When Prayer Becomes Embodied: A Reflection on Flow, Faith, and the Body
Yesterday on the bus, a woman sat beside me holding her phone. I glanced over and saw she was reading a prayer. The words God and Creation glowed from her screen, and I felt an unexpected warmth rush through my body — almost an impulse to hug her, or perhaps to hug the humility in the way she related to something sacred.
That moment stayed with me. It made me wonder what prayer means to me now, after years of unlearning and rediscovering.
The Old Way of Praying
Coming from a religious family, praying feels like a distant memory — that for long time I did not want to come back to- repeating words I didn’t truly understand, following rituals without feeling their meaning. I learned that prayer meant asking, pleading, begging. And then waiting.
Tara Brach calls this the egotic prayer, a ‘petition’ — a prayer shaped by expectation, conditioning, and the hope that life will rearrange itself on our behalf.
But that is only one form of prayer.
The Shift Toward Conscious Prayer
Today, prayer feels different. Way different. It’s softer, more intimate, and what I came to understand eventually, connected with a deeper sense of embodiment.
My prayer is what unfolds when I enter a mind-body connection, when I drop into flow — whether I’m writing, dancing, breathing, or sitting in quiet meditation. It’s a kind of presence where thoughts dissolve and I become both witness and participant.
Am I dancing, or being danced?
Writing, or letting the writing arrive through me?
In these moments, prayer becomes either a dialogue with my inner wisdom, one with the Wise Mother, the Creator, or simply with that part of me that longs for companionship and truth.
Prayer as Allowing
John O’Donohue says it beautifully ‘Prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging’. And, as I reflect more on this, I feel it is also about allowing.
Allowing movement.
Allowing stillness.
Allowing the body to guide the mind back home.
And it feels so profoundly good — to be fully in my skin, alive to the sensations, emotions, and the Sacred Mystery that come with being human.
A Gentle Invitation
If these words resonate with you — if you long to move, feel, soften, and reconnect with your inner landscape — I would love to welcome you into Poetry in Motion, my Wednesday movement workshop. We start by connecting with an intention, read poetry, ground and regulate our nervous system, move and sit in stillness. All in a safe, nonjudgemental space.
It is a nourishing space for busy minds and tired bodies.
A place to come home to yourself.
We gather every Wednesday until December 17th.
Email me for details if you feel called to join.
