Meditation makes me feel at one with God – and it can for you too

I tried out being a nun for two and a half years.

That was 20 years ago and since then, I’ve been working out how to juggle life as a busy working mum with some space for meditation.

I hope to pass on what I learned from the nuns in my current work for discoveringprayer.com The nuns at Wantage didn’t really teach us how to pray – it was contagious.

Somehow by meditating and praying with them I learned a greater sense of joy and fulfilment.

So here are some useful tips that may help us get started with meditation… Learn from ancient wisdom. The first thing the nuns helped us learn was that there are lots of different ways to meditate. Here are three types: Lectio Divina is a way of “chewing over” different bits of the Bible. The secret is to learn to read slowly without thinking about the passage, for a while. Then at the end of a time of meditating we think and talk to God in a natural authentic way.

Ignation meditation is putting ourselves at a scene in the Bible and “being there” in our imagination for the time of prayer.

We start by getting immersed in the scene and then have a time of prayer to ask questions of God and be aware of our responses, it’s often surprising what you discover.

Listening to God, or prayer of adoration is a way of sitting with God and learning to simply be ourselves.

We gradually become more aware of ourselves and then of a deeper sense of peace – the type of peace we cannot fully understand. In time we also become more attuned to God’s touch on our lives.

Be kind to yourself. If you decide to learn to meditate, one piece of advice that the nuns taught me is to start by making a cup of tea. The drink is not so much to make sure that we’re awake, but also a way of creating a relaxing environment.

The importance of creating the right environment to sustain a routine of prayer and meditation is backed up by contemporary psychology.

Steve Peters, in his book The Chimp Paradox, suggests that each of us has a kind of irrational, emotional side, that’s a bit like a chimp.

Part of us might like to meditate: our inner “chimp” might rather watch TV. So it’s important to keep our “chimp” happy, with tea or coffee and if possible, being in a relaxing environment.

It may also be helpful to start with just 10 minutes so we keep it do-able.

And If we don’t manage to set some time not to beat ourselves up.

Pray on the go. Sometimes though, we’re so busy that taking time out is just not possible.

So another way to pray is as we’re going along. The first steps of this could be as simple as focusing fully on the journey and really noticing creation and those around us.

Somehow, taking a few moments of awe and wonder can put us in a meditative frame of mind.

Learn with some help from others. Meditation can be a bit tricky to learn on your own.

So you could also try getting in touch with a spiritual director.

It’s a bit of a weird job title, but a spiritual director doesn’t direct any spirits. Rather, they can help us to work out where God might be in our daily lives.

I wish you well with your exploration in meditation and prayer. There’s a free trial of each of these types of meditation at discoveringprayer.com