It’s Time to Come Inside

God won’t let me go looking for love
outside myself.
“It’s time to come inside,” she said.
“It’s time to put your hand to your own cheek
and stroke your face with the gentleness of a mother
nursing her child.
No, I won’t let you go looking outside anymore.
Come right here
and find me.”

Lisa McCrohan, © 2015

The other day, God and I had a conversation. (Yes, I talk to God, I hear God. And so do you. Maybe you use a different name. Maybe you “hear” the Divine in a different way than I do. Maybe it’s been a long time since you connected to the Divine Within. But each of us has an Inner Voice of Benevolence and Love).

I told God about a person I had been working with in counseling We had spent a long time creating sacred space – a safe container to “go inside” with a posture of “candlelight” – not the harsh, blaring spotlight of analysis. We had been creating this safe place, honing this ability to clear away the distractions and be with what is arising. And sitting with her the other day, she finally began to feel the grief lodged within her – named and unnamed. The grief clearly identified – like losing her mom – and the griefs that are harder to pinpoint that have shown up as disappointment, apathy, and frustration. They wanted to be acknowledge and tended to.

Instinctively, she cupped her hand around her cheek. Ever so softly she began to caress her cheek. And as we held space for it all, I thought, “My God!  She is mothering herself with the gentleness she has needed – right here with the gentleness of her hands, the sweetness of slowing down, the kindness of deeply tending to her wounds THROUGH her body.  Thank you, God.”

It was such a gentle act of self-compassion, self-care, and self-acknowledgement. She risked feeling what had been there all along. She was mothering herself – tending to herself – with the gentleness and care she has needed for a long time.  We all long to be held with such tenderness.  And it was Holy.

And I said to God, “This is how I imagine You want to be with us – holding us, mothering us with gentleness – right here in our holy bodies.”

God was silent, just listening.

And then I said, “How many times have I pushed away that gentleness? How many times have I pushed away Love?”
Tears began to well up in my eyes.

I thought about my “phrase for the year”: let love in.
I felt the aloneness of pushing Love away for many years.

And then I heard God say, “Come right here and sit with me. Hear me calling to you. Find me here in the tending to, the creating space, the listening to your body.”

Yes, that’s right – find God in listening to our bodies.

How often do we give space to listening to the wisdom of our bodies? Not too often. I rarely hear someone telling me – in counseling or coaching – how she lives a life of creating space to really pause, listen to her body, and then gently honor her body in the ways it needs. Most often I hear how people are overriding the signals of their bodies – when they are tired, they keep going; when they are full, they keep eating; when they need to move their bodies and be wild and dance, they stay still. And yet, I hear how Something Holy within them is waking them up!

As God and I were talking, I heard God say more, “Your body is the portal for deep love. It is holy. Find healing and a deep sense of contentment right here, through honoring your body with gentleness and sweetness.”

Speak those words into your own self: your body is a portal for deep love. It’s holy.

How often have we heard that our bodies are not holy but rather to be mistrusted, ignored, and denied?

How often do we go searching for healing and a deep sense of contentment OUTSIDE ourselves through food, sex, or trying to get our partner to be a certain way or our children to behave how we’d like? How often do we look outside ourselves for answers, solutions, and strategies?

Today is Ash Wednesday.
What would it be like to spend Lent SEEING YOUR BODY AS A PORTAL of deep love – as holy?
What would it be like to spend Lent pausing and LISTENING to your body?
What would it be like to spend Lent HONORING your body with gentleness and sweetness?

You might begin to slow down.

You might begin to slowly brush your hair and feel the sensations that arise from such slow and tender care.

You might take your time in the shower, and yes – even caressing and touching all the naked parts of yourself and feel how it is to know your skin and to touch yourself with gentleness.

You might begin to pause before you eat, and bless yourself, your food, and all those who took part in bringing it to your table.

You might begin to notice how you can’t sit all day in front of a computer, the muscles in your eyes are tense – or how your index finger and thumb hurt from texting and being on your phone all day. And you might decide to get up and move, stretch, even go outside and move your body in a loving way.

You might begin to notice when you are tired and say “no” to another commitment and get to bed earlier.

When you begin to see your body as a portal to deep love – to what is holy – you might begin to see your body as a “walking, sitting, stretching, dancing, talking, holding, noticing” prayer. Your body as prayer! YES.

When you begin to listen to your body, you might begin to see all the ways you override its wisdom, the ways you ignore it, hurt it, push it, speak harshly to it, expect too much from it, and…even hate it. You might begin to give it space to speak to you. You might begin to NOT push it. You might begin to speak so very kindly and tenderly to it. You might even begin to hear how God talks to you through your body.

And when you HONOR your body, you might find yourself loving your body, seeing it as holy, a sacred space for the indwelling of the Divine.

Friends, what if we thought of Lent as a time of God wanting us to “come inside” and allow the divine to tend to the wounds within us through the gentle way we listen to and honor our bodies?

What if we saw God as Mother, desiring only to be alongside us, tending to what needs healing, through the gentle ways we caress, hold, feed, and touch our bodies?

I heard God say to me, “Come and create this safe container within you. Come with candlelight. Come with gentleness. Cup your hand around your cheek. Let me mother you into wholeness.”

This Lent, see how your prayer life and living deepen when you see God as mothering you into wholeness through the gentleness with which you see, tend to, and love your body.

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Resources to support you this Lent:

* Loyola Press has Lenten reflections and prayers
* In the Ignatian tradition, here are Lenten resources through Ignatian Spirituality.
* My meditations support you in connecting to the Divine Within through embodiment practices of mindfulness and compassion.
* When you have voices within you that aren’t so kind, here is a beautiful post about the Benevolent Voice Within us that mends us into wholeness.
* Here is a beautiful poem to the Divine from Milena’s Gentle Rain
* And finally, look up any poetry by Hafiz. This ancient mystical poet invites us to know a God who accompanies and delights in us. His poetry is sensual and moving, a truly embodiment of prayer. My spiritual life has been greatly influenced by Hafiz and the first book of his poetry that my mom gave to me.