Centering prayer is something many or all should go to. As a college student, going to events like these seem really boring and time-consuming. You look at a centering prayer and think, "Man this is going to be the longest 30 minutes of my life." All that changed once I actually went. Dr. Quantz came in and had all these candles with a bowl and a bell type of thing. She made us pick out a paper from the bowl and they all had a different word. These words had no meaning whatsoever, which made me think why are we getting them? Then she explained.
Dr. Quantz told us that those papers had no meaning to us and that we wouldn't know what they meant. She said it was to relax our mind from any other thought. During the time of prayer, we would only think about our word assigned. Truthfully I can't remember what my word was, but it was a weird one. She then told us to lay our hands flat, whether it be on the arms of the chair or our lap. We also had to have our feet flat on the floor with our eyes closed. For about 30 minutes we sat there in silence. The first 10 minutes I was already over the experience. I was more so falling asleep than actually getting thoughts in my head. Then it finally came to me, a thought. .
It was just for a second but I kept getting more and more thoughts. Soon they started becoming negative thoughts, for example, I kept thinking about school and how I would get my grades up within the next two weeks. I remembered Dr. Quantz told us to keep thinking of the word we got, so that's what I did. I thought about it, and after a while my mind became blank. It was crazy because I had never been so spaced out but at the same time relaxed. I was controlling my thoughts and for the first time, I was able to clear those thoughts to not think at all. As the time went by, I could feel my body become paralyzed in a way. I couldn't really feel my body weight. It's as if someone took all the weight off my shoulders and just blew it off like a feather.
