“O Lord, You have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.” Psalms 139:1-6 (NASB)

I will never forget the moment I could have lost my little grandson forever. We had gone for a walk with friends along the edge of the ocean. My grandson was enjoying the challenge of climbing over rocks, up steep banks, and over trees on the rough trail, but suddenly, there he was, hanging by a root over the ocean and rocks below. My heart skipped a beat! He did not say a word. I quickly grabbed his wrists and lifted him back onto the trail. He simply said, “Thank you Papa.” And off he went down the trail.

That moment played over and over in my thoughts for days. Two things struck me: What if he had fallen onto the rocks and into the ocean? What amazing confidence he seemed to have in me!

I had been with him every step along the way, saying again and again, “Let me help you.” But he insisted each time, “Me do it, Papa!” But when crisis came, he knew I was there to help. I’m sure he did not fully understand the danger he was in, but his “thank you” communicated his appreciation.

God promises to be with us always. In fact, as Psalm 139 declares, we cannot escape His presence. He fully grasps the implications of all the dangers we face. Yet we, like my grandson, do not. God’s commitment is to journey with us in relationship. He seeks to provide for us and to protect us. If we resist Him we may end up in grave circumstances. Each day we have a choice: we can walk under the guidance of his direction or choose to be independent of it. How will you respond to His presence with you today?

Dear Father, Thank You for Your presence in my life journey. May I understand and trust the reality of Your moment-by-moment guidance today and not resist. Amen.

By Mike Woodard
used by permission

FURTHER READING

God is With Us by Randy Keycik

Trusting an Unchanging God

Life’s Uncertainty Teaches God Can be Trusted

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We both entered the doorway at the same time. She paused and looking at me, waved her arm in front of her gesturing me to go first.  Acknowledging my presence she let me lead the way.

In much the same way God has given us the wise instruction to acknowledge Him in all of our ways; to look to Him and let Him lead the way. With that instruction comes the promise that He will direct our paths.

Today as you go through your day be mindful to acknowledge the Lord God in everything that concerns you. In doing so He will enter every situation and conversation ahead of you and He will direct the way.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.” Proverbs 3: 5 & 6

As you wake up not feeling enthusiastic about going to work:
Lord, please go ahead of me today as I walk into work. Give me peace and confidence as I acknowledge You as the source of this provision for me. Guide my path through this day as I work diligently for You.

As you walk into a meeting, a conversation, a change meeting on the street:
Lord, I step aside right now and ask You to step ahead of me and prepare the way so that my words and attitudes will bring Your light into this moment.

As you engage in your relationships and your work in your home:
Lord, thank you for my family. Right now I acknowledge that I need You to prepare the way as You go ahead of me into…  this supper hour/this hour that I work on my bills and finances/this time that I help the kids with their homework/this mountain of work that overwhelms me/this conversation I need to have with my spouse. Thank you for Your presence and Your promise.

As you feel weary and frustrated with tiredness and health issues:
Lord, I acknowledge You as my strength and my Great Physician. Please direct my path to greater health and give me Your strength and grace today.

Lord, I trust You with every detail of my life. I want to trust You more whole-heartedly every day. I know that my own understanding is so limited and I thank You that You see the whole picture. I ask You to go before me today, to remind me to acknowledge You throughout the events of my day. Thank you that You will guide me with Your wisdom and strength and You will make the way straight for me. I pray this in the powerful name of Jesus, amen.

by Gail Rodgers
used by permission

FURTHER READING

The Promise of Guidance

Choose Trust

In God I Trust

We need the wisdom of cool heads and open hearts more than ever, and part of how we get to that wisdom is by (counterintuitively) allowing the fullness of our human experience, including our anger. Here we revisit a Q&A with Rhonda Magee as she explores the complexity, frustration, and intimate beauty of learning to make and be peace in the world.

Stephanie Domet: In your book The Inner Work of Racial Justice, you detail the steps you took to help one of your students process his attitudes and biases. What kind of energy does that work require?

Rhonda Magee: It requires a certain kind of commitment, a certain willingness to turn toward that which we could so easily deflect, turn away from, deny, minimize, avoid. For me it’s really important that when these opportunities present themselves for us to look into what’s arising around this, we turn in to that opportunity as opposed to away from it. I also think it takes a kind of grounding in a certain kind of love—kindness, loving-kindness— for me it takes some feeling of the value, of the possibility of connecting across lots of difference and the importance and value of trying to do it, again and again, even when it’s difficult. 

SD: Why is it worth it to you to do this work?

RM: In my view, absolutely everything is connected, and that means all of us are connected, and so it seems to me that when we have these opportunities to expand the sense of our common ground, and we don’t take advantage of them and we don’t do what we can to heal and repair and transform the world, then it seems to me we are in effect contributing to barriers and obstacles to deep well-being. And so for me it’s worth it because it’s about practice. It arises out of deep practice for me—it arises out of the deep ethical ground of my practice.

SD: Who does that work serve? Is it for yourself, for the other person, the greater good of society? To honor the practice?

RM: It serves life. The gift of literally being alive. To me that’s not about any one of us, actually. To be alive is a great gift, and therefore the only real response to such a gift is gratitude. And a way to show gratitude is to try to minimize harm wherever it arises, as best we can. Recognizing we’re not perfect, that we’re not always able to see clearly how what we’re doing contributes to harm, we’re all vulnerable and misguided in our own ways, so it’s with a lot of humility that I say this. But ultimately, I think this question of who does it benefit, it benefits life.

SD: For a racialized person, a racialized woman, there are microaggressions everywhere. How do you take care of yourself to ensure you can do this work you want to do and feel called to do?

RM: It has come out of a sense of my own agency and what I often call personal justice. This idea that justice starts with us, how we treat ourselves. Taking care of myself feels like the first approximation of whatever it is I’m trying to offer in the world. There’s a reason I live in San Francisco as opposed to North Carolina or Virginia, where I was born and raised. The environment in San Francisco seems a bit more conducive to this way of accepting people, working across cultures, multiculturally, working with people who have different ways of expressing themselves, whether it be about race, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status. I specifically talk about the environment first and then the practices. We tend to think that from the practices we can overcome just about everything and that’s a good way to think, but I don’t want to miss this opportunity to name the relevance of our embeddedness in the world, and what’s possible is, in some measure, aided and abetted and shaped by the circumstances, the environments, the structures and systems that we find ourselves bathing in all the time. I live in a community that provides a certain amount of buffer against some of the worst kinds of disrespect that a person like me might find out in the world. From this place of relative protectedness, then I actually am able to give even more. We have to keep fighting for opportunities for people who today are suffering from a new set of oppressive systems.

SD: I wonder about your take on callout culture, or cancel culture. Is there a value in that approach, too? Your approach is one on one, which feels righteous, but slow. But what about other big-impact approaches? Do they also move the ball down the field?

RM: In the social justice arenas we may have overamplified some of the sharper ways of dealing with this. That’s not to say there aren’t times when we really need to take a strong, sharp stand. It takes a certain skill to act firmly and clearly and do so in a way that can minimize rather than exacerbate patterns of disconnect and separation. For me it’s never about just changing places with the people or processes that have been causing harm. It’s really about bringing around a new way of being with each other. There’s a certain urgency to figuring out how to work for some notion of justice and how to end oppression, but how to do that in a way that opens the heart, and that expands the capacity of all of us to be agents of a kind of public love that can help us sustain human life. Because the universe is going to go on in whatever way, but human life is vulnerable right now because of our failure to figure out how to live more gently and effectively together on this planet and to appreciate this brief opportunity we have between the birth and the death date to make a positive impact on this world.

“There is a way that even in the darkest times—intergenerationally dark times where there’s no reason to think your children will ever get out of this—there’s a way to love.”

SD: Do you ever lose your cool?

RM: I often lose my cool intentionally, as a tool for my own healing. If I’m feeling agitation and despair or some sudden rage at something I hear that seems completely nuts, my own practice journey at the moment is allowing those feelings to be expressed and as much as possible doing that regularly enough that they’re not creating a boiler that is going to explode out there. So if I’m here, at home, where it’s safe, it’s part of my practice to let the anger and the rage that I feel about injustice come right out. There are so many things happening that if you are willing to look at these difficult issues—I mean, my heart is breaking all day every day. I hum, I sing more nowadays, I hum and sing with others more nowadays. Singing, holding hands, humming, those are ways that human beings have across times and cultures managed to get through difficult times together. I sometimes forget just how many generations of human beings before recorded human history—for hundreds of thousands of years we don’t know the numbers of battles, rages, the despair, the inhumanity to each other, and yet we survived, and yet we didn’t burn down the planet, and yet we figured out how to keep getting up every day and feeding the children. There’s a planet’s worth of wisdom about how to get through difficult times and about the holistic nature of what that takes, so that’s what I’m about these days.

SD: I thought losing your cool would look more like—I don’t know—do you ever want to swipe all those books off the bookcase behind you?

RM: I mean, sometimes! When I hear this I’m tempted to think of those who say: We just need to start all over again. Blow it up and start all over. I don’t have kids, I’m not physically a mother, but I kind of feel like most moms and most of us in these communities that have suffered a lot over time, you know, we’re here. We’re usually not the ones who say let’s burn it all down. Because our children are in that. The things we have lovingly protected from the worst, as best we could through generations, whether through slavery or whatever our cultures and heritages have suffered through, we suffered through so we could live another day and find the sources of hope and regeneration. That mothering instinct, I believe it’s in all of us on some level, that instinct that would protect, that would go into the fire and pull out what we can and start again, mindfulness of that, cultivation of that is what I feel called to help support and that comes at least in part from my own particular lineage as the granddaughter of the granddaughter of formerly enslaved people. There is a way that even in the darkest times, intergenerationally dark times where there’s no reason to think your children will ever get out of this, there’s a way to love, to help bring about places where joy and healing can happen, and my goodness, if people could do it during much darker times, the holocausts of our history, the enslavement periods of our history—if it could be done then, then we can do it now. I have some love and compassion for those who feel so beleaguered that the call is just to burn it down. And I say, before you light that match, look into the eyes of a child, hold the hand of a friend, realize that these very human gestures matter, and look for that will, that capacity to live another day in love.

SD: When I look at what’s happening in the world today, the level of unrest and aggression, hate and burning, I see a lot of “men in the room.” What do you think about the role of women in helping bring about this “new way of being with each other”?

RM: I sometimes think of this in the conventional terms of identity—it seems obvious that we need more women in power! But I also think that more fundamentally and importantly, we need to see more empowered feminine energy in the world: that energy which lives in all of us—to greater or lesser degrees—the energy that nurtures, that cares, that sees the imprint of the future and the past in everyone and in everything we do. Any one of us can do this. And every one of us should.

Educating by Being Aware of Others’ Experiences 

https://vimeo.com/350988714 Whether we’re a teacher, whether we’re a director, whether we’re an administrative assistant, whatever we are because who we are and what our upbringing has been and what our life experiences have been is intricately a part of our authentic being. Unless we have taken time to look at… Read More 

• Barb Catbagan
• August 21, 2019

12 Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement 

There’s a balancing of gender power happening across the professional world—including the mindfulness world. Twelve leaders in the field share how they claim their power and bring the diversity of their experiences in the mindfulness movement to bear in their work. Read More 

• Stephanie Domet
• January 15, 2019

About The Author

Stephanie Domet

Stephanie Domet is the author of two novels and a nonfiction book for middle grade readers. She’s the cofounder of the AfterWords Literary Festival and a contributing editor for Mindful. She lives in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, where she is, indeed, grateful to be alive, in the best way.

Poetry can be a kind of meditation, explains Rashid Hughes. He explores how the art of haiku can open your heart and bring a sense of peaceful, awe-inspired expressiveness into your practice.

Life has so much to offer, if we’d only listen. The evening was young and my body tired from being in motion all day. There was an intrinsic quietness in the air, with gray skies above and an unceasing but very tender rainfall. I sat at my desk, looking out of my back window as I often do after a long day of reading or writing. The usual sounds of insects and animals on a late summer evening seemed to be very few. The candle flame to my left on my ancestor altar reminded me of the sacredness of resting, so I allowed myself a moment to just be. I enjoy cracking my window a little to listen to the rain with the coincidental thunder on the horizon. As I feel on many rainy days, I felt like the rain was inviting me to listen deeply, so I obeyed.

As I sat enjoying the rain for a while, I began reflecting on a few words from mama Alice Walker’s poem “Be Nobody’s Darling.”

Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast

Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone

I felt alone, but not separate. I exhaled. Something sacred was in the midst: an undivided knowing. A deeply-rooted conviction of belonging arose within me. It was as if I was bearing witness to my boundless love. In awe, I surrendered.

From within this knowing, the following haikus came to me in a very spontaneous, unstructured way. In that moment, life felt both intimate and imminent. A solitude and a fresh clarity caressed me; a moment of effortless meditation unfolding. There was no goal or desire present, just present-moment awareness.

I’m not sure why haiku was the form of writing that came to me at the moment. Poetry or writing isn’t how I usually express myself after meditation. I may jot down a few notes, but hardly ever in the form of poetry. I tend to prefer to bathe in the natural clarity of mind after moments like this. Maybe haiku emerged due to the natural slowness of pacing and spaciousness that is required throughout the haiku poetic process. Who knows?

With the window slightly opened, allowing the sound of the gentle rain and a soft breeze in, I began to write these haikus.

Poetry Can Be a Kind of Meditation

If you don’t understand the meaning of the haikus, that’s OK. The gift of haiku is the patience that is invoked, the wonder, and, on special occasions, the confusion. You may sense that there are many possible interpretations of a haiku. That’s OK too; let all be both true and untrue. I invite you to take a breath in between reading each haiku.

A different knowing
That enters me from beneath.
They frown at me, Shrink!

I hear them calling
In the cool breeze on my feet.
I contract, it’s me!

It’s time to slow down.
What shall my five year plan be?
It’s night time, don’t sleep!

Overcast, light rain.
The sunshine of so much grief
Felt within the peace.

Yaaaass, dreadlocks and beard!
The way they stare in the streets
Feels like, please don’t shoot!

The leaf’s holding on,
Fall, a few yellows and pinks.
No hurry, just be

A candle burns bright.
Walking back and forth I think,
Tomorrow not now.

Try Your Hand at Haiku

It is my wish that everyone might be able to find joy in writing haikus. It really can slow your mind down and open your heart when you need it most. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Go for a walk or sit in your favorite seat at home.
2. Observe your surroundings. Notice the colors, the weather, the sounds.
3. Listen to your heart and sense what is happening within.
4. Without much thinking, in two sentences, pause and write down what is capturing your attention.
5. Then write a third sentence that is not as closely related to the first two sentences.
6. See if you can draw some surprising connection between the first two sentences and the the third.
7. Remember, try to really get clear on what insight or message you want to reveal to the reader.
8. If you’d like a challenge, rewrite the three sentences following the traditional haiku structure: three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third.
9. Most importantly, don’t judge yourself for what you come up with.

Presence is meditation in motion. It is the practice of bringing mindfulness into the activities of daily life. We can practice the art of being here, now, while waiting in a long grocery store line, changing a baby’s diaper, or sitting in traffic.

Presence involves a simple yet incredible shift—from the ordinary state of mind wandering to bringing our attention to the experience of what is happening right now. You can make this shift anytime, anywhere. 

Why develop this habit? Spiritual leaders and philosophers have attempted to answer this question for thousands of years. And yet Ferris Bueller (the impetuous high school student from the classic 1986 film) might just have the best answer: “Life moves pretty fast,” he warned. “If you don’t stop and look around for a while, you might miss it.”

He’s right. Life without presence moves pretty fast. When we wake up, go to work, and do the other things we need to do, we often operate on autopilot; the days fly by, as do the weeks, months, and years. In fact, scientists have confirmed that this experience of time “flying by” increases with age. With each passing year, the novelty of life diminishes and our perception of time accelerates.

 When we wake up, go to work, and do the other things we need to do, we often operate on autopilot; the days fly by, as do the weeks, months, and years. 

This has led the mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn to argue that if you really want to live a longer life, presence—not drugs, healthy eating, or any other strategy—is the best solution. You may not actually live longer in terms of calendar time, but your experience of life and your perception of time will expand. The days, months, and years can be richer, more meaningful, and more fully lived.

Appreciating the fall leaves, listening to the crunch under your feet as you walk on the winter snow, smelling the scents of flowers or fresh-cut grass, feeling the warmth of the summer sun—these simple acts of presence slow life down. They help us go through each day feeling more alive, awake, and content.

There are other benefits, too. Presence doesn’t simply change the quality of being. It can also transform the quality of what you do, leading to greater creative flow, enhanced relationships, and increased productivity at home and at work. 

Through developing the habit of presence, we can get in touch with the fundamental wonder of what it is to be alive, and even the most ordinary moments become extraordinary.

Summary

What Is Present-Moment Awareness?

The practice of fully engaging with “here and now” experiences—sensations, thoughts, and surroundings—rather than operating on autopilot or mentally time-traveling.

Why Cultivate Presence?

Presence slows perceived time, deepens enjoyment of everyday moments, reduces anxiety, and enriches creativity, relationships, and overall life satisfaction.

Scientific Support

Mind wandering occupies 47 % of our day and predicts lower happiness; redirecting attention to the present boosts well-being more than any specific activity.

How to Build the Habit

• Set a Cue: Attach “Presence” reminder (sticker, tape) to routine moments (e.g., shower, stairs).
• Anchor Attention: Ground in breath (box breath: 4 in, 4 out × 4) and bodily sensations.
• Savor & Encode: Hold each present-moment experience for 15–30 seconds to reinforce neural pathways.
• Expand Cues: Once mastered, apply presence to other daily activities (walking, driving, waiting).

How to Stay in the Present Moment

But it’s not that simple. There’s also something quite mysterious about this moment. It’s not like the past, which stretches infinitely behind us. It’s also not like the future, which stretches infinitely ahead. In fact, the moment you try to capture it, it’s gone. It becomes just another part of the past. 

Philosophers have strived to define the present moment. While some have seen it as almost nonexistent—fleeting and infinitely thin—others saw it as having infinite depth. 

In fact, the ancient Greeks identified three ways that opening to the present moment increases the depth of our experience and productive possibilities of each moment. First, when we fully experience what is here and now, we no longer postpone what we most want. We live our fullest life now. The philosopher Epicurus captures this ethos of urgency:

“We are only born once—twice is not allowed—and it is necessary that we shall be no more, for all eternity; and yet you, who are not master of tomorrow, you keep on putting off your joy?”

This is something many of us have experienced. Have you ever heard the shocking and sad news that someone close to you has died and then thought, Am I living life as fully and as presently possible? Death makes us acutely aware of our aliveness and the preciousness of each moment.

Second, attending to the present moment enables us to take advantage of the full range of possibilities that exist in each moment. This helps us adapt to even the most challenging situations. If you’re stuck at the airport with a long delay, you can let your mind swirl with thoughts about the past and future: I should have taken the earlier flight or I am going to be so late and tired. Or you can experience the power of the present moment and take advantage of the new possibilities available to you as a result of the delay: go for a brisk walk through the concourse, read for pleasure, eat a meal, or catch up with friends on the phone. 

When we manage to enter the razor-thin moment of presence, something amazing happens: anxieties and resentments dissolve. We experience more ease, calm, and peace.

Being present opens up a third possibility: happiness and well-being. When we spend the day traveling through the past and future, we tend to get trapped in a host of negative emotions, from anxiety to irritation to resentment. The Epicurean school of ancient Greek thought used sayings like this: “Senseless people live in hope for the future, and since this cannot be certain, they are consumed by fear and anxiety.” 

When we manage to enter the razor-thin moment of presence, something amazing happens: anxieties and resentments dissolve. We experience more ease, calm, and peace. In short, we experience more well-being. What is the present moment? This almost sounds like a trick question. Everyone knows that the present moment is what’s happening now. The wind in the trees, the touch of fabric against your skin, your dog brushing up against your leg. 

The Science and Practice of Presence

The science on this is clear. Spending more time in the present moment leads to greater happiness.  A Harvard University study conducted in 2010 by Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, for example, revealed that happiness is inversely related to mind wandering—the amount of time that we spend time traveling through thoughts about past and future.  

Killingsworth and Gilbert discovered that most of us spend a lot of time mind wandering—distracted from the present moment. In fact, the average person spends 47 percent of the day mind wandering: thinking about something other than his or her present activity.

Their key insight, however, wasn’t just that our minds wander. It was the link between presence and happiness. Killingsworth concluded, “How often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.” In other words, this landmark study shows that one of the keys to happiness lies in simply redirecting our attention from mind wandering and distraction to what’s happening right here, right now in the present moment.

 A Practice to Shift Your Attention to the Present Moment

1. Notice—see if you can become aware—each time you step into the shower. 
2. Shift your attention to the sights, sounds, and bodily sensations of the present moment. To do this, we recommend that you ground your feet and bring your attention to your breath. Use what we call the “4×4 breath” or the box breath—four counts in, four counts out, for four breaths. This move will help you begin building the habit of shifting your attention from mind wandering and stress to the present moment. 
3. Rewire—encode this experience deep into your memory by savoring it for just 15 to 30 seconds.

Quick Tips

• Do it every day: Practice presence every day and, if you forget to do it in the shower,  practice presence during some other everyday life moment, such as walking up the stairs or starting your car.
• How to remember to do it: The most difficult thing about building this habit is remembering. To help you remember, we have developed a low-tech but extremely effective method. Put a sticker at eye level on your shower door. If you don’t want to use a sticker (or don’t have a shower door), you could use a piece of masking tape with “Presence” written on it. After a month or so, once the habit is ingrained, you may find that you no longer need it.
• How you know it’s working: After a couple of weeks or a month, you will likely start to notice that you no longer need to consciously remember to experience presence. It just starts to happen as you enter the shower. This is the magic moment of habit formation. It means that your brain has wired a new set of connections around this everyday activity.
• If you want more: If you have mastered the habit in the shower, try adding an advanced cue: stairs. Every time you walk up or down a flight of stairs, see if you can be present. This is a perfect time to feel the sensations in your feet or to bring your attention to the sights and sounds that occur as you step. This additional cue will take you even deeper into the experience of presence.

Adapted from Start Here: Master the Lifelong Habit of Wellbeing by Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp, PhD.

“Our bodies communicate to us clearly and specifically, if we are willing to listen.” ~Shakti Gawain

As a child, I was never taught to regulate my emotions. I learned instead to override them—pushing through stress, swallowing tears, and even hiding a cast at dinner, afraid that showing what had happened to me would create anger instead of care.

By the time I was a teenager, I turned to drugs and alcohol to manage my emotions. It was easier to feel nothing at all than to be bombarded by emotions I had no clue what to do with.

This turned into a ten-year drug addiction until I finally found sobriety after hitting rock bottom and realizing I needed help. I’d been cut off by my family, had resorted to sex work for cash, and had been living in my car and couch surfing for months when I finally realized I couldn’t keep living this way and needed to start facing the emotions and trauma to move forward.

But, when I got sober, the emotions came back stronger and deeper, especially with a decade’s worth of poor decisions piled on top of unprocessed childhood trauma. I felt intense anxiety along with shame and guilt about what I had done to my body, what I had done for money, and what I had allowed others to do to me.

With the emotions also came a laundry list of health problems, including severe PMS and gut issues.

I felt out of control of my body and saw doctor after doctor without getting any answers—only medications to ease my symptoms. I had just learned to live without substances, and I didn’t want to start adding them back in, even if they did come from a doctor this time.

At first, I figured the physical and emotional problems were separate from each other. I mean, how could both be related? But, as I made my way from doctor to doctor with little to no relief from any of my problems, I began doing my own research and testing out alternative ways to find healing and not resort back to living on the streets addicted to heroin.

It didn’t take long for me to realize my body and my emotions weren’t separate at all. Suppressing or ignoring feelings had left my nervous system on high alert, my hormones in chaos, and my gut in rebellion. Every mood swing, every bout of fatigue, every digestive upset was my body speaking—loudly—because I hadn’t learned to listen.

It wasn’t a supplement, a therapist, or a new diet that finally started to shift things—it was actually sitting with the feelings I had spent decades running from.

The first time I let myself really feel the anger, the grief, and even the shame I’d buried, my body trembled like it had been holding its breath for years. I can still remember doing a hip-opening yoga class and just breaking down crying halfway through. My body finally felt safe enough to let some of what had been buried go.

I was finally facing all my feelings around the abuse I’d experienced, the decision to enter sex work to make money for drugs, and my choices and their consequences—including stealing from family and ruining relationships.

As I stayed with these feelings, I finally saw the sexual and emotional abuse that occurred when I was a child and connected the dots from this early abuse to the abuse I continued to allow into my life.

My hormones didn’t magically settle overnight, and my gut didn’t suddenly stop protesting, but for the first time, I wasn’t fighting against myself. I was listening.

I learned that my physical symptoms were never separate from my emotional ones. Every headache, every sleepless night, every PMS mood swing was a message. And every time I tried to “push through” instead of feeling, the message only got louder.

Over time, I started small: letting myself cry without guilt and finally saying no to the things and people that drained me. For example, I realized I no longer wanted to continue with the successful marketing business I’d built because it forced me to cater to people that I didn’t even want to sit in the same room with. I was no longer willing to stay quiet or tolerate what didn’t feel right just to keep the peace.

I also started journaling to process messy thoughts that went all the way back to childhood—thoughts around not being good enough, being too weird and too out there, and feeling the need to hide my true self to fit in and get along with people.

It was terrifying at first—I felt untethered, exposed, and completely vulnerable—but slowly, my body began to relax. My mood swings softened, my gut started to settle, and I felt like I was finally inhabiting my own life instead of running from it.

I realized that the very thing I had feared—my emotions—were actually the key to my healing. Feeling wasn’t weakness. It was information. A compass pointing me toward balance, alignment, and what I now recognize as my dharma (soul’s purpose).

In Ayurveda, we talk about honoring the body’s natural rhythms—the cycles of energy, the shifts of vata, pitta, and kapha—and listening to what your body truly needs in each moment. Suppressing your emotions is like trying to swim upstream against your own current: it disrupts your flow, creates imbalance, and can make your hormones and digestion rebel.

When I allowed myself to feel, to honor my inner shifts, and to create daily rituals that supported my natural rhythms—warm nourishing meals, gentle movement, quiet reflection, and early nights—my nervous system slowly began to settle. My hormones became steadier, my gut calmer, and I finally felt like I was living in alignment with my own life instead of constantly battling it.

Suppressing your emotions may feel safer in the short term, but in the long run, your body will make itself heard. Listening, feeling, and honoring yourself—that is where true healing lives. Your body is speaking. Will you answer?

About Rebecca Ryan DeLia

Rebecca Ryan DeLia holds a BS in Alternative Medicine and an MS in Ayurvedic & Integrative Health and is an RYT500 yoga teacher. She helps women rebuild their gut and hormones, regulate their nervous system, and reconnect with their bodies—all without fear-based restriction or supplement stacking. Visit her at hormone-support.com.

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El programa evangélico Historias de Fe, que se emite desde hace más de 20 años en Radio Nacional de España, da un nuevo paso en su proyección pública con la apertura de perfiles propios en redes sociales y el lanzamiento de su canal en YouTube.

La iniciativa busca ampliar su alcance y conectar con nuevas audiencias más allá de la emisión radiofónica tradicional. Desde ahora, los oyentes y seguidores podrán encontrar contenidos del programa en Instagram y Facebook a través de la cuenta @historiasdefe.rne, así como en su nuevo canal de YouTube, donde se irán compartiendo materiales relacionados con el espacio.

Los perfiles oficiales ya están disponibles en:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/historiasdefe.rne

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historiasdefe.rne

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@historiasdeferne

Además, los enlaces pueden encontrarse también a través de las redes sociales de Buenas Noticias TV.

Historias de Fe forma parte de la programación religiosa de la radio pública y se emite actualmente a las 4:05 de la madrugada en RNE. El pasado año, el programa experimentó una serie de modificaciones relevantes. Dejó de formar parte del espacio conjunto Fe y Convivencia para convertirse en un programa con identidad propia, lo que permitió ampliar su duración a 20 minutos por emisión, en lugar de los 15 anteriores.

Estas medidas se adoptaron tras cumplir 18 años en antena, consolidando así su trayectoria dentro de la radiodifusión pública. Un precedente similar tuvo lugar en TVE en 2003, cuando los programas de las distintas confesiones religiosas también alcanzaron avances en autonomía tras cumplir la mayoría de edad en emisión.

El programa presenta vivencias de cristianos de distintos lugares del mundo, acercando al oyente al poder transformador de Jesucristo. Cada emisión combina testimonios, música y una tertulia que ofrece respuestas bíblicas a partir de las historias compartidas.

Tras su emisión en directo, los episodios pueden escucharse, descargarse y compartirse a través de la página web de RTVE, en la sección RNE Audio dedicada a Historias de Fe.

Con esta nueva etapa, el equipo del programa busca reforzar su vocación de servicio, adaptándose a los nuevos hábitos de consumo y ofreciendo una presencia más cercana e interactiva en el entorno digital.

For the Fullness of God and His Glory

The immediacy of our daily needs can veil thinking about the needs of the world and our playing a role in the betterment of things for all of humanity. We need to plan for children’s braces, the ACT, and college applications. There are later years past retirement for which we must make financial planning, and aged parents for whom we must care. There are present health issues we must monitor, decisions needing to be made about job transitions, and the realities of many forms of deep disappointments and pains that occupy our feelings and thoughts.

The Apostle Paul was no stranger to suffering and concerns for immediate needs, as one who was imprisoned at the time of the writing of Ephesians. As he prayed for the Lord to work his blessing into the lives of the Ephesians, he asked for God to do for believers things that both would fully encompass the issues of regular life while also using the individual Ephesians, their church, and us to give our all to participating in something far grander than routine, immediate concerns. In his prayer, Paul gives insight into the very reasons we exist and why and how our existence must meet the challenges to the gospel going to the ends of the earth. For the apostle, we are here to experience the fullness of God and to live for God’s glory now, in the future generations, and forever.

Paul’s prayer makes three simple-sounding yet incredible requests for the Ephesians and us, and we should direct our prayers and our lives to these very ends: He prays for God to strengthen us, for God to make us know his love, and for God to be glorified.

1. Paul prays for us to be strengthened (Eph. 3:14–17a).

Doing what brings God glory has led to Paul suffering imprisonment. The Ephesians needed strengthening so as not to be discouraged by the reality of Paul being treated like a criminal for proclaiming the gospel.

Through Paul’s faithfulness before God, two things happened: (1) the Gentiles heard the message that revealed to them the same inheritance as Jewish believers by the Spirit’s working through faith, and (2) the mystery of Christ’s work to redeem believers was made known even in the realms of the unseen spiritual beings. For the Ephesians and us likewise to be faithful to God in the face of potential suffering for the calling of Christ will take strength that is beyond human abilities.

Twice in Ephesians, Paul directs this kind of prayer to the Father. In 1 Corinthians 15:28, Paul writes that in the end Christ will hand over to the Father all his own reign so that the Father might be all in all. Paul, humbly, desires the Creator of all persons and angelic beings to reach into his unlimited repository of wealth in glory to give us strength.

When we make our confession, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,” and when Paul bows to this same Father, we are falling before the one far more powerful than the billions of galaxies of stars he commands. It is he whom Paul seeks to strengthen us for tasks related to the full universe he has made. And in his strength, we can face all challenges posed in this life while not losing sight of participating in his plan that is greater than any one of our individual lives.

2. Paul prays for God to make us know his love (Eph. 3:17b–19a).

Already having love as that which steadies the believer, like a tree steadied by its roots and a house laid on a firm foundation, Paul’s request seeks strengthened ability to comprehend or grasp something that is beyond grasping. The four terms of measurement point to the vastness of what Paul wants believers to comprehend. Yet he describes the love of Christ to be beyond the ability to be known fully in this world. Analogously, it like asking a three-year old to grasp the mechanics of quantum physics, the difference being that a savant possibly could grasp quantum physics because it is knowable. But the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love God has for us goes beyond any ability to fully grasp.

All this rooting and grounding and comprehending and knowing of that which surpasses human knowing is so that each of us might be filled up with God to the fullest measure in our knowledge and experience. We need a powerful working of Spirit to assure us of Christ’s love when it seems like all the underworld has been released against us.

We are here to experience the fullness of God and to live for God’s glory now, in the future generations, and forever.

3. Paul prays for God to be glorified (Eph. 3:20–21).

Everything in this prayer is moving toward us being full of the fullness of God with the glory of God as the reason for all. The fullness of God is penultimate—and that takes care of us having the ability to make it through this life. But God being glorified in all is ultimate, which drives us in this life and the life to come.

Again, as Paul bows, he grabs a full cache of associated ideas to modify the singular request. The request is, “Now to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” But the surrounding modifiers magnify the basic request so we understand that Paul is again talking about us being part of something cosmos-sized and worth pursuing in this current age.

As a benediction, Ephesians 3:20–21 close out the request in Ephesians 3:14-19 and all of Ephesians 1:1-3:21. The conclusion of all Paul has said from Ephesians 1:1 about the working of God in salvation from before the foundation of the world through the making of one new man in Christ is about God being glorified in his church and in Christ. Christ stepping into our deadness in sin to make us alive by mercy and save us by giving us grace and faith in Ephesians 2 is all about God being glorified in the church and in Christ.

Everything that has happened in life toward us since the time we have trusted Christ is so that we would see God’s glory in the church and his glory in Christ as the reasons for our being. Our being here is not to win every argument; prove to our parents we are not failures; make life so that our children can compete at the highest academic, musical, sport, and creative arts levels; that we could be blissfully married; or awarded with the highest awards in our arenas of service. All of these things are nice; if the Lord gives them to us, we should enjoy them, and if we have responsibilities in those arenas, we must be faithful to them. But none of that is ultimate. The motivation, purpose, and goal of life is the glory of God in us and in Christ, or Paul would have prayed something else for us.

The prayer asks that God be glorified—that he be magnified and displayed as the greatest thing—perfect, more lovely, more beautiful, and more desirable than all; for him to be praised for all, and for this to be done for generations beyond the Ephesians’ finite lifetimes, and for generations beyond our lifetimes. So Paul speaks of him (God) who is able to do “far more abundantly.” For “far more abundantly,” Paul coins a word made up of three words that, when strung together, speak of doing something to an extraordinary degree, involving a considerable excess over what would be expected.¹ It means infinitely beyond.

On these same verses, N. T. Wright, New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, writes,

Read verse 20 carefully. Then think of what God might do in you and through you—you as a community, you as an individual. Now reflect on the fact that God is perfectly capable of doubling that, tripling that, going far beyond it in ways that you would look back at the present moment and wonder how you could be so short-sighted.²

God is to be glorified in our thinking of what to ask him to be in us, do through and for us, and give to each of us and each local assembly of believers. He is to be glorified the same way in those who will come in the generations after us, our children, and our grandchildren, wherever the name of Christ is spoken, and for all eternity. For this to happen, we need all of God we can experience—the full assurance of the incredible way Christ loves us and the full power of the Spirit of God working in us.

Eric Redmond is the author of Ephesians: A 12-Week Study.

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“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.”  Psalm 8:3-5

There are days I want to say many things about God and faith, His grace and mercy and other aspects of this mysterious relationship we have with Him. But I can’t find the words that will adequately express what is stirring in my heart. The more I think about the privilege we have in walking in relationship with Him the more perplexed explaining it becomes.

The words are hard to find because who can explain God? Why is He mindful of us? Why does He want a close relationship with us? His Spirit that lives inside of me works in secret ways that no one else can explain. Not the highest scholar. Not the greatest theologian. Even the psalmist David grasps for words as he searches deep unto deep–trying to comprehend what cannot be understood.

By faith we understand this mystery is the treasure given us by our unseen God. As He lives in us day by day He continually works in us to build the relationship He designed mankind to have with Him – going all the way back to the garden of Eden in Genesis 3 with Adam and Eve. For the rest of the Bible our story unfolds as we see God still pursuing us, always pursuing us.

Instead of falling for the lies of the enemy and reaching for the forbidden fruit, let us reach for the Lord. Let us reach for God so we can walk in the garden in relationship with Him. Let’s reach for Him to know Him more. 

Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.  “

Psalm 42:7-8 “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me—A prayer to the God of my life.”

By Kathy Cheek
Used by Permission
From:First Breath of Morning: Where God Waits For You Every Day.

Learn more about knowing Jesus at: http://thoughtsaboutgod.com/four-laws/

FURTHER READING

Who God Is

God’s Loving Pursuit

To Behold the Face of God

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What Jesus said: “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:39). Or: Unless a person is an outright proclaimed enemy of the gospel, he can be considered a friend. That means there are lots of friends out there waiting to be claimed.

What it seems like we heard: “Whoever is not for us is against us.” Or in other words, anyone who is not one of us is our enemy. That would mean the world is populated mostly with our foes.

These are actually statements of differing worldviews. How you think about the world determines which reality is true for you. Personally, I like the worldview where I assume friendship instead of anticipating enmity.

I think as Christians in this culture, we have made lots of enemies we didn’t have to make. We have drawn lines in the sand that were not there in the first place, and accused people on the other side of the line for the crime of being over there when we drew it. (We never gave them a chance, in other words.) It’s almost as if we have had to create and maintain a good supply of enemies in order to fulfill this self-proclaimed animosity with the world that incorrectly defines us.

This is not a good way to behave when representing the God of second chances—the God who, if He had not been abundantly gracious would never have called us His friends, and would never have given us even a first chance. I think it best to assume there are a lot of friends of God out there, just waiting to be found.

The writer of Hebrews wrote: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). That’s truly giving the benefit of a doubt to those who are not “of us.” It’s a good place to begin.

by John Fischer
used by permission

FURTHER READING

Not What, But How

Conversation Starters

Caring Enough to Tell People About Christ

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