1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.

2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.

3. When engaged with your thoughts*, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.

4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.  

     *thoughts include body sensations,

      feelings, images, and reflections

Some Practical Points

1. The minimum time for this prayer is 20 minutes.Two periods are recommended each day, one first thing in the morning and the other in the afternoon or  early evening.  With practice this time may be extended to 30 minutes or longer.

2.  The end of the prayer period can be indicated by a timer which does not have an audible tick or loud sound  as it goes off.

3.  Possible physical symptoms during the prayer:

a) we may notice slight pains, itches, or twitches in various parts of the body or a generalized  sense of restlessness.  These are usually due to the untying of emotional knots in the body.

b) We may notice heaviness or lightness in our extremities.  This is usually due to a deep level of  spiritual attentiveness.

c) In all cases we pay no attention and ever-so-gently return to the sacred word.

4.  The principle fruits of the prayer are experienced in daily life and not during the prayer period.

5.  Centering Prayer familiarizes us with God's first language which is silence.

Whether you have been in recovery for a long time or are just beginning, you probably have experienced a lot of frustrated feelings that didn’t just go away when you got sober…problems with relationships, work, anxiety, depression, or feelings of emptiness. These feelings are natural for us no matter what your addiction and the amount of time in recovery you have. But we don’t have to let them rule our lives. The 11th Step offers us a solution! Through this simple method you can improve your relationship with the Ultimate Power of life. This is true whether you call that power God, Allah, Mother, another name, or no name. This process works for anyone who is willing to put forth the effort to practice it. Every system of belief in the world, including Buddhism and Hinduism as well as Western Religions, knows some form of this simple and powerful practice. A poet once said about silence: “a view where language is inside seeing.” This type of prayer has been used over the centuries, but it is different from what you may think of as prayer. It is not the type of prayer we are used to, like praying for something we want. It is simply moving deep within yourself, in silence, saying nothing, asking for nothing, just being and allowing your Higher Power to be with you. For those who practice the 12 Steps, striking parallels can be found between the transformation that Centering Prayer encourages and the process of growth initiated as we work the 12 Steps.

Resources

We would like to use this space to start a discussion group focusing on readings from the the new book by Thomas Keating, Divine Therapy and Addiction, Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps.

This book is written in conversation with Tom S., a long-time member of AA.  We suspect that there are folks out there who might benefit from hearing about other people who are using Centering Prayer as their 11th Step practice. A quote from the book will be posted and we'll see if we can get some contributions from people who are in recovery and practicing Centering Prayer.  Many of us find a weekly prayer group helpful where we start with 20-30 minutes of silence, have a short reading, and then open it up for sharing.  All the group members are practicing the 12-Steps in one program or another and interested in learning more about Centering Prayer and the 11th Step.  We enjoy the benefits of the prayer and sitting in a group.

read more and share at the 11th Step Forum