The Inner Life and our Monkey Mind

It is not easy to sit and trust that in solitude God will speak -but- in that word from God we will find the inner place from which to live our lives.

Our inner life is like a banana tree filled with monkeys jumping up and down. It is not easy to sit and trust that in solitude God will speak—not as a magical voice but as a knowledge that grows gradually over the years. And in that word from God we will find the inner place from which to live our lives. Solitude is where Jesus listened to God. It is where we listen to God. Solitude is where community begins.

Henri Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living

This is my favorite Nouwen quote and maybe one of my favorite quotes, period. I resonate deeply with these words. I started seeing a spiritual director about 15 years ago and a constant theme of those conversations has been my difficulty in prayer, contemplation, and solitude. One of my spiritual directors helped me identify my ADHA, which was confirmed by a psychologist. I hashed out in spiritual direction how my enneagram seven self relates to and pays attention to the presence of God. I sat with a Benedictine monk one time, sharing about my monkey mind and, therefore, my difficulty with prayer and solitude; then he told to embrace the random, racing, sporadic thoughts in prayer because the Holy Spirit can speak even through our seemingly random and chaotic minds. All of these people have helped me understand and navigate my monkey mind a bit better, but it’s an ever-present reality for me.

Knowing my brain, biology, and personality has definitely helped my spiritual life. There are ways of prayer and paying attention to God that I more readily engage now and help me tend to my inner life. I’m able to go with the flow in helpful ways. But there are also ways that aren’t necessarily easy for me, ways of prayer and spiritual practice that are difficult but that are important, even necessary for me to attend to and practice for the sake of my soul.

Cultivating an inner life with God takes intention. There is a reason we talk about spiritual practices. Some of practices should be easy and go with the grain of who we are, how we have been created. Other practices may be more challenging but are equally as important for the health of our inner life with God. We all have some of those monkeys jumping around and cultivating a life with God through practices of prayer and solitude is vital for all of us as we seek to tame our monkey mind, center our self, and grow our life with God in Christ.

May we all seek the quiet places, as difficult as they can be to find and as uncomfortable as they can be at times, so that we can learn to hear the whisper of God and the direction of the Holy Spirit.