How Ignatian Examen Helps Heal Abandonment Wounds

EPISODE 112 | HOW IGNATIAN EXAMEN HELPS HEAL ABANDONMENT WOUNDS 

Even though we are really yearning, we really, really long for someone to love us, to be with us, to love us no matter what. Yet there is this very deep anxiety and fear. We're so damaged somehow that if anybody really knew us, they couldn't possibly want us. They couldn't possibly love us. Have you ever experienced that? 

[00:00:23] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:01:00] Hello, hello. Good morning! I am actually very excited to do this Live today because as I was preparing for it, I realized just what an integrated Live this is going to be. Okay, for lack of a better word, alright. So, this, today's Live is going to be a meaty one, okay? And it's going to come from me looking back at what has really helped me in my journey to develop a more secure attachment with God through the lens that I now have, the accumulated lens that I now have, from my experience and all the things I've learned, not just about prayer and spirituality, but also about trauma, about, you know, integration.

[00:01:48] In a sense, I am looking back now and putting this together to share how specifically a very old and ancient -a very old and well practiced prayer in the Catholic tradition. Well, I would say well practiced by those who know of it. 

[00:02:03] EXPLORING THE PRAYER OF THE EXAMEN
Okay, it's called the Prayer of the Examen. It comes from St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose feast day was on July 31st. And I did a little sharing in my IG story about how the Prayer of the Examen has been really helpful for me in growing more secure and more intimate in my relationship with with Christ with God But at the same time in my experiences, I have also realized and encountered how, depending on how you were taught the Ignatian Examen, this specific prayer.

[00:02:35] Because it's actually pretty well known for those who go for retreats regularly, go for spiritual direction, okay? St. Ignatius' Prayer of Examen is actually very well known. And if you Google it, you will find many, many resources on it. There are many books published about Ignatian spirituality.

[00:02:50] There are many teachers of Ignatian spirituality. But there is a big, big difference in the way that this prayer is taught, okay, or Ignatian spirituality in general is taught. There are so many factors that impact how we experience it. So, I'm going to talk about how it has been really helpful.

[00:03:11] Okay, and then specifically the approach to to take with the Ignatian Examen and that can be very helpful for those of us who know we have abandonment wounds. Okay, or we know we are insecure with God. 

[00:03:27] UNDERSTANDING INSECURE ATTACHMENT TO GOD
So, first off, before I go more into, about this prayer, I want to say, how would you know if you have an insecure attachment to God?

[00:03:35] Okay, in case there's anyone watching this and wondering, I don't know, do I have an insecure attachment to God? Here are a couple of things that I came up with that may help you realize whether or not you have an insecure attachment to God. One, you know you should feel safe with God, but you don't.

[00:03:53] Okay, so, you know you should be able to feel safe with God, but you can be honest enough to know that you don't really feel safe with God. Two, you find yourself constantly trying to stay on God's good side so that you will be included, so that He will love you. Okay, so, if you find you're often worrying and anxious about, have I offended God? Have I upset Him? That could be a sign, okay. You have an insecure attachment with God. 

[00:04:21] Three, you know, intellectually and cognitively, right? So, you know, in your mind that God loves you unconditionally. You know that you believe that, okay. You want to believe that. You can even say that you believe that is true. You believe that is true. 

[00:04:37] And yet you find that you're often afraid that without you knowing, you might somehow cross a line, that. Suddenly, you will find that God's love isn't unconditional. That maybe, like you believe that He loves you unconditionally, and yet there's this anxiety somehow that, what if I screw up so bad at some point that, you know, maybe I commit such a grave sin or something, that maybe I find out that God actually has a limit to His unconditional love.

[00:05:09] Okay, if you have an insecure attachment with God, I think it's very likely you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not something that we consciously keep thinking about, but it's a posture we live from. You know, it's like a posture. There's always this anxiety that what if I do something and I don't even realize how bad it is, and what if I lose God's favor?

[00:05:29] Okay and then four, you find yourself trying to make amends when you have failed, when you have sinned, okay. When you realize that maybe, okay, you've done something wrong, you failed, you find yourself trying to make amends out of anxiety, out of fear, because you want to get back onto God's good side. Basically, you're afraid that you're cut off from God because you have sinned. Right, so, the posture is you make amends because you feel like you should, because you know this is the right thing to do, because you want to do something about the guilt that you feel.

[00:06:03] Rather than making amends when you have failed, when you have sinned, really because you want to, okay? Not because you feel like you have to in order for God to love you again. But you know, you still know you're loved and then you want to make amends. Okay, so, when you're making amends because of fear, anxiety, guilt, that's another sign that you have an insecure attachment with God.

[00:06:27] Okay, so, I think a lot of us, many, many of us have at least a couple of these experiences. Very, very few. I don't, I really don't think that we can actually really have a secure attachment with God until we have really earned that attachment. Okay, earned that attachment, not like we earn it, but we have developed that relationship where we begin to experience that confidence, okay? 

[00:06:51] Okay, so, if you have an insecure attachment with God, this is a Live that you want to listen to. So, the prayer of the examen, something that's very interesting about it is that Saint Ignatius, okay, who came up with this prayer, considers this prayer so important, right? So, all Jesuits are supposed to pray this prayer twice a day, okay?

[00:07:11] I think once at noon and then once at the end of the day, all right? And he considers, Ignatius considered this prayer so important that apparently he told his Jesuits that, well, this is like in 16th century, right? During his lifetime. But he told the Jesuits that when you're too busy, like let's say you're traveling, right, you're a pilgrim, let's say you're traveling and you're not able to say mass, or whatever circumstances there are that prevent you from, let's say, praying the liturgy of the hours - that's like the, you know, those are the prayers that are well known, and usually we know priests and religious, they pray, right?

[00:07:42] Like, Lauds and morning prayer, evening prayer. St. Ignatius says, even if every other prayer can't be prayed because you're too busy, this is the one prayer you cannot miss, and that's the prayer of the examen. Okay, so, just consider how significant it must be from Ignatius' perspective that he put the prayer of the examen as that one prayer, even if his Jesuits are not able to say mass for the day, maybe they're traveling or they're not able to pray the liturgy of the hours, the one prayer they cannot miss is the Prayer of the Examen.

[00:08:13] And, you know, if there's such a prayer that's so important and significant for our relationship with God, it kind of makes you wonder, right, why is it that we don't know about it?

[00:08:27] Or why is it that we may have been taught it and tried it and we didn't really, we didn't really experience what an amazing prayer is. Given, I think we're all different and at different stages of our journey, maybe different kind of prayers can speak to us. But, I have personally found the Prayer of the Examen incredibly healing because I have abandonment issues.

[00:08:51] I generally have an insecure attachment style, an ambivalent attachment style. I tend towards codependency. There is It's very deep rooted anxiety. It's almost like an existential anxiety in me that I need to become worthy so that I would be wanted. There's always this threat somehow, I don't know where it comes from, that I will be abandoned.

[00:09:16] And this extends even to my relationship with God. And I don't want that, right? So, I've always been aware that there's this gap between what I believe is true about God and what I can experience as. true about God. Alright, so, in a gist, the prayer of the examen or the examen of consciousness you may have heard of it described as, you know, at the end of the day take a few minutes out come into the presence of God and then look over the day, right, that has just gone by and so, there are different variations that you may be familiar with. One variation that I think is a little oversimplified, but I've heard it used to teach maybe younger people or people who can't handle just too much, you know conceptually.

[00:10:05] One version is look over your day and notice what are you most grateful for? Kind of like scan through the day, right? And then what you're least grateful for, okay. But the key first is actually be in the presence of God and then look through your day together, right? And then what are you most grateful for, what are you least grateful for?

[00:10:27] And then there are, you know, there's, it goes on to say, you know, give thanks for what you're grateful for and then maybe, you know, pray about or speak to God also about the aspect that has been difficult and you're not so grateful for. That's one version that has been a little kind of like simplified, okay.

[00:10:47] But I want to emphasize what the most important part about generally, the structure of this prayer is God's presence with us throughout the day. Okay, God's presence to us throughout the day. In our day to day living, we are often not aware and not mindful, right, of what's going on inside of us and also that God is with us.

[00:11:18] So, again, usually throughout our day, most of us are not really connected contemplatively to be very aware of what's going on inside of us, in touch with that and in touch with how God is present to us. The Prayer of the Examen is actually meant to help us at the end of the day reconnect with what we have missed during the day.

[00:11:42] With how God was actually with us and in that presence, to connect with what was actually going on inside of us, which we have missed, which we may have neglected and not been able to attune to, okay, ourselves. I'm going to pause here a little bit. I'm going to change gears and I'll talk about why is this so significant for those of us with abandonment wounds, okay.

[00:12:08] Oh, why is reconnecting at the end of the day with how God was present to us and how reconnecting with ourselves or attuning to how we may have been feeling throughout the day - why that is significant for our abandonment wounds.

[00:12:23] THE ROLE OF TRAUMA IN ATTACHMENT
So, now, in the literature on trauma, okay, on wounds, basically, on how our body responds to even in our ability to attach to any relationship or other people, generally, there's this saying in - I'm going to quote. There's two names. 

[00:12:42] One has been making the rounds a lot in social media, and in, you know, in popular media, and you may have heard of Dr. Gabor Mate. There's this line that you may have heard him say or replayed in reels elsewhere, that trauma is not what happens to us, it's what happens inside of us because of what happened to us.

[00:13:04] Okay, so, again, trauma is not the event that happened to us. It is what happens inside of us because of what had happened to us. Okay, so, it's something about the interior state. Alright, and trauma is not necessarily just like big, huge, life changing events like natural disasters, war, or near death experience, or you know, like one big, big, really intense event.

[00:13:28] Trauma can also be an accumulation of being neglected, being constantly put down, emotional abuse. It might not be anything that is that noticeable. Okay, so many of us have, basically we have experienced trauma, maybe in that complex state, okay, the accumulative state.

[00:13:49] Not just experience, but the point is what happens inside of us when we experience not being attuned to not being seen, constantly not being seen, not being heard, our needs not being considered important, maybe feeling excluded, that we can't be who we are and accepted, right? When you accumulate all of that, not just what happens, the events that happen, but what goes on inside of us, that is what causes trauma.

[00:14:19] There is another name, maybe a little lesser known now, compared to Gabor Maté for most of us who are not really in this area of learning about trauma. It's Dr. Peter Levine, L E V I N E. He is the founder of Somatic Experiencing, okay? So, Dr. Peter Levine, he developed this naturalistic and neurobiologically informed way of healing trauma through listening to the body and connecting with the body.

[00:14:49] So, this is a quote attributed to Peter Levine. It is that "trauma is not what happens to us" - so, that first part is the same, right? "Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside, what we hold inside, in the absence of an empathetic witness". Again, "trauma, It's not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness".

[00:15:18] Now, this is significant because it's saying, what he's saying is, even if something very horrific, scary, you know, impactful happens to us, if we are not alone, if there is an empathetic witness, someone with us in that process, we're not left alone, we can actually process what was so difficult about this and we may not, it will not remain with us.

[00:15:46] It doesn't cripple us. We don't hold on to it for the rest of our lives. Okay, so, it's not the two events. There's a podcast called The Place We Find Ourselves by Adam Young and I remember being very struck in one of the earlier episodes sometime - this is sometime back when I listened and he gave the example.

[00:16:04] So, Adam Young is a counselor and he gave an example of how, let's say, two young girls both got, let's say, sexually abused, maybe molested by a stranger, okay? So, same thing happened to them. One goes home and tells her parents about it. She feels safe enough somehow to tell her parents about it. And the parents respond to her and they can work through this.

[00:16:26] This girl, while they're having had, being molested, will not be traumatized. by that event because she was not alone, because there was empathetic witness, because, you know, it was able to be digested and processed and integrated into her life. The second girl, same thing happened, let's say got molested, and then went home and didn't tell her parents about it.

[00:16:52] Okay, there's something else going on there. How we actually, even children, instinctively, intuitively know. There's a reason why we don't say something bad has happened to us, okay? Even if the parents have said, like, you can tell us anything, there's something in us that knows. 

[00:17:08] Maybe I'll make it worse. If I say it, maybe I'll get scolded. Maybe my parents are not going to believe me, for example, right? So, in this case, the second little girl who has to hold her experience, her painful experience, on her own, she becomes traumatized. Okay, so, she becomes traumatized, it becomes a trauma, that in a sense that she holds onto, that affects her life, not because of the event, but because she didn't have an empathetic witness and she had to hold that experience alone.

[00:17:40] Okay, now, shifting gears again, for those of you who may have had experience of inner healing retreats, or inner healing prayer in a more spiritual kind of context, right? There is often this invitation for us to think of or remember, maybe there's a particular memory that we need healing that was painful, maybe a memory of rejection or a memory of being hurt, or something, you know, that had happened.

[00:18:08] And often the invitation is now, see where Jesus is, like, in that memory, right, in that event that had happened to you. When you were going through it, you felt all alone. But now revisit that scene, and, where is Jesus in that picture? Right, where is Jesus in that scene? Now, that is part of the spiritual healing process, that often in inner healing retreats, inner healing prayer.

[00:18:34] THE HEALING POWER OF THE PRAYER OF THE EXAMEN
And see how interesting that is. That part of healing is recognizing, even in retrospect, in a sense, that I was not alone. I was not alone going through it. I thought I was, but really, God was with me. God was there too. And He experiences it with me. And then in that presence, now connecting to that God was actually present, even in that memory, in that time, healing can begin to happen.

[00:19:02] The trauma that we hold inside us can begin to be processed, right? So, like I said, I'm actually synthesizing. I'm synthesizing things from different disciplines, different experiences that often, we don't often hear being put together, okay? But I'm making the connections here. I'm making the connections that I've come to understand why. Why these experiences are helpful.

[00:19:29] Okay, and it makes so much sense because it's true. When we are in the presence of an empathetic other, even when we go through really hard things, it doesn't damage us somehow, you know. God made us very resilient, but I think we are also not meant to hold things alone, right? So, so, we are meant to bear with one another and have people bear with us, right? In compassion and in empathy. 

[00:19:56] THE IMPACT OF ABANDONMENT WOUNDS
Okay, so, now, if that's the case, those of us with abandonment wounds, why we often feel insecure with God is precisely, usually we feel all alone. Usually, we feel very lonely and we feel all alone in whatever we're going through. Our coping mechanism has already been one where maybe we shut people out or we shut God out because that's one way of feeling safer.

[00:20:20] Even though we are really yearning, we really, really long for someone to love us, to be with us, to love us no matter what. Yet there is this very deep anxiety and fear. We're so damaged somehow that if anybody really knew us, they couldn't possibly want us. They couldn't possibly love us.

[00:20:43] Have you ever experienced that? That longing to be loved unconditionally and at the same time, that fear that if anybody really knew exactly what we were like, that nobody would want to be with us. So, if this is the wound that we carry, but now, we're coming back to the examen prayer, the prayer of the examen.

[00:21:06] And the prayer of the examen is not about evaluating how well we did in the day. I find that there are some versions of the examen that are kind of like taught or described with a bit of a slant towards it being a bit more like an examination of conscience, you know, kind of like how well did I do it and saying sorry to God where I have failed.

[00:21:33] That is not really in line, I think, with really the deeper spirit of the Prayer of the Examen. It's meant to be an exam of consciousness, not an exam of conscience. So, what's the difference? Examination of conscience it's kind of like I look at my actions, right, the choices that I've made and I feel like some have fallen short some are good choices, some are bad choices.

[00:21:52] It becomes a weighing exercise. It becomes an evaluation exercise, right? A judging exercise. And when we are evaluating ourselves or we expect God to evaluate us that is like the opposite of the connection and attunement that we need to have secure attachment.

[00:22:13] Okay, so, that's not the way to approach the Prayer of the Examen. I don't believe that's how St. Ignatius also meant it to be. It's not an examination of conscience. The focus is what happens or what's going on prior to our actions, okay. It is the movements of our heart. St. Ignatius talks about the movements of our spirit, the movements of our affect, which is our emotions.

[00:22:36] It's like what's going on inside us even before we take any action. How often are we aware of that? So, the Prayer of the Examen is actually meant to invite us to be attentive, to drop down and to actually attune to ourselves, our inner selves. So, I often talk about the three layers of life, right? The outermost layer is of people, things, relationships, is where we take action.

[00:23:03] That's the layer, usually when we talk about examination of conscience in terms of actions, is the outermost layer. The inner layer is what's going on in our emotions, our thoughts, our physical sensations, the signals that our nervous system is sending to us. We usually are not very aware there.

[00:23:18] That's where St. Ignatius is actually saying, in terms of the examen of consciousness, he's talking about that layer. What are the movements of our emotions, of our hearts, our thoughts, our racing thoughts, you know, what are they revealing to us? But here's the thing, if we are fearful of being rejected by ourselves or by God, usually, we're not going to be able to attune to our emotions and what's going on in our consciousness because it's like we're afraid that we might find something in there that we are going to find is, you know, we should reject or that we are worried that we will be rejected.

[00:24:07] So, in terms of the three layers, it is the core, our core identity. When it is more integrated, so that my identity is I am beloved, I'm God's beloved. And when this is so solid, right, it takes time to get there, but when it gets so solid that I know I'm God's beloved no matter what, then I can look at my consciousness, I can look at my, you know, what was going on in my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts without fear. Because I am grounded in a love that holds me no matter what.

[00:24:46] Now, so, of course for those of us with abandonment wounds, the issue is, well, I don't have that kind of security, right? I don't yet have that kind of integrated core. And that's why I'm kind of afraid to look maybe too deeply or too attentively at even my own heart. 

[00:25:04] So, here's where faith comes in. Okay, and here's where grace comes in. And here's where I have found the Prayer of the Examento be such an aid, such a help. When we look at our day, before we do that, it's like, you know, coming into the presence of God. Technically, I would say it's just becoming aware that we are already in the presence of God, right?

[00:25:29] We often like to say let's come into the presence of God. Actually, we never stopped being in the presence of God, but it's, you know, coming into the awareness that we are in the presence of God and asking Him for grace and light to look at the day that has passed. Hoping to find Him there, knowing that He is there, but you know, by faith we know He there, but Lord show me. Show me how You were there with me in this day. 

[00:25:57] And then trusting, in a sense, letting go and letting the Holy Spirit, sometimes, guide this process. Because a lot of things would have happened in a day, right? We don't have to do a blow by blow. 

[00:26:09] THE IMPORTANCE OF GOD'S PRESENCE IN HEALING
A lot of us are really tired also, at the end of the day. This is where I find you can actually trust the Holy Spirit. Hand it over to the Holy Spirit. Show me. Show me how. What are the highlights you want to show me, how you were present to me today.

[00:26:22] So, you see, it's not a burdensome thing, it's really a relationship. You're not doing all the work. We are not meant to do all the work. We come into awareness and then we say, Lord, show me. Show me, right? And trust and kind of let your mind rest and, you know, just float across the day.

[00:26:38] And I have often found when I do this, certain moments are highlighted that I had missed. And then as we go back to it and I kind of like, you know, you taste that part of the day again.

[00:26:58] And I noticed how I was feeling, what was going on. Oftentimes, at the same time, God reveals something to me about how, you know, like that was me. Like maybe that bus that you were amazed you caught, even though you were five minutes late to the bus stop, according to the app. You know, you just caught it and you thought, oh, thank God, you know, and you forgot about it.

[00:27:21] But, Ann, that was me. You know, it wasn't an accident. It wasn't a coincidence. That was me. Or you know that you were so tired and you happened to look out the window or, you know, or you looked up to the sky and then you saw and you were struck for a moment by the clouds. And for a moment you forgot how stressed you were and how anxious you were. That was me loving you. 

[00:27:45] This was one particular experience of mine when I was actually pretty young and I didn't know about the prayer of examen yet, but the Lord actually led me in prayer to review what happened that day and that was a moment where I was just walking down from my home to a nearby shop and we had a domestic helper, a live-in helper at that time, I was still quite young and I think I was feeling sad or something. I don't know. We weren't talking, but all of a sudden, she just reached over and held my hand. Without a word, she just reached over and she held my hand. 

[00:28:19] At the time when it happened, I don't think? I thought - I was a bit surprised. I was grateful for the contact. But I never knew, I mean at that time, when it happened, I wasn't thinking about why did she suddenly hold my hand.

[00:28:31] But in that moment of prayer, when we were revisiting this moment, and I saw that moment where my helper just reached over and held my hand, I felt the Lord tell me, Ann, that was me. That was me holding your hand. And oh my gosh, I remember I just started bawling, right? Because I had missed it during the day, but now I'm drinking in that love.

[00:28:53] That awareness that even when I was not aware, He was loving me through the people in my life who may or may not even be aware that they were at that moment God's instrument, right? But they reached out and they connected with me. And it could be small, seemingly insignificant things that other people would not think anything of.

[00:29:18] But to you, it means something. Now, when we look at the day, and you pick up these moments, or you notice moments when you were really down, and you felt really bad about maybe what you've done, but if you sit in the presence of God, in faith, you know, sometimes you hear the most unexpected things. 

[00:29:42] Instead of hearing judgment or criticism that you might expect, you hear, "I love you". You hear, "I know how hard that was for you". "I know how sorry you feel". "It's okay. I love you". 

[00:30:00] When that happens, healing happens. Healing of what happened throughout the day. The moments of the day that we had carried alone, that would have then accumulated as part of our trauma because it's what we hold inside, in the lack of an empathetic . , Through the Prayer of the Examen, experience God as that empathetic other, the ultimate empathetic other, who tells us He never ceases to see us. He never ceases to be with us.

[00:30:38] Just consider that a moment. If we were to do this every day, how can it not change your life, right? How can we not deepen our experience of trust in God if we experience over and over again, that those times when in the day, when we thought we were alone, that nobody saw us, that we weren't even aware of how lonely we felt, that actually God was trying to get our attention, trying to make us smile with a rainbow or, you know, or a bird or some random animal that maybe crossed our path, or, or catching sight or overhearing maybe some funny dialogue.

[00:31:22] You know, those random moments in the day that when we are busy, we just, we just skate past it. When we slow down enough just for a few minutes at the end of the day and recognize God telling us, that was me. That was me - that little joke was for you, that was me, you know, letting you hear that joke because I felt like you needed a smile, you needed to be cheered up. How can we not feel loved, right?

[00:31:52] So, for me it was the cumulative experience of beginning to see how God was present with me throughout the day. And it wasn't even about, you see, the examen isn't even like long wordy prayers where we make petitions and we tell God what we need. The beauty about the prayer of the examen is, it's just connecting to how God is already loving us. 

[00:32:18] THE POWER OF GOD'S LOVE IN HEALING
So many times, so often, the reason we have an endless list of petitions, the petitions come, I mean, they're important, they're valid to us, and I'm not saying we shouldn't make petitions, we should speak freely to God, right? But a lot of times, a lot of our requests and petitions come from a place of lack, scarcity, anxiety, right? 

[00:32:41] And a lot of times, if we could just become aware and connected to the love that already holds us, we may find that our list of petitions suddenly gets a lot shorter. Because we may find that our anxieties lessen, and the things that we are afraid of, some of them may melt away because we are reminded, God is saying, "I love you. You know, I have your back", right?

[00:33:07] You see, God never promises that He will remove painful experiences from us. He doesn't promise that we will not suffer, right? God never made such empty promises. His promise like Christ's promise at the end of Matthew's gospel, chapter 28, I think verse 20 is, He said, "be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age". I am with you always. 

[00:33:33] We will often, naturally, want out of our pain. We want problems to be fixed so we don't have to suffer anymore, so that people we love don't have to suffer anymore. But really even then, usually it's so that we don't have to suffer because we suffer when people we love suffer, right? 

[00:33:53] We may approach God that way. But the secure attachment that we begin to build with God, it's like it's that secure attachment that Christ has with the father, that allows Him to go even to death, being ultimately betrayed, like, you know, the worst kind of suffering, and it did not destroy Him. 

[00:34:18] Is it not also what our faith teaches us, that the same promise is made to us, that death will not destroy us, that sin will not destroy us? How can we live from that place of confidence and groundedness?

[00:34:35] Only if we have the secure attachment with God, right? And our abandonment wounds make it hard for us to live from that place. Is it a wonder then that we often yield to temptation to seize control, to try and win popularity or to gain more power you know, or influence so that we can control what's scary and unpredictable about us, right?

[00:34:57] But the Prayer of the Examen helps us connect with God's constant presence, His promise, Christ's promise that He's always with us, that He's always with us. So, for those of us still needing to be more secure in God's love for us, right, the focus first in approaching the Prayer of the Examen is not even yet examining our consciousness.

[00:35:26] As in, what is the movement of our heart, the movement of our spirit. We want to get there, right? But the foundation to even be there, which often is glossed over, is that God is with us, and he doesn't stop being with us no matter what we find in our consciousness. No matter what we find in the movement of our emotions, no matter what we may detect in our thoughts, or how our body may be feeling.

[00:35:54] God does not change His stance towards us. He doesn't suddenly withhold His love from us. He is with us. So, it's the with-us-ness. It's the with-ness of God with us. I think the mystic Julian of Norwich talks about one-ing. Us and God one-ing. Like, you know, being one, right? But it's the with-ness.

[00:36:14] God, Emmanuel! God with us. It's the with-ness, okay? It's the with-ness of God with us. For those of us who have abandonment wounds, that's what we need to soak up on. And the Prayer of the Examen can help us detect, notice how God never ceases to be with us. That's what will heal our abandonment wounds. That, you know, we talk about abiding.

[00:36:42] We talk about the importance of abiding in God. Constantly we hear about pray constantly. We know we can't do that in Kronos like actually saying prayers the whole time, right? But when we are connected with the withness of God with us, what happens is, eventually, if you, for example, do the prayer of the examen in the way that I'm talking about it, regularly, whether once or twice a day, eventually you will find you're doing it instinctively throughout the day.

[00:37:12] You don't even need to wait for your formal time of prayer at the end of the day to look and notice how God is with you. You begin to develop a sensitivity to the language that God speaks only to you. It's like inside jokes, you know, with a very intimate other. And throughout the day you're connected.

[00:37:31] And more and more throughout the day, even as things are happening to you, even if when difficult things are happening to you, you begin to experience that you are not alone. And if the definition of trauma, like I mentioned by Dr. Peter Levine, is not what happens to you, but what you hold inside you in the absence of an empathetic other, the more aware we become that we are never alone, that God is always with us. Whatever happens... to us has less power to remove us from that deep knowledge that we are loved, that we never cease to exist, that we cannot be destroyed.

[00:38:15] Okay, so, we went quite deep. I went quite deep today in this Live and as I said, it's a synthesis of prayer, spirituality, and what we know now about trauma and how we hold attachment wounds.

[00:38:33] And why is it that so many of us who dearly desire and long to get closer to God, why we can't, right? Because of, for example, attachment wounds, abandonment wounds. And our knowledge now of what these are can help us to know what to focus on in terms, or even in our stance in prayer. So, for example, the Prayer of the Examen.

[00:38:56] To focus on God's presence and witness with us first to build that safety. And then you will find, as I did, I hope, right? That the, the more confident I am, not just cognitively, but because of lived experience that God never ceases to be with me throughout the day, no matter what my day is like, no matter what has happened, no matter what was going on in my mind, what was going on in my heart, no matter what, actions even that I've taken, He never ceases to be with me. We become less afraid to always see the truth and to draw closer to the truth. And the truth is love, really. Love that triumphs over anything that we are afraid could destroy us. 

[00:39:42] Okay, so, I hope you enjoyed today's rather intense discussion of how the Prayer of the Examen of consciousness can actually help with the healing of our abandonment wounds. So, for those of us who feel insecure in our attachment with God, I really invite you to consider or reconsider the prayer of the examen with the angle that I've spoken of today.

[00:40:07] Okay, so, be aware, don't approach it in a moralistic way, don't approach it just looking at the actions or a conscience. Look for the presence. Connect with the with-ness of God with us. That's the most important thing. That's the foundation. That's the foundation. Okay, so, I was going to ask like, are there, might there be any questions in this?

[00:40:30] I don't think anyone has stayed throughout long enough to ask, but I'm just going to take a moment and check my notes, and if there's any questions or response, please feel free to use the question bubble.

[00:40:44] Yeah, okay, so, I think the part that I haven't said is what has been really powerful for me in practicing this prayer is recognizing and realizing that God has seen me, heard me, noticed me, even when I haven't been present to myself. Like throughout the busyness of my day, right? In times when I practice the examen, I feel seen, heard, noticed, loved.

[00:41:18] And that has laid the foundation for the rest of the spiritual journey, okay. And that's how we can begin to experience abiding with God, the with-ness of God. Oh, yay, I see a question come in.

[00:41:35] Yes, I appreciate the distinction between examination of conscience and the Examen. That's definitely been a struggle of mine. Yes, the distinction, differentiation, distinction between examination of conscience and examination of consciousness.

[00:41:53] And I think that's something that many of us who are devout or who have been brought up in devout households, I think, there's a lot of emphasis put on examination of consciousness, examination of conscience. And so, there's always this fear. That's where I think it actually worsens our insecurity, worsens our abandonment wounds.

[00:42:12] It doesn't actually help heal. So, that is so important. I think that the stance that we take in even in a prayer like the Ignatian Examen to know what it was actually intended and then to be able to lean into the presence of God's love, really, that has to be underlying everything or else we don't know even how to look at, we don't even know how to do an examination of conscience in a way that will help us if we don't have that underlying secure attachment with God. 

[00:42:44] And that's actually the reality for many many of us which is why there's so many issues, so much fear and why so many of the people who go for retreats and start special direction, there's just so much pain and so much fear. There's so much fear. Most people who begin to want to take their, you know, relationship with God more seriously, they're just filled with fear that they're not worthy, that they're not good enough, that somehow what do they need to do to be loved by God. 

[00:43:13] You see, that's often the concern. Actually, you don't have to do anything, right? So, the Prayer of the Examen, in the way that I've talked about it in this Live , helps us to be connected to how the love was there prior to us doing anything, there, during whatever we're doing, there, even after whatever we may have done or failed to do. 

[00:43:32] And it is that presence of that love with us that would help us to, you know, fill up on love and then be more loving. And act not out of fear, not out of scarcity, but to love from abundance. 

[00:43:48] Okay, any other question or comment? Today's Live was really, it was really quite deep today. So, this Live, any of these longer Lives that you see me doing usually with this background - it's kind of my home studio.

[00:44:02] I also have a second camera and I also have an external mic that I am using at the same time to record. So, these longer Lives will at some point appear on my YouTube, where it's easier for you to watch, pause, take notes. I know - because someone actcually messaged me recently and asked are you going to put your Live somewhere else because I want to take notes and it's hard for me to pause and and stop and play again. So, these will appear - the longer Lives that you see in this background will almost always definitely appear on YouTube and eventually on my podcast as well.

[00:44:33] Okay, it'll just take time to reach there. But yes, I thank you for watching again and until the next one! Please, if you have any questions or follow up, just - any of you who are watching this on replay or right now, just send me a direct message, okay? I'll be happy to pick up and go further or deeper - pick up something from what was talked about today. Bye! Have a blessed day or night!

[00:45:02] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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