Category: Healing meditation

Healing meditation, Trauma recovery

Trembling: A Healing Practice

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked…” Psalm 18: 7

A Practice

Lie down. Pick a point within your body where you feel pain, discomfort, or crap. Close your eyes. Breathe in for five counts filling up your lungs from bottom to top. Send your breath into your pain. Surrounding it. Now breathe out for five counts. Sending some of your pain into God or the universe. Notice you may tremble on the exhale. Allow tremblings their say. Repeat for as long as you receive comfort in doing this kind of breathing. Then breathe in again. Breathe out. Speak these words (or words like it) to your pain:

Pain, agitation, anxiety, whatever your name is, I walk toward you. Because if I walk toward you, you cannot control me. If I walk away, you dominate my body. So I move toward you. With my breath. Breath receiving the emotions you hold captive. I walk toward you naming my emotions as holy.

A Prayer

God, creator of all human emotions, hold me. Assure me of healthy relief. Coming soon. Already traveling toward me. Send courage in my waiting, my trembling, my healing. Amen.

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A Note from Jennifer: You may opt in or opt out of any practice at any time. Not every practice is for every body.

Image by Laura Otýpková from Pixabay

Healing meditation, Hope, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Affliction

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from God.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of God never ceases…” Lamentations 3:17-22

Reflection

Bitter thoughts. Stewing from down below. Gurgling with stomach acids. Bubbling up. Burning the esophagus. Causing throat and breath to sour.

The writer of Lamentations uses strong metaphors. Wormwood, a plant smelling and tasting bitter. Gall, another name for bile. Words filling the air and us with pain’s felt presence in and out of our bodies.

But in the midst of severe affliction this writer dares to hope? What is it that this writer “call(s) to mind?” Surrounded by smells so intense, so permeating the writer curls. Caves in. What glimmers enough amidst affliction to speak of “steadfast love”?

Healing Practice: Glimmers

What gives you even a small glimmer of hope? A pin head of possibility? A fleeting thought of future?

What or who steadies you right now? Your therapist? The mail carrier showing up every day at the same time? The noon time factory whistle or downtown church bells?

Name these. Write them down. Even the smallest of the small. The writer of Lamentations puts hope in God. Maybe you do too. Maybe you don’t. Or maybe God is a glimmer of what can be.

Prayer

God of what can be, bring breezes filled with fresh air. Blow away bitterness’ smell. Settle my stomach. Give relief to my soured throat. Spark my imagination. Fill my thoughts with hope’s tiny glimmers. Amen.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Healing meditation, Liturgy, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Distress

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

When in pain, we often curl up. Shut others out. Protect ourselves. Needing time to think or feel or rest. Isolating too long however works against us. We cease to cry out. We cease to connect.

The writer of this psalm laments, words reaching out of isolation.

“Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. When I am in distress, I call to you…” Psalm 86: 6-7a (NIV)

We can practice reaching out. Even if we do not want to now. We can prepare for the time when isolation becomes harmful. Like the psalmist we can cry out to God or others in our suffering. With a loud voice. With shaking hands or clenched fists. Asking God or the universe to hear our cries. Witness our distress. Answer our calls.

Today, use your own words or the prayer below.

God, I call you. Hear me.

God, I call you. See me.

God, I call you. Listen to me.

God, I call you. Give mercy to my distress,

My cries,

My prayers.

God, I call you.

Amen. 

Image by Satyaban Sahoo from Pixabay

Healing meditation, Hope, Trauma recovery

Unseen Seeds of Hope

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez
“…What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”
1 Corinthians 15:36 

Keep a list today. On a small piece of paper. One you can fold up. Fit in your pocket. Carry with you wherever you go. Unfold and flatten for remembering moments, even fleeting ones, scribbled down perhaps with a stubby pencil.

Collect the glimmers. The moments when hope settles on your heart for a passing second. Delivered in a realization, discovery, or an opening into what’s possible. Name each of these bits of unexpected joys and mercies in an act of gathering and sowing for your future. Continue this act of prayer for as long as it feels good to do so.

God, witness in me this day what I cannot see. Witness the tiny seeds of healing and hope I sow in my own fallowness. Witness in me my life-force still living. Witness in me my surprise in discovering unexpected joys. Receive my thanks for what I do not know will bless me today and tomorrow and in this wintered season of my own healing. Amen.  

Image by Adi Purnanto from Pixabay

Healing meditation, Hope, Trauma, Trauma recovery

Absent God

Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez

“Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you…” Isaiah 41:10

“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

Reflection

God said, “I am with you.” 

Jesus said, “I am with you always.”

Statements opposing our abandonment. God gone. God disappearing. Leaving us alone. All alone in living hell. All alone suffering. All alone sitting in despair. Words telling us God stays with us. Is present with us. We, never alone. Always together with God.

How? How is God with us always?

I don’t know. I just know sometimes things shift. Something opens up within me unlocking breath’s captivity. Or something I once thought an impossible goodness becomes reality. Or someone shows up with life-giving words. Are these moments of God being with me embedding in my body? Surrounding my soul? Being the breath that I breathe?

Who knows? What I know is that these small shifts keep hope alive in me one moment at a time.

Healing Practice: Holding Possible Truth

It’s hard to fully hold this possible truth of God being with us always. But others can hold this possibility for us. Some already do without us even knowing about it. Today ask someone you trust to hold this thought for you. Maybe pick three people. Who cares if they believe in God or not. That’s not their job right now. Their job is to hold this possibility for you.

Prayer

God, are you always with us? Even when we cannot feel your presence. Even when we cannot trust your presence. Even when we cannot believe in your presence. Hold us God in your seemingly absent presence as we attempt this possibility of hope. Amen.

Image by Ioachim Marcu from Pixabay