(some collected from various sources, some my own thoughts)
1. Integral Prayer
What Is It?
- Prayer is communicating and communing with God.
- Praying from the consciousness of God-Being-Us, with God-Beside-Us, and into God-Beyond-
Us are the movements of the spiritual practice we call Integral Prayer. What for?
- Learning to love in a mystical, holistic way – with our whole consciousness.
- Transforming us into living from and deeply participating in the communion consciousness of
our divine nature. Prayer was always meant to be communal.
- Strengthening, comforting, and encouraging one another (I Cor. 14:3), i.e., how we love one
another.
- Sensing and responding to spirit.
References
- See https://www.integralchristiannetwork.org/wespace-prayer – this is what is on the web site,
under the WeSpace menu.
- Luke’s piece, Integral Prayer Teaching Notes – this is a good overview, one that guides could
send to their group members. How
Gene likes to describe it as a practice with 3 parts, each requiring self-awareness:
o Extending your heart and womb to the one we are holding in the shared heart space –
checking your intent, then holding them in love, sending loving energy.
o Noticing what arises in you, paying particular attention to what feels like it is given to you
(and possibly into you) from beyond you. Try to distinguish what is given to you from what
you might be trying to create or connect (with your mind).
o Discerning whether to share a description of what you are experiencing, e.g., vision, words,
body sensation, energetic movement, qualitative feeling of it. If we sense any pain, negative
energy, or struggle, we simply hold it in love.
- Be open to what arises. Think of it as an experiment. Allow yourself to be curious.
- Be discerning
o Be aware of the your thoughts and your mind’s potential over-activity. We are not ourselves making or creating anything. We are not diagnosing, suggesting, telling, giving advice, teaching, correcting, warning or trying to change the person. This would be from ordinary consciousness.
o Be careful that your well meaning desire to help or encourage doesn’t take you into trying to hard to connect with the person in some way, or to come up with something meaningful. We are not trying to make connections, we are only naming what arises in us, given to us from beyond us (coming from the shared HeartSpace).
o There is no authority over anyone in what we are sharing for one another. We are not speaking to each other on God’s behalf, we don’t have words from God or the Holy Spirit (implying some authority over the person).
see How Do We Get from Mental to Integral?, one of the weekly writings, by Patty: https://www.integralchristiannetwork.org/writings/2021/4/24/how-do-we-get-from-mental-to- integral? ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=607da897373b373e30e99031&ss_email_id=6083d7 0f2674e960ae197faf&ss_campaign_name=How+Do+We+Get+from+Mental+to+Integral
%3F&ss_campaign_sent_date=2021-04-24T08%3A30%3A29Z
this is a helpful distinction with thinking and a wonderful description of her experience of IP
- The guide can share what is was like for them the first time → you’re going to grow, it may be
uncomfortable
- Counter-cultural: we give authority to your intuition, we are vulnerable with each other, we are
embodied
2. Guidelines for WeSpace
listening, not fixing, etc. – the practice is receiving each other with our hearts, being careful about our minds wanting to do something helpful or tell something
During check in and sharing
Being Present, Receiving Each Other
o Deep Listening: from the heart (and womb), being aware of reactive thoughts and feelings o Unconditional Positive Regard: (seek and) trust the good in one another, always view each
other with respect, without critical thoughts, judgments or agenda-filled evaluations
o Sit with What Is: simply be present without trying to change or fix anyone
o Allowing: we commit to allow everyone to be where they are, without trying to teach or
save Sharing
o Trust gives us the willingness to share deeply – what is happening in us spiritually, what is meaningful to us. These are always shared with humility for the purpose of being known. We allow ourselves to be seen.
o To share what is happening with us spiritually (internally), with enough external details for needed context, such as what we are learning, a spiritual event, how we are experiencing our private times of meditation/contemplation, or to ask a question.
Responding to a Sharing
o Your response to someone’s sharing is internal first – what you can observe in yourself:
thoughts, feelings, body sensations, whole-body arisings and knowings, etc. So, first is to
observe and possibly identify what you observe in yourself.
o Be aware of the your thoughts and your mind’s potential over-activity. Our minds love to
help by problem solving, suggesting or fixing. We are not diagnosing, suggesting, telling, giving advice, teaching, correcting, warning or trying to change the person. This would be from ordinary consciousness.
o Be careful that your well meaning desire to help or encourage doesn’t take you into trying too hard to connect with the person in some way, or to come up with something meaningful for them or for the group.
o It helps to recall your intention to see the person sharing with loving eyes, to simply receive them as they are. Nothing needs to be changed.
o You may choose to voice what you are experiencing inside yourself. It could be simply mirroring back to the person sharing because something was touched in your interior world. Or it could be naming what you can identify in yourself.
During WBMA
- Practice self-awareness, observing yourself with your mind, noticing thoughts, feelings, body
sensations, intuitions, etc.
- Being open for what may happen or arise, e.g., letting searching or critical thoughts go
- Try to move from the entering state (what you observe in or about each center, especially
physically) to awareness state (what you are aware of from each center) to unified state. Can
try this for each of the four centers.
- Trust gives us the willingness to humbly offer what we are hearing, sensing, or discerning
without fear of coercion or manipulation—from ourselves or others.
During Integral Prayer
- Integral Prayer is for the edification of the body, for “comforting, encouraging and
strengthening” (1 Cor. 14:3). This is foremost in all aspects of Integral Prayer, so set your
intentions with it.
- Holding others in love in our hearts and wombs
o We are containers of “holding loving space” for one another. With our hearts can we pour our love on them?
o In our wombs too: deep calls to deep, the God being us sees the divine life and beauty in each other.
o Can we direct our divine life energy to flow to them, like “streams of living water.”
o This is the most important part. When we do this we are transmitting loving energy, our
primary practice.
Noticing what arises in us
o We are always open to emergence, the possibility of a new way or form, the release of spiritual energy in unexpected avenues, the “worship” in the creative act (as Teilhard puts it). We seek to allow mystical consciousness to help us flow into not what we already know, but what we are about to discover.
o We seek what we are knowing from an awakened state of consciousness – not our regular thoughts and feelings.
o An arising might be images, colors, words, smells, body sensations, energetic sensations (sense of energy in a specific way) or more. You might notice spiritual presences (spiritual guides) around the person you are holding, you might have a sense of who they are, even. You might sense your spiritual guide “speaking” to you, giving you something for the person you are holding.
o What you first notice might grow as you notice it, hold it, or as others share. Keep noticing if it changes.
o Sometimes something starts with a vague sense, but becomes more clear as others share. Sometimes you might be given something because of what someone shares, whether it is related or seemingly unrelated.
o Notice what thoughts and feelings come in reaction to your arisings. See if you can determine if the thoughts or feelings help you identify or enrich your arisings, or if they distract from them.
o Identifying an arising (finding the words to describe what you experiencing) is a thinking action that helps, but comparing it, evaluating it, actively trying to expand it, connecting it
with something else, or trying to come up with an explanation of it are all over-activity of
the head and devalue the pure arising.
o See if you can catch yourself trying to make or create anything. We are not diagnosing,
suggesting, telling, giving advice, teaching, correcting, warning or trying to change the
person. This would be from ordinary consciousness.
o Be careful that your well meaning desire to help or encourage doesn’t take you into trying
too hard to connect with the person in some way, or to come up with something meaningful
for them or for the group.
o Feelings might be your own reaction to what arises, be careful about following those if you
are in any way triggered. But feelings may come to help you get a qualitative sense of the arising. For example, you may receive an image of the person you are holding, and your feelings might give you sense of what is in the image, such as whether it represents trust, contentedness, or something else positive.
Naming what we are given
o Sharing is not expected or required, each of us discerns whether to share what we are
sensing. Remember, the holding each other in love is more than enough already.
o You may choose to name what you are experiencing inside yourself, what has arisen in you. o You might want to share because you want to try it, practice it, because it will help you
speak what is true for you.
o You might want to share because you sense a prompting from spirit to do so, it might be a
benefit to the group (that you don’t know what it is, or even who it might be for)
o Trust give us the willingness to humbly offer what we are hearing, sensing, or discerning
without fear of coercion or manipulation—from ourselves or others. These are always
shared with humility for the purpose of strengthening, encouraging, and comforting others. o We don’t have to always fully cognitively know that what we share is 100% true and pure,
but we offer from a place of intended trust and love, with humility and open hands, with the
freedom to hold everything loosely and release whatever doesn’t “ring true.”
o Everything we share with one another should be with the guiding discernment of holding a
loving space, to bless one another, for strengthening, comforting, and encouraging one another. If we sense any pain, negative energy, or struggle, we simply hold it in love (and don’t name it). As we hold it, often another movement of spirit comes with something to bring encouragement, strength, or comfort with it. But not always.
o We want to be careful to discern that we are not putting our own projections on others.
o This way of praying is not a psychic reading, though some of the same spiritual faculties are
at work. We are not foretelling the future or warning the person we’re holding. While it’s tantalizing to delight in another way of knowing, and we can enjoy these developments in ourselves and the shared experiences of mystical knowing, the point is always to focus on how what is coming forth is enhancing our way of being together and the life being offered to one another (not for spiritual excitement).
o There is no authority over anyone in what we are sharing for one another. We are not speaking to each other on God’s behalf, we don’t have words from God or the Holy Spirit (implying some authority over the person).
Receiving from others in the group
o Receive what each person shares with openness and curiosity and notice what arises in you
in response. Practice self-awareness to distinguish thoughts, feelings, body sensations,
intuitions, or something else arising in you.
o Take notes if it will help you or if you sense what is spoken will develop further over time. o Try to tune in to your heightened consciousness and not immediate reactions (thoughts and
feelings). See if you can locate what you are sensing in one of your four centers or
elsewhere in you body, and then see if it grows from there.
o Do not work at finding a meaning or explanation.
o Notice if you can sense the authenticity of the message, is it for our spirit to take in? You
decide whether to receive it or to let it pass. Not every message will necessarily be authentic, since we are all learning it. We all get better at this with more practice. See if you want to give loving feedback either in the moment or afterward.
o Especially notice if you are having a triggered (strong negative) reaction and take care of yourself – don’t feel obliged to follow it. The person sharing does not intend to give you something triggering, they don’t know.
o Acknowledge each sharing at least with a “thank you” so they know you heard them. If you wish, give them feedback, such as “That really fits” or “I really feel that” or “I’ll have to hold that and see what it might be”. If a sharing has particular meaning to you and you would like to say what that is, feel free to respond with it. It could encourage the whole group.
o After everyone has shared, you may want to let everyone know what you are experiencing from all the sharing. See if you can name something new about yourself, your relationships
with others or your relationship with God that may have been given to you this time. Perhaps a sense of being called in a particular direction.