Jim Heaney - Choosing Presence: How to Access Gods Peace and Release Fear, Anxiety, and Stress

Copyright 2020 by Jim Heaney

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any
form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher,
except for brief passages used in connection with a review.

Scripture quotations marked RSVCE are from Revised Standard Version:
Catholic Edition, copyright 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the
United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NABRE are from the New
American Bible, revised edition 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington DC. Used
by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from New Revised
Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council
of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked CEV are from the Contemporary English
Version Copyright 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society.

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Interior Design by Howie Severson

Turning Stone Press

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San Antonio, TX 78209

www.turningstonepress.com

Library of Congress Control Number available upon request

ISBN: 978-1-61852-126-2

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I dedicate this book to my loving wife, Patricia, and our four wonderful children and their spouses. Also, to our ten grandchildren and, of course, to any other grandchildren we may be blessed with. As parents, we want to do the best for our children and give them as much as we can. I believe the greatest gift we can give them is pointing them to where they can access God's eternal peace, freedom, and power in the present moment. No gift we can give them in this world compares to that.

CHAPTER 1
The Unconscious Self: Understanding the Origins of Our Stress and Anxiety

CHAPTER 2
Meeting God in the Moment: Getting Out of Our Heads and Into Our Hearts to Connect with Spirit

CHAPTER 3
Stillness: Simply Doing What God Told Us to Do

CHAPTER 4
Accessing Presence: Being in the Space Where We Know That God Is Here Now

CHAPTER 5
Inner Conditioning: Building Our Foundation on Rock

CHAPTER 6
Resistance: Our Main Obstacle to True Peace

CHAPTER 7
The Courage to Stop Negative Thinking and Gossip: The Awareness That We Take Our Life Situations and Turn Them into Problems

CHAPTER 8
We All Want Peace: The Practice of Presence Gets Us There

I will be forever grateful to Fr. Richard Rohr for being the one who pointed me toward the power and peace of the present moment through his many books, writings, talks, and our friendship over the last twenty years.

I would like to thank Emily Wichland, a truly gifted editor who edited the manuscript. Her suggestions, advice, and patience were all so important to writing and completing this book. Emily made me accountable for everything I said. I would never consider writing another book without Emily as the editor. One of the gifts of this book is that we have become friends.

I would also like to thank the people I gave the manuscript to for their opinions: Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, Stephen and Mary Jo Picha, Annette O'Connor, Pastor Jim Taylor, and Bill Reinl. They all gave me excellent feedback and suggestions.

I would like to thank Fr. Stan Bosch for his encouragement to write the book and also his contribution to the book, but mostly I am grateful for his friendship.

And finally, I would like to thank Patricia, for reading the manuscript over and over as I made changes and asked her opinion on so many things. Her thoughts, suggestions, and encouragement were invaluable.

Imagine we had a group of ten people in a circle and each of us was going to write down what we think is the most challenging issue in our lives. In other words, we were going to talk about our inner fears, our inner pain. Each of us would have a different story to tell. But though there may be ten different stories in our circle, at the core each story is really about one central issue going on inside of us: inner negativity. Stress, anxiety, worry, lack of self-esteemall of these are caused by things happening in each of our different life situations. And unfortunately, what too many of us fail to realize is that we ourselves are creating this inner negativity. It's not our individual circumstances or stories, but how we react to them in our unconscious mind that creates pain.

The practice of presence allows us to see clearly what the real problem is. It is personal, and it is simple to do because the power of the practice of presence isn't what we do but what is being done to us when we stop the inner negative dialogue and experience our vibrant inner life, which is accessible to each of us, always. That is God's promise to each of us: Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10 RSVCE).

The presence of God, the Holy Spirit, was and is the foundation of the Church. The apostles and the early Christians were energized and guided by God's Holy Spirit, the force within a person that is believed to give the body life, energy, and power. In John 4:24, Jesus tells us that God is Spirit (RSVCE), and in John 14:17, he says The Spirit will show you what is true.... You know the Spirit, who is with you and will keep on living in you (CEV). We seem to have lost our connection with this ultimate source of power. Our actions tell us we don't have confidence in the presence of God's spiritual energy, accessed through stillness, and that is only because we do not practice presence. How can we have confidence in something we have not experienced consistently?

Today a number of people practice Buddhist meditation. Others practice general mindfulness. Buddhism is connecting with the energy source, and mindfulness is relying on our awareness to fix ourselves. There are certainly benefits to both approaches. But what we are talking about in this book is much different. What we are talking about is the practice of presence, which is simply what God told us to do in order to have a personal intimate relationship with him. God tells us to bring in stillness. When we bring in stillness, we connect with our vibrant inner life, which is God's spiritual energy within us.

It is simple to do, and yet it has profound benefits to our daily lives. The practice of presence makes us aware of what is causing our inner fears, inner conflicts, and lack of self-esteem. Once we realize we have a choice, it is the beginning of the end of our self-created misery and inner chaos. That is the power of practicing presence with the intention of connecting with God's spiritual energy within us, which each of us has access to. No matter what spiritual practices we dowhether our daily prayers, reading scripture, or going to church servicesthe practice of presence deepens our spiritual lives. It does not take the place of anything or any practice but enhances every spiritual practice we do.

All of us are at our best when we don't have inner distractions but instead a sense of inner freedom. That is the core of practicing presence.