Coaching practices for Examen Opening Prayer

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Examen Opening Prayer, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • When I sit down at night to look back on my day with God, I tend to jump straight to everything I did wrong
  • I keep starting this nightly prayer practice and then dropping it the second life gets busy, because I’ve made it this long involved thing
  • Whenever I review my own day I quietly spin everything to make myself look better, and I know it
  • When I pray I fall back on memorized, safe phrases that don’t touch what’s really in me
  • I’ll do this big thorough reflection once, feel great about it, and then not do it again for three weeks

Practices that may help

  1. The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
    The Examen is a short, structured evening review from the Ignatian tradition: you replay the day with gratitude and honest attention to where you felt drawn toward or away from your values, then carry one resolve into tomorrow. It is a centuries-old contemplative practice; its benefits are best described as mechanistically plausible and widely reported rather than established by controlled trials.
  2. Become aware of God’s presence and give thanks
    Open the review by pausing, settling, and naming specific gifts from the day.
    The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
  3. Practice the Examen daily and briefly
    Do a short Examen most days rather than a long one occasionally.
    The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
  4. The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
    The Ignatian Examen is a five-step daily prayer and reflection practice developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola: give thanks, ask for clarity, review the day, face what fell short, and resolve what comes next. As a structured reflection method it is centuries-old and widely practiced; its benefits are supported by the broader research on gratitude, emotional review, and implementation intentions, not by trials of the Examen itself.
  5. Ask for clarity and honest perception
    Before reviewing, pause to ask for the capacity to see honestly rather than defensively.
    The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
  6. Oratio: praying in response to what arose
    Let what the text touched in you become a prayer — honest, spontaneous, personal.
    Lectio Divina: Sacred Reading
  7. Keep it brief and daily
    Do a short Examen most days rather than a long one occasionally.
    The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
  8. Close with a resolve for tomorrow
    End by choosing one concrete intention to carry into the next day.
    The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
  9. Face shortfalls with honest sorrow, not shame
    Name where you fell short today without either minimizing it or spiraling into self-punishment.
    The Ignatian Examen: Five Movements of Daily Review
  10. Choosing and using a sacred word
    Select one simple word as your symbol of consent to God’s presence and action within.
    Centering Prayer: The Method of Thomas Keating

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