Virtual Pause

December 19, 2022

Today’s episode is a simple visualization to help us get out of the chaos and fill the void in our lives.

www.angiewinn.com for book, resources, events, and more.

December 12, 2022

Often I am grasping, trying to find my way, trying to find my purpose in life, or where to live it out. I am discontent and looking outside of myself for the answers. Of course, this creates chaos in my surroundings and in myself.

Yet when I have seen God move significantly in my life, giving me a purpose and a place to live it out, it has been not from a place of me searching for the answers outside of myself, but from a place of being still and alert.

Today we will imagine God’s flame burning off the excess in us – those needs that keep us grasping or hiding. Then, we can notice the flame inside of our own hearts, which can propel us to move into the world and participate in healing, justice, and hope.

Listening portion today:

“Your word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in, indeed I cannot.” Jeremiah 20:9

www.angiewinn.com for book, resources, events, and more.

December 5, 2022

Advent is always a conundrum to me – there seems to be a stark contradiction between what is – in me, in others, in the world - and what we are supposed and intended to be.

Today we will allow the light to come in so we can see. We will look at ourselves, others, and the world through the lens of what is and what could be. We will let go of one thing that is holding back our light and intercede on behalf of another and of the world, so that collectively, humanity can become what it was intended to be – light.

November 28, 2022

There are beautiful joys during the holiday season and intense stressors. Busyness, noise, and crowds can create some of the chaos during these times, and so can spending time with people that we love who are going through their own struggles.

In this episode, will practice a simple way to clear our tents of the burdens that we allow others’ to bring into our tents, freeing us up to participate in the process of helping another without it suffocating us and destroying our inner peace.

Our listening portion today:

A bird cannot hold its perch and fly. Neither can we grasp anything and be free.

-The Yamas and Niyamas, Deborah Adele

November 21, 2022

I was stuck in a loop of chaos for so long, and no amount of knowledge I acquired created the shift I needed to live a life where I experienced stability. It was finally when I dedicated myself to meditation – the practice of quieting the mind – that I was able to release my inordinate attachments and feel a sense of transformation. Today we will do what we do in our pauses, and practice quieting our mind so that we can identify an attachment that tangles us like a root, and begin the process of lessening its chokehold on us.

Our listening portion today is from Romans 12:2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. NIV

November 7, 2022

We may find ourselves in situations where it is not safe to speak or express our emotions. What do we do with that? If we don’t find a time to make room for ourselves so we can dig in deeper, then we will stuff our emotions down, which leads to many things, including apathy, doubt of who we are, and the worse – creating situations where we oppress another.

In this episode, we will think of a situation where there was not room for us to express ourselves. We will acknowledge and honor how it shows up in our body and try to release it. Then we will dig a little deeper into the three programs of happiness that are at play in us.

October 31, 2022

Why do we need to experience some silence in our lives? Because our talents, our brains, and the world cannot determine who we are, solve all of our problems, and provide us a sense of wholeness and rest. We need to stop the compulsions of our false self and allow ourselves to be in silence for our true self, our inner diamond light, to be seen and validated by our creator.

Today we will experience some practices of silence, including body scans and centering prayer. Our listening portion is

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know

Be still

Be.

I also read the following quote and poem during the pause:

“Solitude is the furnace of transformation … (It) is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter – the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers (God’s self) as the substance of the new self.” -Henri Nouwen

Gather Me to Be With You

O God, gather me now

To be with you

As you are with me,

Soothe my tiredness;

Quiet my fretfulness;

Relieve my compulsiveness;

Let me be easy for a moment.

O Lord, release me

From the fears and guilts

Which grip me so tightly;

From the expectations and opinions

Which I so tightly grip,

That I may be open

To receiving what you give,

To risking something genuinely new,

To learning something refreshingly different.

O God, gather me

To be with you

As you are with me.

Amen.

Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace

October 3, 2022

Too much! Do you ever feel like a sponge that can no longer take on any more water? You are at full capacity? We take on burdens of the world, of ourselves, of others. We are worried about today and tomorrow and have a pile of tasks and unmet expectations knocking at our door.

In this episode we will try and squeeze out all of these burdens, worries, judgements, and expectations so we can come back to that place inside of us that is still, whole, and at peace.

Our listening portion today is from Thomas Keating, an amazing contemplative Catholic monk who passed away several years ago.

This Presence is so immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring yet so gentle; limitless, yet so intimate, tender and personal. I know that I am known. Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence. It knows everything about me – all my weaknesses, brokenness, sinfulness – and still loves me infinitely. This Presence is healing, strengthening, refreshing – just by its Presence. It is nonjudgmental, self-giving, seeking no reward, boundless in compassion. It is like coming home to a place I should have never left, to an awareness that has somehow always there, but which I did not recognize.

Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart

September 26, 2022

When things get messy, I want to intervene and make it better. Truthfully, I want to try to control the situation so I get my expected outcome. Yet when I can’t intervene, especially if it is a situation that someone else is going through, then my default is to just sit by the wayside, worrying, or trying to avoid the suffering it is causing by watching Netflix or utilizing some other numbing technique.

There is a third way. Intercession. Interceding on someone’s behalf is active. It requires great love, great empathy, humility, and an acknowledgement that we aren’t in control.

In today’s episode, we will identify a situation in our lives where we can’t intervene and move into the posture of interceding.

Listening portion today:

Romans 12:12

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.