Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello friends. I wanted to drop in just a little short episode to talk about a book that I am reading, and it kind of goes along with the living Buddha living Christ. It’s called holy noticing by Charles Stone. And a friend of mine introduced this book to me. And so I was curious to find out what it was about. I’ve been on a journey, understanding mindfulness. And how does that intersect with my faith? What is the difference between mindfulness as a Christian and mindfulness from a Buddhist perspective? And so, um, when she mentioned this book, I was like, okay, I’m just gonna to immediately get on Amazon and get it. So I am through with the first chapter and I just want to share some takeaways that I’ve had. If this is the kind of book you might be interested in first and foremost, it begins with a quote from CS Lewis and it says in silence and in meditation, on eternal truths, I hear the voice of God which excites our hearts to greater love.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And that is really the purpose of holy noticing is beginning to notice God’s movement in our lives, how it aligns with his word and develop a posture of awareness towards other things going on around you in the world that God is calling you to, to interact with or affect change in those environments. It’s about making ourselves more like Christ. And so I have really enjoyed this book. I think, um, you know, God models, the patterns of noticing because he’s the perfect, noticer nothing in our lives is too small or insignificant for him to notice is what the author says and allowing myself to be still along enough to practice listening to God and allowing myself the space to express the things in my life that sometimes I do really undervalue because I’m so busy addressing issues. And a lot of times I can, without having some type of practice in my life, my mind can just go all over the place. I can ruminate about things that are happening currently. I can get stuck in narratives about the past or reliving trauma. Um, and all of those things really take up my mental real estate if you want to call them. So, um, think wholly noticing what it does is it kind of keeps my mind in check. It’s helping me to pay attention to assumptions and then begin to pray through that and allow the holy spirit to remind me of God’s character, what his word says. And
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Then it gives me a greatest, greater awareness of what’s going on around me. One of the practices that’s included in holy noticing is body sensation awareness. And I love this because a lot of times I’m in therapy. When I’m sitting with a client, I will ask where do you feel that in your body? Because we want to be able to understand that this connection between mind, body and soul is so essential to our makeup as people. So even if something isn’t coming into my mind as a fully formed thought, my body could be expressing what’s going on for me. And so wholly noticing really says, Hey, not only do we need to create, increase the awareness of what God is doing amongst us. We need to have a pasture of listening and listening, not just to the world and to our ruminating thoughts, but we need to practice listening to what our body’s telling us as well and identify if our body is holding onto any difficult emotions.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Um, and then again, that we take that to the Lord and we begin to say, you know, I can feel it in my stomach every time I’m anxious, here’s what’s going on for me. And so I want to invite you to take, take a moment and really ask, do I need something like this in my life in order to quiet my spirit spirit, and do I need to live a more con contemplative lifestyle, a mindful night lifestyle, a lifestyle of deliberate gratitude towards God. And is there a practice that I need to incorporate that involves really listening to God and, and having an understand understanding of what’s going on inside of me so that that can begin to change. And some of these mental health or emotional issues that we might be struggling with can soften within us so that we can do the work that’s needed to be done in our lives so that we can live the full and joyful life that God has for us. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. Um, I would love for you to jump over to the Facebook group, which is called the renewal session and just weigh in on how you feel about the practices of mindfulness and holy noticing, and how have you integrated that with your faith walk until next time? I hope you guys have a wonderful day.
PLEASE COMMENT BELOW