Welcome Prayer
/“To the degree that we are transformed, the world is transformed.”
The Welcome Prayer is a contemplative way of bringing your stronger emotions into prayer, particularly at the moment of being triggered. This attention to how our emotions can be welcomed, felt, and let go of, can be a powerful and healing way to pray.
One of the founders of an organization called Contemplative Outreach, Mary Mrozowski, developed this form of prayer. She says, “To welcome and to let go is one of the most radically loving, faith-filled gestures we can make in each moment of each day. It is an open-hearted embrace of all that is in ourselves and in the world.”
As we authentically focus and feel our emotions, we are able to do two important things:
Identify the ways our false self is triggered, and what our coping strategies/programs for happiness are.
Allow God to heal the emotional wounds we have accumulated and remain present in our physical bodies. The body keeps score, and by welcoming and letting go of these emotional wounds, we are able to heal.
God is known as Healer in many traditions, and the Welcoming Prayer supports this healing presence in the particularity of our everyday lives, particularly when we are triggered into strong negative emotions.
We can follow three simple steps:
Identify the emotion and feel it. Take time to sink into the difficult emotion that you're feeling. Focus on the feelings, the thoughts, and the sensations in your body. Notice it all and try to stay with it.
Welcome the feeling and invite the Divine into it. As you stay with the emotions, body sensations, and thoughts, welcome them, and welcome God into the very heart of it by saying “Welcome __(emotion)__”, “Welcome God”, “You are welcome into my ____”. Welcome God into each part specifically.
Let it go. With each feeling, thought, sensation, repeat (either out loud or to yourself), “ I let go of my desire to change this_______”, “I let go of my clinging to control”, “I let go of my grasping for security.” Etc.
Stay with this surrendered posture until there is some release in the strong emotions, thoughts, and sensations.
