EXERCISE 19: The Practice – 8: The Daily Awareness Examen:
We’ve come across this practice before. Now we build it in to our regular Practice tool kit, along with Gospel Contemplation and Lectio Divina. This is another key component of your first daily Practice. Our Master, Ignatius, called it a Daily Awareness Examen. It takes all of five minutes!
- Still yourself as usual.
- Open by reminding yourself that you are a beloved child of God, just as you are. You are God’s handiwork.
- Then recall events of your day, focussing on those moments when your were most happy, most fulfilled.
- See this moments as gifts, and give thanks for them.
- Then review your day, focussing on those moments when you were unhappy, when you felt God’s absence, moments, then, for which you are less grateful.
- Hold these moments up mindfully, acknowledge them, then let them go.
- Close by recalling with trust that nothing will ever separate you from God’s love, and that the events of your day unfold within the overarching embrace of God’s love.
Briefly journal what happens in your Awareness Examen. Watch for any change in the way you see the world as you do this day after day, week after week.