Soul Sculpting Project: Praying in Our Body

They would crowd around the upstairs window and watch him while he prayed. His prayer time looked more like a work-out. This ‘athlete of Christ’ prayed with his whole body. He would throw his arms straight up and become an arrow shooting to God. Then he would sprawl out flat on the ground. He especially loved to deeply kneel on one knee, like he was coming into the presence of a king – over and over and over.

St. Dominic (AD 1170-1221) believed that the way we move our body powerfully affects our soul in prayer.

Dominic’s belief is well supported by the current mind-body research.

The fact that our mind influences our body is well-known. Think placebo effect. Our thoughts can make us healthy or (sick).

Findings in research on embodied cognition are demonstrating this influence also works in the reverse. Our body significantly influences our thoughts. The way we move our body changes the way we think and feel.

Body posture changes our hormone balance in less that two minutes.

• Assume an expansive posture and we have a twenty percent increase in our testosterone levels, and a twenty-five percent decrease in cortisol levels.
• Assume a posture that takes up very little space and we have a ten percent decrease in testosterone, and a fifteen percent increase in cortisol. Amy Cuddy (Harvard) and Associates

Body posture changes our self-perception

• Want to feel more confident? Sit up straight with chest out
• Want to feel less confident? Sit slumped, face looking down at knees. European Journal of Social Psychology (2009).

Body posture changes our attitudes.

• Want to persist on solving difficult problems longer? Cross your arms. Friedman and Elliot (2008)

Body posture changes our perceptions of the physical world.

• Want to estimate that something is shorter? Lean to the left. John Bargh (Yale)

Our moods, our perceptions, and our hormones are all affected by our body posture.

So what does that mean for prayer? I think it means that Dominic was right. Our body powerfully affects our prayers.

In the mid-1200’s Dominic’s followers put together a little illustrated book showing nine of Dominic’s favorite prayer postures. Here are seven of the postures.

Soul Sculpting Project: Praying in our Body

In our Fixed-moment of Prayer

• Talk with God for one minute using one of St. Dominic’s Prayer Postures.

  OR

• Talk with God for one minute using your own choice of postures.

I have observed that my prayers change when my posture changes. New postures bring new content. Kneeling leads me to confession. Raising my hands waist-high, shoulder-high and over my head all inspire different emotions and content in my prayers. I have even noticed differences when seated with my knees close together from when my knees are spread few inches. These postures all inspire different thoughts which I express to God. And my postures also affect what I sense from God to me.

Posture affects prayer.

May you and I find new postures to deepen our connection with God.

Seven of Dominic’s Prayer Postures

1. Bow from the waist
2. Lay face down, outstretched on the floor
3. Genuflect: rise then kneel, rising and kneeling again and again.
4. Hands held as if reading from a book
5. Outstretched arms, in the form of a cross
6. Hands raised above head
7. Walking in solitude