June 2, 2025
One of the many habits I have been working on developing over the last 3 years is the daily examen.
For many of you, this practice may be called many things: vision planning, dreaming, reflection, diary time.
For others, you have no idea what this is.
This is a rather simple practice that was started by St Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) in 1522.
The practice is designed to pause and see how God has been working through us throughout the day.
It is incredible to think that in 1522, a time many of us would consider to be much slower paced than the world we live in today, there was still a need to remind people to slow down and reflect on their day.
Keeping this in mind, I truly wonder how we would benefit as a society if we would orient our day with this simple statement and spend some time in quiet contemplation actually writing down our thoughts about how we can do better today.
What I have discovered in my own life is this is an opportunity to pause at the beginning and the end of my daily shifts to collect evidence of how God is working in my life.
For many of us, when we don’t pause, we give the train of doom/gloom thinking momentum causing our day to spiral out of control. Believe me, I have been there.
Wake up irritated. Kids react to your attitude. Stuck in traffic. Give a few bad adjustments. A patient decides to quit care. Bills are due. The end of the world is obviously rapidly approaching and today just happens to be that day.
The doom and gloom death spiral that when given time to root into your mind and your thoughts will control your thinking and distract you from doing better.
To counter these days…because, let’s be honest, I know we all have them whether we like to admit it or not…I implemented the 10:00 window.
I have set aside 10:00 silent time slots at 8:50AM, 12:00PM, 2:50PM, 6:00PM to reflect on the following questions:
- How can I do a better job today?
- What is the quality, quantity and duration of my expectations of God?
- What went well?
- What can be improved?
This small 10:00 window gives my brain the opportunity to collect evidence, no matter how small, of where things are actually going in the right direction.
It doesn’t mean that the doom and gloom will just magically disappear.
It actually lets you process those moments and find some sort of good in them.
This small change will generate for you the opportunity to start giving the positive mental attitude of Hope some momentum.
Pretty soon, you will train yourself to find the good in every single day, continually working to generate a reality in which you are seeking to do better instead of giving energy to the vampire that sucks the joy out of your life.
Maybe your time slots are different from mine, but I guarantee that if you give yourselves 10:00 of silent reflection at the start and end of your daily shifts, “how can I do better today” will become a way of life guiding every action you take, seeking the good in all things.
If this was good enough for people in 1522, just think about how great this will transform our own communities in 2025.
Remember…it’s 4:45 AM…and if you are walking with me, wherever you are in the world, know that I am praying for you.
Since I don’t make posts like this on social media … If there’s someone you know that would benefit from reading this, share it with them so they can start working on making their Monday great again.
