Episode 291 - Michael with Peter Zaremba, "Inner Transformation Through the Welcoming Prayer"

Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick, where today we’re diving deep once again with Peter Zaremba into the transformative power of the Welcoming Prayer. This practice is your toolkit to embracing difficult emotions right where you are – focus on the emotion, welcome it with open arms, and surrender it actively to God. Our experiences and insights reveal how welcoming your feelings, not the circumstances, can shift your perspective and connect you deeper to divine peace. It's not about the noise around you but the stillness within you. Transform fear into love, chaos into serenity, and unrest into a profound sense of presence.

Join us as we welcome and surrender to the uncomfortable – turning every moment into an opportunity for growth and connection with the ever-present love of God.

 HELPFUL RESOURCES:
Episode 288 - Michael with Peter Zaremba, "7 Toxic Outcomes of Maintaining Control"
Episode 289 - Michael with Peter Zaremba, "Releasing Control, Embracing Serenity"
Episode 290 - Rob Mathes, "Bridging the Sacred and Secular: A Chat with Rob Mathes" 

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Transcript

MICHAEL CUSICK: 0:00

Hi, and welcome to another episode of restoring the soul. I'm Michael John Cusack and I'm here today again with my friend Peters a rumba Hi, Peter, hey, hey, we are in New York City. And if you listen to my podcast with Rob Mathis, I was in town this weekend, to hear the ROB Mathis band do his 30th anniversary of the Christmas concert, make sure to check out that podcast. And the reason why I decided to record this on the 25th floor of the Marriott courtyard at Fifth Avenue and 40th, right across from the New York Public Library is that today, this may be one of the busiest spots in America. And I think there's evidence that says that, it's a good idea to think about a practice. And whether it's actually effective or not, is whether it works in the most extreme conditions. And so here we are at 40th, and Fifth Avenue in New York City. If you're listening carefully, you can hear a jackhammer in the background. The building that we're in is actually under construction. And there are signs all over saying please pardon our dust. But what better place to talk about welcoming the unpleasant emotions, welcoming the struggles whelping, welcoming all of the things that are happening inside of us, then New York City where all around us, there's chaos, in the midst of Christmas decorations, saying this is the happiest time of year. There's poverty, there's homeless people, the city smells bad. There's trash all over the street. But I love it. If you've never been to New York City, may you one day, come here and try to find some enjoyment. So there's, there's horns that I'm hearing in the background, and we'll probably hear a siren at some point. But Peter, let's jump into the welcoming prayer. This has been a practice for you more than me. But it's something that I have done. Will you talk about what the welcoming prayer is, and how it has been helpful in your own life? Yeah, so

Peter Zaremba: 2:01

I was fortunate enough to attend the Living School. And the result was one of our instructors. So she's written the defining book, on centering prayer called centering prayer and Inner Awakening, she dedicates an entire chapter to the welcoming prayer. And I would highly recommend that book, there's a diagram that is kind of the centerpiece for her explanation of the welcoming prayer from Thomas Keating father, Thomas Keating, that shows a middle, delineating line, everything below it is unconscious, everything above it is conscious. And so he talks about the false self system for happiness, power and control, esteem, affection, approval, and safety and security.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 2:43

And let me just interject when he talked about the false self. He also calls that the programs for happiness. So if people get hung up on the word false self, what is that true self ego shadow? The false self, is basically the way that our unconscious creates these programs are happening.

Peter Zaremba: 3:00

Exactly. So we've talked about this in very recent podcasts, in my false program for happiness, as I get out of bed and say, I'm going to every I'm going to have everyone in my life love me, and, and approve of me right as I'm laughing as I say it, right. So and then we go, but so we start, we go out our day, and we rise above the unconscious into the conscious world, and we start interacting with people. And if my goal is to get their approval, and to get their their love, so to speak, if I disappoint them, if I if I somehow feel shame, feel that I've failed or that I've that I have not achieved that goal, I can get very frustrated, right. And at that point, there's an opportunity when I when the frustration first arises feelings of shame, feelings of rejection, there's a point where, but welcoming prayer can be a tool, a transformational tool to deal with that. First, let me say, If I don't, if I move from that frustration, essentially, I get immersed in the shame. I don't have a feeling the feeling has me. And then it takes me down below the waterline again into my unconscious, we're really all I do is double down. Right? The answer is to double down now on my false program for happiness, and I'm gonna try harder tomorrow, change my strategies and change my techniques. But in that moment, if we can back up to the moment of where that afflicting emotion comes up, and there's frustration, centering, welcoming prayer is is a practice that is best practice at the speed of life. What I mean by that is, if I can take a couple minutes alone, when I'm feeling that rejection and that shame, practice, the welcoming period has three steps. The first is to focus, right to focus and feel so that shame is embodied somewhere in my body. And for me, it's it's high in my ribcage. And the beginning of the welcoming prayer is to just get in touch with the sensation What does it feel like to feel that shame? How does it show up in my body and not to try and deal with it or to psychologize it not to go in my head with it, just to

MICHAEL CUSICK: 5:09

stay body based to observe it notice exactly, exactly and

Peter Zaremba: 5:13

to and to lead it to feel it, in a sense to, to really own what it feels. And for me, I'll even put my hand in that high ribcage place. And so that is the first step. The second step is to slowly name and welcome that afflicting emotion. So I begin to say things like, welcome shame, welcome, rejection, welcomed failure. And if there's something maybe even beneath that, you know, you know, you know, welcome disappointment. And then, so the welcoming prayer, it is a rocking back and forth between the two steps, I'm welcoming, and I'm feeling I'm focusing I'm observing. And then I'm welcoming. And as that rocking between the first two steps takes place, there's a loosening of the knot, the knot, of that emotion begins to loosen. And at some point, we're at a place where I can do this, I can hold this right, I can experience it, and I can have this emotion, it doesn't have to have me, and at some point, and we don't want to be in a rush here on this, but at some point, we can simply hand it over, and we let it go to God. Therefore,

MICHAEL CUSICK: 6:34

this idea of surrender, which evangelical Christians will talk a lot about, you know, we need to surrender. We need to trust God, we need to in the 12 step programs, I'll often use the phrase Let go, let God what does that mean, you know, that can be an exasperating kind of cliche, but this idea of surrender actually happens by this process of being with it, as you say, and I love this analogy, the knot unties. And that allows us to surrender into it, to entrust it to our loving God. And this doesn't always happen. But as that knot becomes untied, and we surrender it, that feeling will dissipate or subside substantially. Yes,

Peter Zaremba: 7:15

exactly. The surrender is not passive. It's not Oh, I give up. You know, this is nothing I can do here. I can't participate in this process of healing, but it's an active, it's an act of handing over letting go forgiving to me the words surrender, forgive, letting go, is are synonymous. One important note we're welcoming is the afflictive. Emotion. We're not welcoming the circumstance. So example. Years ago, I had a cancerous polyp detected and it was removed. And I they wanted to do a resection to find out if I if it had metastasized into my colon if there was colon cancer, right. So I wasn't practicing the welcoming prayer back then. But had I from my fear, because I was I was definitely afraid until I got the results back. If I were practicing the centering, or excuse me, the welcoming prayer, it would not be welcome cancer, right. It would not be you know, welcome death, it would be welcome fear. Welcome. Unknown. Welcome uncertainty. So that's important, right? We're not welcoming the circumstance. We're welcoming the afflictive emotion, and why don't want to get her name on but someone who really early on was instrumental in developing the welcoming prayer was a Brooklyn born psychiatric nurse named Mary Marwan ski, I believe is a

MICHAEL CUSICK: 8:41

lesson I read about her and CYNTHIA

Peter Zaremba: 8:42

Yeah. And so she went a little further, whenever she would do her letting goes after she had done the first two steps of focusing in welcoming when she would surrender the afflictive emotion, she would say, I surrender my needs for power and control. I surrender my needs for safety and security. I surrender my needs, for esteem, affection, approval, and I surrender my need for anything to change or get better.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 9:12

I'd love that. Say that again. Yeah,

Peter Zaremba: 9:14

I surrender my needs. For power and control. I surrender my needs for safety and security. I surrender my needs for esteem, affection and approval, and I surrender I need for anything to change or get better. It's this a death blow to the ego because the ego is is is not bad. It's just, it is a full surrender of that false program of happiness. And the most important thing like anything else, you know, the welcoming prayer is an ongoing practice. You know, you don't surrender and welcome your fear and then never have to surrender fear again. Right.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 9:50

Right. And can I just want to interject that, that surrender, once again, is not I'm surrendering to cancer, and surrendering is not saying that, I don't care if this gets healed, we can still pray, God healed the cancer, I'm still going to ask people to drive me to the to the hospital, you know, I don't have to give into despair. But it's not yet an acceptance of the circumstance. And there are, as we'll talk about in another podcast, there are circumstances that we cannot change, and that we actually have to accept them. Once again, it's an acceptance, an acceptance of the emotion of the experience within us. It's the perceptions in our body, it could be a migraine headache that somebody has, or a physical pain, chronic pain, because Cynthia has written about this in terms of chronic pain, that if someone has a ruptured disc in their back, and that's a chronic issue, which a friend of mine has right now. And they're in and out of pain. I had dinner with him the other night, I said, How did you how'd you fly here to town when we had dinner and he said, Well, I can stand up. I'm sorry, I can sit down. But every time I stand up is when it hurts. So when he stands up, there's this need to be aware of what's happening. And if his body and his mind are going off, this pain is awful, that I can't stand this pain, I can't wait till I get my next dose of medication. It's not wrong to be relieved of the pain, but the resistance in the trying to shut down or if you could watch me on video right now listeners on my hands are open versus clenching. And as soon as I clenched, things become tight. And my autonomic nervous system goes into a, a sympathetic mode, where I'm activated, and I begin to move into a fight or flight of so this prayer, this welcoming prayer is we're not fleeing from it. We're not fighting it. We're being with it. And I know I just restated everything you said. But I think for me, hearing about the welcoming for over and over in different ways, has helped me beyond the practice of the welcoming prayer. But this idea of non resistance, non judgmental acceptance. And so this is not resisting But accepting. You

Peter Zaremba: 12:11

hit the nail on the head, one of the lines, I don't believe it's in her chapter on the welcoming prayer. But at the Living School, she introduced the welcoming prayer with on the premise that whatever we resist persists, Carl yellow said, Yeah, whatever it was this process. And so a dear friend of mine, who was brilliant engineer, suffered a stroke, and his right arm, his right leg, and his speech was impacted, not his brilliant mind. And so he still has full mental capacity. But what's what was difficult for him to have lunch recently is and what's it has to be just such so maddening, such a suffering for him is, he knows what he wants to say. And he can't get it out. And so what he says is, the harder I try and grab it, the more elusive it becomes. That's my words, not his but where he goes, if and he even said, like, in the middle of our lunch one time, discos, calm down, calm down. At first, I thought he was talking to me. He's self taught calm, so so that he could access what was there. Yeah, that's

MICHAEL CUSICK: 13:21

beautiful. That's a, that's a good picture of non resistance. And for me, is I even hear those words Calm down, I would need to hear those words, and then breathe and exhale. Because for me, just the mental is not enough. I need to I need to kind of align that with my embodied state. And so much of my calmness is a physical state. Right? So let's review the three steps to the welcoming prayer.

Peter Zaremba: 13:48

The first is to focus and observe and to deeply feel right. So by focus, we mean we're going to our emotions are body based, and I had to learn, you know, I think men, I think women intuit that fairly naturally. I won't speak for other men, I'll speak for myself. I never realized how body based my emotions were. The first step in the in the welcoming prayer, let's say it's fear, which I usually feel my throat, tightening of my throat, my mouth gets dry. If I were consumed with fear, and I was recently that for me, I want to focus on that feeling, not think about it, don't psychologize it, don't try and, you know, figure out its roots. Just allow yourself to be present to the emotion. And if it helps to put your hand where you carry that emotion in your body, do it if it helps to give it a color, a name, a sound, whatever we can do to observe and to feel the depth how afraid I was when I felt that fear. We want to get there and then we want to begin slowly to name it. And to welcome so step one is the is is getting in touch with it, focusing on it. Step two is the welcoming. Welcome fear. Welcome, uncertainty. Welcome, threat. Welcome. We're welcoming What's this emotion that's under welcome. unsafe? Could

MICHAEL CUSICK: 15:16

be sadness, it could be shame. It could be exactly right anger, irritability, frustration. And

Peter Zaremba: 15:23

so steps one and two are the majority of the work of welcoming prayer. And so there's this rocking back and forth, there's this. There's a give and take, but you keep feeling so as you We surrender, we go back to the feeling, we go back to feeling it we go back to, and we're saying the words out loud, welcome. We're speaking aloud. The welcome. As we do that, this afflictive emotion that not lets in US begins to loosen begins to slowly become undone, and we feel it

MICHAEL CUSICK: 15:55

we let me say a word about speaking this out loud. Because people might say, well, do I have to speak it out loud. And I remember, years ago, when I did a lot of inner healing prayer, and from time to time, I'll still still do that with clients. There was this kind of debate and some of the writings and teachings about whether you need to speak things out loud the prayer. And even in Romans 10, it talks about if we confess with our mouth, that d of saying something out loud. And Neuro Linguistic Programming is something that came about in the early 70s. And that has led to a lot of other therapies, but it's basically articulating out loud, unpleasant, afflictive, emotions, states, etc. And then pairing it with affirming kinds of statements, and sometimes even tapping at different points. So there's something called Emotional Freedom Technique, which is a derivative of the early NLP or neuro linguistic programming. And the idea behind this is I do this with people is when you speak something out loud, it says, if you're announcing it to your brain, as if our self is having a conversation with this organ called the brain. And when you do that, it says, if the brain not a separate person, that's an organ within our body, but it says, if the brain goes, Oh, you've got this, instead of this being frightening, and you're threatened by this emotion of anger, shame, fear, sadness, etc, or a physical pain, like the headache, or a body pain, sort of the brain reacting, I have to go into the mode to help protect or defend the brain goes, oh, so I do think it's important to speak it out loud. When you and I were in the cathedral, there were 1000 people in there. And there were noises all over. And we did our our thing that we always do here in New York City where we sat for 20 minutes in silence and did Centering Prayer. And I kind of it's probably, quote, sinful, I don't sit around judging my sins, but I kind of go in there trying to think like, I'm gonna flex my muscles and see how still and quiet I can be in the middle of these 1000 people with tourists hustling and bustling in there. Because St. Patrick's Cathedral, even in the middle of a mask is more of a tourist Mecca with people snapping their pick their phones and things like that. But I thought to myself, well, I can't really speak it out loud right now, because because I'm in a public place. But I was able to just kind of whisper because I wanted to be able to settle. I wanted to be able to find that quiet place within. But there was crazy noise and echo all around me. And so I just whisper. And I whispered the word Jesus to be able to kind of sink down into myself. That was a little bit of a rabbit trail. But I just think it's important to say that the speaking it out is helpful. Not necessary, but very, very helpful. I

Peter Zaremba: 18:46

couldn't agree more. Yeah, it becomes real when it comes out of my mouth. I know, I know that. And so, again, step one is focus. Step two, the welcoming, we walk back and forth, eventually the knot loosens. And then the final stage is simply to hand that over to forgive it to surrender it to God, and the prayer of I release my desires and my needs for power and control for safety and security, for Steam affection, approval, and for anything to get better or to change.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 19:18

How long does this practice take out? My

Peter Zaremba: 19:21

great question where my centering prayer practice, I aim for 20 minutes, I don't always sometimes it's 10. Sometimes it's five. But the set the welcoming prayer because it moves at the speed of life is going to be a different it's going to it's there's no set

MICHAEL CUSICK: 19:34

period, it could take 30 seconds just takes three minutes, it could take 30 seconds,

Peter Zaremba: 19:37

it could take five minutes, it can take 10 minutes. How traumatizing is the afflictive emotion? And do you have the luxury or the space? You know, if I'm hosting Thanksgiving, and I'm feeling anger, you know, I don't have the luxury but if I could sneak in the bathroom and take a couple minutes and release that. It's going to be a better day.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 19:57

So wait wait while there's smoke coming out of the oven and that Turkey is crispy, and the windows are being thrown open in the smoke alarms going off, you don't just disappear into your your home office. And where's Peter? No, this can be a brief thing. Exactly. Okay. It's,

Peter Zaremba: 20:12

it's intensely practical. And I will say this, here's, here's the motivator for folks listening. It is a true transformational practice, self awareness, seeing myself over attach, feeling it being able to identify how our motion embodies us. And then surrendering, it is this, this is a, this is a practice that will change our life.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 20:38

So a couple thoughts you just said. And then I actually want to do the welcoming prayer. So there's going to be a long period of silence. Most of us over identify with our emotions, and we over identify with our perceptions experiencing sensations in our body. So if we have an unpleasant state, as you said, we don't have the emotion, the emotion has us. So this is a way to begin to realize that I am not my emotion, I am not being drawn in, or I don't have to be drawn in and consumed by this emotion right now.

Peter Zaremba: 21:11

And let me throw into this is, this is a practice that will absolutely build your awareness and competence of God's constant infinite presence, that somehow I've never done, the welcoming prayer and not at the end, felt more spacious, more compassionate, more filled with love more connected to God. It's not always the same intensity or depth. But it is it will build an unshakable confidence in God's presence, and regardless of our circumstances, and his love and his desire to heal and make us whole, beautiful. And

MICHAEL CUSICK: 21:47

that's a beautiful part of this because so often, our overwhelming emotions, and experiences create distance relationally particularly shame that her Thompson and others have said that shame creates distance. But if I'm experiencing some kind of unpleasant emotion, like even just low level irritability, I'm either going to be pushing people away, or I'm going to be trying to control them to assuage my my irritability. So this, this does create connection. And I'm glad you brought up the thing about feeling more connected to God, because there may be listeners who are new to this, or maybe uncomfortable to, to a prayer that that focuses on our body, although we talk a lot about embodied spirituality. So they might say, Well, wait a minute, I thought you said this was a welcoming prayer, you're not really talking to God. But the assumption is that Christ is in us, God is with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. And as I'm fond of always saying, Psalm 139, for seven, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? So we don't need to go to a church to be with God, I don't need to open my Bible to be with God. I don't need to look up to the sky to pray to God when I'm with myself. And I'm gently aware of his presence. We're with God. And so this is tuning into God with us. And would it be true to say, because I believe it is that when we tune into these afflictive emotions, that's where God is? Yes. Because God is not in the moment of peace. God is there, right there in the midst of all that is unfavorable. And all that doesn't feel right or good. So let's take a moment. And for the next, oh, let's just say three or four minutes, you're going to mostly hear silence. But I'm going to ask Peter to kind of guide through the process. And if you will, here on the 25th floor of this building in New York City, looking out at the skyline just kind of tune into what's happening in you. And it might be something that's just maybe a little bit of anticipation about kind of moving to the next step of our day or about the noise in the background. But just walk us through that. As if somebody is listening and wanting to kind of watch you do this.

Peter Zaremba: 24:05

Yeah. So let me do this. Let me go back to because we talked about this on the walk home, walk, walk to your room, was sitting in St. Patrick's Cathedral, I had an intense, irrational fear. But it was intense. Like I wanted to get out of the cathedral. So just get loose. I want to run with that.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 24:23

Let me say something. I don't think it was irrational because I had the same kind of thought I didn't. I'm not as neurotic as us. So I didn't. I didn't stay with it. But it's true. We're walking down the street and there's a parade today here on Fifth Avenue and they place big concrete blocks on the sidewalks so that some nut or terrorists can't drive down the sidewalk with a vehicle like has happened in Charlottesville and other places. And there are police everywhere for this parade. And this is New York City. It's not irrational that somebody would walk into that church with a backpack. So now out, if I go, Yeah, that's gonna happen, then that's irrational. But it's a possibility. And I think that's important to say, somebody gets on the plane, or on a plane and they go, this plane is gonna crash, I'm convinced of it, there's a possibility that the plane crash, but if they indulge that, so again, even even the idea that you had this particular thought accepting that and maybe that by calling it irrational, which we'd love to do in psychology, right there cognitive distortions or irrational thoughts, and then there's rational thoughts.

Peter Zaremba: 25:33

In when, when so when does a fear when does a legitimate fear gets so distorted, that it becomes now living into this wound of fear? Yes. And so that's so

MICHAEL CUSICK: 25:46

it's funny, back to back to St. Patrick's and your, your fear of

Peter Zaremba: 25:50

so we're doing well doing centering prayer, and I have this, this fear come up. And I consider myself a New Yorker, right. I grew up in the North Shore of Long Island. I've been in Metro New York for most of my adult life. And so I've had other moments like that on the Verrazano Bridge, in a train wherever, right? So this, this thought comes, and I have this fear that we're in a dangerous place. Right? And I know it's, I'm going to just say it. Here's my self talk. This is irrational, but it's rising. It's rising. I feel intense. I feel a desire to leave literally. Yeah, a desire to leave in get out. So hilariously, I it was almost comical, because I knew that we were preparing to go discuss the welcoming Prego a, probably a pretty good time to pull out the old welcoming for her. So I put my hand on my chest, and sometimes I feel fear in my throat, but my hand on my chest because my heart was beating a little faster. And I began to just feel it, feel it, feel it. Imagine my fear coming true. The few but feel the fear of it, the intensity of it, this intensity of it is it's red. It's a red fear, danger. And so I begin to feel that I feel it in my body. And after I've allowed maybe, I don't know, 30 seconds, 40 seconds of feeling that I begin to say, welcome fear. Welcome, uncertainty. Welcome on. feeling unsafe. Welcome. Welcome, vulnerability.

Unknown: 27:38

Welcome vulnerability, welcome. Fear. Welcome, unknown. Feel it more. I feel it more.

Peter Zaremba: 27:46

More welcome fear. And, Michael, I'm telling you at some point, like, my heart rate slowing down, the grip of the fear is loosening. It's loosening and present, I have no desire to leave. And I still have the fierce present, but it's not the power of its dissipating. At some point, I can just say it's yours. It's yours. Look. And

MICHAEL CUSICK: 28:14

there's really a point of trusting even just tuning in and putting your hand over that feeling of fear. There's a trust that says it's okay. To be with this. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And when we hear in the scriptures, do not be anxious about anything, fear not, or I am with you. Cast your anxiety upon him. That's not something that we do by virtue of rehearsing a propositional truth with a chapter in a verse attached to it. We We surrender it, we cast it, we fear not, by being present to it, and then allowing it to be released in the presence of Love. So this is really a practice where we learned that love has us, and that we are securely attached to the source of love. And that the goal of our spirituality is to be securely attached to God. And we don't push away all the unpleasant, all the quote, negative, the distressing or afflictive things that we experienced internally. We welcome them, we learned to be with them. And in practicing the presence of these experiences that we'd rather push away or deny. That's how we learn to be present to God. And I've said this before, but that for those who have heard this phrase, practicing the presence of God brother Lawrence's book from the 13th or 14th century, I've often said that we struggle to practice the presence of God, because we don't know how to practice the presence of ourselves. And how can be how can I be present to you If I'm not present to myself, if I'm watching the TV screen over here, or if I'm looking out the window at the parade, being set up down below, I'm not going to be able to be present to you. And I find that so much of my life I've lived, not present, but checked out, tuned out and not even really realizing that. So I want to thank you today for talking about the welcoming prayer for the way it's been a practice in your life. I want to encourage our listeners to to experiment with this, to experiment with surrendering to love. So thanks for listening today, everybody. We'll be back in another podcast just coming up in a week or so talking about the Serenity Prayer, and that podcast plus this podcast on the welcoming prayer. Plus, Peter, nice to previous podcast talking about surrendering control, and not being attached to the outcomes. This is a series of four that will all fit together nicely to help us to internalize and to integrate peace and wholeness into our lives. So we'll talk to you next time from New York City. It's Peter Zaremba and Michael saying bless you