Month: May 2022

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A Meditation Flow Chart

I had the privilege last Friday of leading a meditation class and guided meditation via Zoom for about 50 employees at UBS, where a friend of mine has been organizing activities for AAPI month. I’m sharing this meditation flow chart I put together for anyone who is interested in how I sequenced a meditation class for a secular setting. This was a roughly 12 minute meditation, backed by the music “Dream 2” by David Buchs, which I played on a loop. (The slide template is from myfreeslides.)

For a Christian audience and with a time frame of 15-20 minutes, I might start with these same steps and proceed to some kind of contemplative prayer – a Lectio Divina, a reflection on Scripture, a breath prayer, an Examen, or simply a conversation with God. I would also frame the time of prayer by asking God to guide our time, and then thanking him for his presence.

During the discussion time after the guided meditation, most of the questions and comments I received came from people who had been struggling to meditate on their own and found it so much easier to be gently guided into a contemplative space. If that’s your experience, I encourage you to listen to this guided meditation on Romans 8 at The Stillness Collective and to subscribe to the website for information on upcoming releases.

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Discernment as a Way of Life: A New Course

Come join me and my partners in The Stillness Collective in a new course! It’s called “Discernment as a Way of Life: A Practical and Spiritual Approach to Decision-Making.” It launches Sunday, May 15th and will go for six weeks.

Why are we offering this course?

Because we’ve noticed lately that we know many people who are in the midst of big life-changes and discernment processes. They are seeking to make decisions with God, but don’t know how.

That’s where our course comes in. We’d like to introduce you to a well-loved book by Elizabeth Liebert called The Way of Discernment. It offers a time-tested, practical method of Christian discernment, based on the spirituality and practices of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

In our own lives, we’ve found it immensely comforting and empowering to have a method to follow rather than being left to muddle through with trial and error – or well-intentioned but not always helpful advice.

We also believe that Ignatian discernment doesn’t just help with decision making! It provides a framework for experiencing God in a deeper way in our day-to-day lives.

We want you to have these tools at your disposal, so that you, too, can grow in your experience of God and have a greater understanding of and confidence in his leading in your life.

I’m really excited about this course! Ignatian discernment is something I turn to over and over for wisdom and guidance. I hope you’ll join us and see what impact it could have on your life, too!

As always, thanks so much for being here and for your support. And please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.

In faith, love, and hope –

Carrie

Course details: Sundays from May 15 – June 19 (six weeks), 7-9pm, via Zoom. For more information, including pricing, visit the course page at The Stillness Collective. Or, come join our information session on Thursday, May 5, at 7pm. Register here.