Attachment (with God)

Lately, as part of my fasting, I’ve been listening to The Presence Project with Summer Joy Gross — a podcast that merges ancient Christian contemplative practices and modern brain science and psychology so that people can experience a life abiding in God, even if they suffer from depression and anxiety. While both those things show up in my life occasionally, I came to The Presence Project looking to work on something else.

I’ve lived most of my adult life with my emotional center in the future. I lived out of anticipation — literally taking from the future. While faith requires a certain future-orientation, the center of our existence should be Jesus who is Emmanuel: God with us, right here, right now. One cannot live incarnationally alongside Jesus if one is never really living in the moment at all.

The antidote for over-anticipation is presence. That was the keyword that brought me to Summer’s podcast. I’ve been listening to episodes at work and while driving lately, cherry picking the ones that seem closest to my own intersection. I’m looking for how one is more present with God in every interaction, conversation, and task. While a lot of the practices seem to be the sort of thing done on an easy chair, cup of something hot in hand, I am finding some gems that help.

One would be Summer’s integration of Daniel Siegel’s 4 S’s of Attachment or 4 S’s of Showing Up to our walk with God in episode 31 “Your Emotion and God’s Limitless Compassion“. The Four S’s of Attachment (applied to [4] The Quad):

Check out the episode: