Breath Prayer as described by John Mark Comer in How to Unhurry

 1. Put away your phone and any other distractions, settle into your time/place, and get comfortable. You may want to take a short walk first, or light a candle, or stretch, as a way of easing your soul into a new mode.

2. Watch your breathing

3. Sit in an upright, but relaxed position

4. Close your eyes

5.Take slow deep breaths

-inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth

-as you inhale, breathe all the way in until your stomach distends (this fills your brain with clean, clear oxygen

-as you exhale, shape your lips like you’re breathing out through a straw and push all the air out with your stomach muscles (getting all the carbon dioxide and toxins out of your system.)

6. Feel the sensations in your body- stress, heartrate, tightness, calmness, pain, lightness, etc. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and it’s a good gift. By becoming present in our body we become present in the moment, and eventually in God himself.

7. Just “watch” your breath enter and exit your body. Pay attention to it and nothing else.

8. Your mind will sieze this opportunity to run with with thoughts, feelings, memories, to do’s and distractions. That’s okay. It’s used to constant chatter, not stillness. Don’t judge yourself, feel like a failure, or give up. Just let each thought go as quickly as it comes. When you notice your mind start to wander, just re-center with a quick prayer, like, “Father” or “Jesus” or “Peace” or the ancient, “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and come back to your breathing.  

9. Let the Spirit generate from deep within you a compassionate heart toward yourself and each thought that you gently release.

10. Pray:  This isn’t new age, hypnosis, or magic; its just a way of resting in God’s love, being present to him, slowing down to let Jesus set the pace and agenda of our day

11. Once you settle in to a rhythm, begin to turn each breath into a prayer. One breath at a time, imagine yourself breathing out: anger, sadness, anxiety, despair, fear, the need to control, discontentment. And then imagine yourself breathing in its opposite: love, joy, peace, hope, trust, detachment, contentment

12. Abide: before you end this exercise, spend a little while just “abiding in the vine;” simply sit in loving attention on God. Watch God watching you in compassionate love. This is the core of all transformation into Christlikeness. Through resting under God’s loving attention toward us by the Spirit, we are transformed.  

13. As Saint John of the Cross once said, “What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God… for the language he best hears is silent love.”