Four steps to God

I live separated from myself, from this body, too much. I can locate this body and my centre fairly easily, though taking up full residence is a process that takes time and a commitment to presence.

Remember: to come home to yourself is to come home to God.

Coming back home is a four-fold process. Take a seat with me for a few minutes.

  1. Ground: feel your feet on the floor, your bottom on the chair; connect with this Earth; relax your back from the base of the skull to the pelvic floor; your hands and arms resting in your lap; relax; let the floor and the chair hold you.
  2. Breathe: notice your breath, for mostly you are unaware that you breathe; feel the breath into the chest; feel the breath deeper down into the belly.
  3. Centre: come home to yourself; relax into yourself; focus into your heart; and then into your belly; there is nothing you need to do; there is nothing you need to be; just be.
  4. Open: relax all the margins of this body; let the skin be porous; let the heart open; relax the belly; let yourself be loved; let yourself love.

Each step is a layer of letting go, a relaxation into yourself, a deeper coming home “as a loved child who has already been given everything“.

Each step is prayer. These are not preparations for prayer. No. Each step is prayer, because prayer is all about turning up.

Repeat the steps as needed – every time you find yourself drawn away from this simple presence to self-and-God.


Coming home to myself is a painful process. This body aches from habitual tension and from my absence from myself.

But after a while I begin to remember the delight of presence, of taking things one step at a time and of doing everything with You, by which I mean with presence and love.

I can love these fingers and the keyboard under them.

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