamic and creative harmony with oneself in the world. It has to do with examining who we are and questioning our view of the world and our place in it, and with cultivating appreciation for the fullness of each precious moment we are alive. Most of all, it has to do with being present, recognizing and being in touch with the depths of your original mind and heart, and being a way of sanity, kindness and peace in a sometimes crazy and painful world. The systematic cultivation of mindfulness through formal meditation practice wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments and if we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives, but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation. Oh and, by the way, if you were wondering, the word Buddha simply means one who is awake to the actuality of things, including the beauty of one's own, true as deepest nature. So mindfulness will not conflict with any beliefs or traditions. As we walk together, it brings me joy to offer scripture, reflection and practices that can help bring peace and a closer walk with God and a holistic approach to living in the present moment. But as a reminder, I say this to you now and at the end of every episode working with a professional therapist and or spiritual director is very important. Tools such as mindfulness and others we will explore together bring additional ways to enhance the journey and discover the beauty of who we are Now.
Speaker 1:Some of you might be wondering what the difference between mindfulness and meditation is. I call them cousins. They both work toward a deeper inner focus and obtaining a state of peace and relaxation, but they come at it from different ways. Mindfulness and meditation are similar and linked. Mindfulness is sometimes referred to as a type of meditation, and vice versa. The exercises work hand in hand, says Peter Brooks, a professional meditation and mindfulness teacher based in Baltimore. You can be mindful, he says, without being in a state of meditation, but you cannot be in a state of meditation without being mindful. Still, the terms aren't interchangeable as there are key distinctions between them. That's why I call them cousins.
Speaker 1:Mindfulness can be practiced anywhere. Mindfulness means being intentionally aware of the present moment, with an attitude of openness and acceptance. Mindfulness can be practiced anywhere, anytime. You can practice mindfulness when you are eating, showering, walking in a quiet private place or with a group of people, depending on where you are and what is going on around you. Practicing mindfulness may require refocusing your attention when it wanders. Meditation, on the other hand, requires intentional focus. Meditation can refer to mental training techniques such as guided or led by someone else, movement based or still focusing on breathing, in ways such as Tai Chi and or visual meditation. The resulting goal of the techniques, whatever you choose, is a deep relaxation that connects you to a deeper inner sense of yourself.
Speaker 1:Some of you may be saying where is Jesus in all of this? What does God say about it? Did Jesus ever practice these things. The scripture clearly states that Jesus did meditate. He always went to a place to be alone and to talk in his own way to God, the Creator, god his Father. And as that is one of the older practices, let's look at some scripture that shows these points. You could turn to Joshua 1.8.
Speaker 1:Take this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. New international version, and it's very clear. Meditate on it day and night. Psalm 119, verse 23,. Even though princes sit and talk to one another against me, your servant meditates on your statutes. The Amplified Bible. It's also very clear. The word meditation is right there. Colossians 3, 1-2,. Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ to a new life, sharing His resurrection from the dead, keep seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above, the heavenly things, and not on the things that are of earth, which are only temporal in nature. Again from the Amplified Bible, this has an implied discussion about mindfulness and meditation being aware, keeping focused, setting your mind on something and then being aware. Now back to my story.
Speaker 1:I signed up for the class which was offered on Zoom. It was wonderful learning with people from all around the world. Each week we met for three hours on a Tuesday morning and practiced mindfulness. By the way, remember the word practice, we'll get back to it. I learned a lot of things through those eight weeks and after it was over, a small group of my classmates wanted to continue to meet and to this very day, we meet every Tuesday morning for a half hour to continue our practice. A much smaller group of people. They are, and they've become my friends, blessed companions on the journey.
Speaker 1:My Tuesday morning practice, along with other times of practice during the week, have been going on for the past seven months. I didn't think a whole lot about how the practice sessions might be transforming me. I just enjoyed them. It's like a mini vacation, a chance to focus on my breathing and heightened awareness, feeling the closeness of God. Well, within the past few weeks, something became very clear to me.
Speaker 1:The past month or so has been very full of many things, some things I love to do, other things that caused me a whole lot of stress. I never seemed to get my calendar in order. One night I actually quadrupled booked myself. That was not fun and this is not the first time in my life this has happened Just being overbooked, overwhelmed, and if I'm honest with myself, it won't be the last time either. But what is different? What is different is that I was seeing glimpses of light in all the chaos, the light of Christ that invited me to more and more practice time. Five minutes here, five minutes there. You see, practice is the key to all of this.
Speaker 1:Any one particular mindfulness or meditation practice can be a wonderful experience, but intentional practice creates transformation. I noticed that many times this past month. I was able to invest five or ten minutes and become aware of my feelings. Instead of bottling them up, I was able to express, to realize, to let them go if needed, or keep them close to help me move on. And once I acknowledged those feelings and were made aware of the decisions I was making based on them, I could, if needed, make new choices or continue on the road that I was on. I felt so much better about myself. The craziness didn't go away, but I felt wonderful. My calendar it was still a mess, but I felt at peace. I realized that I could get to this place because for months and months I had been practicing and when I needed to go to a place in my mind where I knew God was waiting there to care for me, I could get there much faster and have more time in that mindful, meditative state.
Speaker 1:So you may be wondering, actually, how do you do this? And it's a little tough on a podcast because we don't actually want dead air. But I'm going to read to you from a book which I recommend, called Practicing Mindfulness 75 Essential Meditations to Reduce Stress, improve Mental Health and Find Peace in the Every Day, by Matthew Sokolov. I'm just going to read a few sentences. The beauty of a podcast is you could start and stop this and do the actual practice. It's called finding the breath. The breath, the ruach, the spirit of God in each and every one of us is key to our very existence. When we have breath, we have power. When we are gasping for breath, we are losing power. So if you can invest five minutes and do a breath meditation, mindfulness experience, so what you need to do to get started is to find a comfortable position for your body and, if you're comfortable, allow your eyes to close. If not, find a place where you could fix your gaze upon.
Speaker 1:And here's where meditation and mindfulness come together in this practice. First, bring your awareness to your abdomen and focus on how your breath interacts with the movement of your abdomen, rising and falling. And then move your awareness up to your chest, expanding, contracting. Think about your lungs, feel the movement. And then bring your attention to your nostrils, feeling the breath. It may be more subtle here, but think about how your breath might tickle your nose as you breathe in and it might be slightly warmer as you breathe out. Now, that was very quick. I would take at least two minutes between each of those three breath experiences.
Speaker 1:Allow yourself, in the meditative state, to relax and, in the mindful state, to be aware of how your breath experience is in each of those three things the abdomen, the chest and the nostrils. Think about how breath gives life. You may think to yourself boy, this is easy and it is. You do it naturally anyway. But when you do the practice and your mind calms down and focuses, over time you can bring that practice into situations in your life to help you calm down, focus, strengthen your self-confidence, focusing more on positive than anxiety and negative. In the end, this is all about realizing that you are a child of God. You are worth spending time with getting to know and caring so you can reach your highest potential being care of yourself. Through therapy and practices such as mindfulness motivate positive behavior and reduce harmful behavior. They empower us to take risks and to say no to things that don't work for us. It is a key component of self-compassion and helps us to take care of ourselves by lowering stress while striving for success. It reduces the levels of negativity and increases more and more positive energy.
Speaker 1:To many people, this discussion on mindfulness and meditation is very new and it can sound scary. I understand that Anything new brings on fear. What will I find out? What will I think about? What will I notice? Do I even want to go there? Remember this God loves you. This is a tool that God has provided for all of us. It may work. It may not work, but it's worth trying. You are worth trying it, for I invite you to trust the process that brought you to even listen to this podcast today. If you are here, then you were meant to be here. God cares for you so much and he is welcoming you into a deeper relationship. God is asking you to trust and take steps toward healing.
Speaker 1:And John Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness. He wrote in his book Wherever you Go, there you Are something about trust. Trust is a feeling of confidence or conviction that things can unfold within a dependable framework that embodies order and integrity. We may not always understand what is happening to us or to one another or what is occurring in a particular situation, but if we trust ourselves or another, or we place our trust in a process or an ideal, we can find powerful stabilizing elements that embrace security, balance and openness within trusting that in some way not based on naivete, but the intuition that guides and protect us from harm or self-destruction towards a trusting heart. So it might be good to begin looking into what we can trust in ourselves. We don't immediately know what is trustworthy in ourselves. We may need to look deeper, to dwell a little longer in stillness and being. Perhaps we could experiment with trusting the present moment a bit more, accepting whatever it is we find ourselves feeling or thinking or seeing, precisely because it is in the present moment. If we can stand here by intention and take our seat in meditation for a stretch of time, even a short stretch by the clock, and let go of the full texture of the now, we may find that this very moment as it is is worthy of our trust, and I would add to that we have a God who loves us deeply, passionately, and is always extending God's hand out to us, inviting us to trust the process.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed our episode today and I want to give you a preview of our next episode, which will come out in April. You will get a chance to actually meet my producers, andrew and Catherine, and we are going to talk about a totally different type of path on the journey toward wholeness, how tabletop games and therapy are related. I look forward to having them join me, and I know you will enjoy it as well. My prayers go with you until the next time we meet. Invest in yourself, take time to practice and see where the Lord leads you. You are worth it. I'm inviting you to walk with me on this journey, a journey to know the healing, life-giving, life-restoring power of God through His Son Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. I would be honored to walk with you.
Speaker 1:I hope that you will join me in our next episode and I want to be sure that you know that if you are in need of professional help which I said and will continue to say I treasure in my own journey and you don't know who to talk to, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, accessible nationwide by dialing 1-800-273-8255. And also the three-digit 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, designed to be a memorable and quick number that connects people who are in any form of mental health crisis to a trained mental health professional. If you would like to reach out to us, please send a note at podcast at willyouwalkwithmecom and I'd be happy to answer you. Thank you again to Andrew and Catherine and to all of you for listening. I pray that each of you see the hand of Jesus extended, reaching out to you, knowing that you are a child of God and can grab on to a blessed partner for the journey forward. See you next time.