Often in Church services or gatherings with other Christians, there is time for prayer. By prayer I could mean listening to God, talking to Him, or hopefully both. But my mind, like many, is easily distracted. I can find it difficult to focus for more than a minute. Here are some of the things that I have found affect me personally. What affects you?
Silence does not help.
Silence is too much of an empty canvas. Sometimes when I come home from work I let myself spend a few moments sitting on the sofa doing nothing just to let my imagination out. It can be like an animal that's been pawing at the door all day because it wants to get outdoors. Giving myself space and silence lets my mind breathe a sigh of relief and become less focused, not more.
Music with a beat does not help...
I'm very musical. Specifically, very beat driven. If I'm walking along a pavement listening to my mp3 player through headphones, I will unconsciously match my footsteps to the rhythm of the music. Even if I realise this, I find it difficult not to! So when I'm trying to focus on a mental picture or phrase, and there is an audible piece of music playing with a drum or beat line, my attention is instantly drawn to it. Sure, I can focus. But not on what I planned to.
...But more atmospheric music does.
If the music is atmospheric, or perhaps if there are people singing around me that mostly drown out the instruments, that helps me to focus. You might think that being surrounded by people singing would be distracting, but it's not. Maybe that is because I am not driven so strongly by the melodic side of music. If I had not gone to church for most of my life, however, this might have been weird to me.
A "Mantra" does not help.
I have heard it recommended that to focus, you can start with a sentence that you repeat in your head or say quietly to yourself. A Mantra. This isn't a bad starting point, but I have found that with my mind's habit of picking up numerous tangents from anything that stays still for long enough in my head, a single sentence isn't big enough. My thoughts want to expand on any sentence, and see what it connects to, and then what those connections also connect to. Repeat for as long as you want until you realise you're not very focused on what you started with.
Moving helps.
I play the drums, and yes, this is going to contradict what I said earlier about music with a beat. When I play the drums in a worship group, I don't need to think too precisely about playing the drum kit. I feel the music that the rest of the group is playing, and just work with it. I use the movement of playing the instrument as something to focus on. I can play aggressively or peacefully, I can express myself without having to think about how to do so. Maybe I like a beat as long as I can do something with it. We have different words for musical worship and prayer, but not all cultures do...
If not moving, posture can help.
When it comes to my physical position when praying, I think I've gone through 3 phases- as a child, I put my hands together in front of me because I was told to. As a teenager, I didn't change my posture at all, because I learned that I didn't need to pose a certain way for God to hear me. As an adult, I will usually bow my head and lean forward, because although I still know my pose doesn't make God hear me better, I know that being deliberate with my body somehow helps me be deliberate with my mind.
Image source: http://www.wpsu.org/tv/dtv
