I love the instruction used by my long-time friend and yoga teacher, Tammy Kolbo, to “lift the heart.” We spend so much time hunched and slumped over our devices. And I need this invitation every day—to stretch and expand my body to receive life-giving energy.

Try this: Spread your arms wide. Squeeze your shoulder blades together. Lift your sternum. Notice the sensations in your body and emotions as you open your heart and soul to the Holy One.

It is not necessary to use words to begin praying. Nor is sitting motionless required.

I will lift my heart to heaven.
I will stretch out my hands to the Holy One….

James Finley writes: “A contemplative practice is any act, habitually entered into with your whole heart, as a way of awakening, deepening, and sustaining a contemplative experience of the inherent holiness of the present moment.”

“Refuse to fall down.
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled,
and it will be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you
from lifting your heart
toward heaven—
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening”.

–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness; …I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land…Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Psalm 143: 1, 6, 8