Spiritual Practice – Page 2 – tiffany nicole fletcher

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all i ever wrote, Art as Devotion, Facing Challenge, Faith, Healing, Peace, Personal Growth, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms project, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Video

Video: Poetry as Prayer // Tools for Challenging Times

Hello friends! I was recently invited to share a reflection with the One Boat: International Chaplaincy for Covid Times community. My talk is called “Poetry as Prayer: Tools for Resilience in Challenging Times.” I discussed poetry as a form of prayer, as demonstrated by the Psalms, which provide a rich example of not only emotional and artistic expression, but profound and life-changing intimacy with God.

I share other examples of poetic expression as prayer (and as a way to cope with life’s challenges) and give some quick tips on how to venture into the practice.

Facing Challenge, Healing, Nature, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Wellness

Rooted in the Source: Spiritual Connection and Resilience

One of the most important things you can do right now is to locate your true Source and keep drinking from that well. In “normal” (non-pandemic) times, we enter into our relationships and lean on each other to varying degrees, ebbing and flowing in that way based on who has energy to give, the dynamics of our relationships, how we manage stress, etc. But in these times, everyone is under intense, chronic stress in different ways. Everyone is a pot leaking water, and you are a pot leaking water, too – so if you need to truly be refilled and replenished like never before, you can’t look to another leaking pot. You have to go back to the water source.

Peace, Personal Growth, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality

Dancing with Fear

Everyone is dancing with fear right now. It’s unavoidable; it’s in the atmosphere; it’s a constant thread woven through the media reports we’re consuming to stay informed; and having fear is understandable given the haphazard, disorganized government response to the coronavirus in the U.S.

But the challenge of this pandemic is also presenting us with an opportunity – the opportunity to develop as skillful a relationship as we can with fear. If we can do that, we’ll have a strength and skill that we can continue to make use of even when this crisis is over. Here are some of my suggestions for how to do it:

A New World, Healing, Love, Peace, Personal Growth, Spiritual Practice

The Invitation to Healing

I read a quote a few months ago and it has stayed with me. Richard Rohr writes:

“We cannot change the world except insofar as we have changed ourselves. We can only give away who we are. We can only offer to others what God has done in us. We have no real mental or logical answers. We must be an answer. We only know the other side of the journeys that we have made ourselves…All the conflicts and contradictions of life must find a resolution in us before we can resolve anything outside ourselves. Only the forgiven can forgive, only the healed can heal, only those who stand daily in need of mercy can offer mercy to others. At first it sounds simplistic and even individualistic, but it is precisely such transformed people who can finally effect profound and long-lasting social change.”

In this quote, I found the expression of my motivation for the work I have devoted my life to. We stand in the midst of a world in tremendous need of healing, social change, relational repair, and transformation of systems of power. But every broken system that exists is simply the sum of the people in it, and so it is my belief that our hope for a better world will be found starting at the individual level.

We must start with ourselves. The things that bother us about the world or other people are likely a call first to us, to become the change we wish to see. To embody it first within our own lives. And then, as Richard Rohr says, we become capable of truly creating change. What sense does it make to work to change the larger world in some way if we haven’t first sought to effect that specific change in our own life? It’s there that often requires the most courage.

I believe that we are all called to effect healing in some way within our sphere of influence and that we are given daily opportunities to do this. We are called to attend to our own healing, and then to be agents of love within our relationships and in the community where we find ourselves. (Which we will automatically be if we have effected transformation within ourselves.) If everyone attended to their sphere of influence in this way, the world would certainly be renewed.

Transformed people will transform the world. But changing ourselves is not easy; it might be the hardest work we ever do. Which is why everyone isn’t rushing to do it. It’s easier to chase other things. But I know that it is possible, that it is necessary, and that there is freedom to be found when we are able to access the healing our life is calling us to. When we find that healing, we not only bring ourselves to a better place, we also advance our family, our community, our ancestry, our bloodline, and the world as a whole. This is the real work of our lives. We can acquire titles, money, and fame, but those things cannot accomplish this work for us. The healing we need will still be there in the background of our lives until we address it.

Spiritual practices like meditation and prayer do help us heal and change. There is healing to be found, even though our personal and societal challenges can often seem dark and intractable. There is healing available and when you start seeking after it, you will see that the love of God is constantly conspiring to help you bring it to pass. God is near.

*Quote source: Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, “There is Nothing to Regret (God Uses Everything in Our Favor,” June 12, 2017, Center for Action and Contemplation.

Peace, Personal Growth, Prayer, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality

Surrender: Releasing Your Troubles to the Heart of God

Surrender can be one of the hardest things to do. Yet, it is one of the most powerful and effective spiritual postures there is. We are not meant to carry our burdens alone; we are meant to partner with God (the Divine, Spirit, Goddess – whatever you call your Higher Power or the Source of all Being) as we face the burdens of life, turning over our troubles to God regularly lest we become weighed down from trying to carry more than we are able to. Life involves challenge, which is hard on the spirit, so we must also have a regular means of release and cleansing for our spirit. Surrender is more than necessary.

We are not meant to carry our burdens alone.

The action of surrender is a choice. It’s an inner decision to release and let go, willfully handing things over to the God who loves us, to that which surely desires what is best for us. God can be trusted. And even if you don’t have trust in God, you can still surrender. It is not a feeling or some miraculous moment where the heavens will part, as much as it is a decision. You can keep on choosing it over and over again, as many times as you need to in order to maintain your peace. It’s an action we are meant to take regularly—even several times a day.

It can be helpful to use imagery or tactile methods to symbolize your act of surrendering. For example:

Writing down the things you are surrendering on slips of paper and putting them in a special jar or container kept for that purpose. A “prayer jar” of sorts.
Taking a walk and imagining yourself releasing your stresses or worries to the earth beneath you, or to the trees around you. Nature is the Great Mother and this practice brings healing.
Using prayer beads as you recite The Serenity Prayer or some other prayer of surrender.
Singing a song of surrender, such as the hymn “I Surrender All” or this one, one of my favorites.
Doing breathing exercises where you imagine inhaling love or peace and then surrendering to God on your exhale.

Whatever the method, surrender often.

Whatever the method, surrender often. Many of us are carrying around (and being weighed down by) things we needed to surrender a long time ago. Outdated beliefs, untrue ideas about ourselves and/or others, pain from the past, baggage from past relationships, unprocessed loss, etc. The less we surrender on a regular basis, the more these things will build up.

We tend to resist surrender. Perhaps because the very act of surrender is affirmation of the uncomfortable truth that there is much we aren’t in control of in life. It’s often easier to believe that we are fully responsible when bad things happen in our lives (that it’s because we have failed in some way), because that idea at least maintains that we are in complete control. The truth is that we only have so much agency. There are forces beyond our control, things far beyond our understanding.

Do you want to access the peace of God? Surrender that which is beyond your control.

Surrender can be hard, but it ultimately brings peace. Do you want to access the peace of God? Surrender that which is beyond your control. One of the best prayers I’ve ever heard is simply: “You are God and I am not.” Surrender puts you in your rightful place in relation to God. We are not meant to live as if we have the full power of God. We are meant to do what we can and then release the rest to the Great Knowing, the Comforter, the one who longs to help us and give us peace.