Your Guide to Navigating Life’s Changes with Spiritual Grounding
As new life stages shift our priorities and identities, find your center amid major life changes with these free contemplative resources:
- Starting New Chapters
- Dealing with Loss & Death
- Marriage & Divorce
- Managing Illness
- Making Major Life Changes
Whether you are facing an empty nest, becoming a parent, getting married or divorced, or dealing with illness and loss, contemplative practice can provide spiritual grounding as we navigate both planned and unplanned life challenges.
The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit supporting transformation and loving action. Sign up for our free monthly newsletter to get more contemplative resources.
Starting New Chapters
A regular contemplative practice can help you create space to thoughtfully reflect on the path ahead and courageously step into a new stage of life.
- Listen: The Journey Begins with James Finley, Turning to the Mystics podcast
- Read: Holy Transitions, Daily Meditations
- Watch: Trusting the Process with Monica A. Coleman, The Cosmic We podcast on YouTube
- Practice: Nondual Seeing Practice, Daily Meditations
Dealing with Loss & Death
Contemplative practices help us nurture compassion — as CAC founder Richard Rohr often says, “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”
- Listen: Necessary Suffering with Mirabai Starr, Everything Belongs Podcast
- Read: When Anger Meets Love, Daily Meditations
- Watch: Every Death Entails Resurrection with Brian McLaren, YouTube
- Practice: Meeting the Mystics in the Landscape of Loss, Conspire 2021 conference on YouTube
Confidence in Relationship Changes
Contemplative traditions invite new and deeper levels of consciousness, increase our self-awareness, and help us learn to respond rather than react to change.
- Listen: Navigating Faith Shifts in Marriage and Relationships, Learning How to See podcast
- Read: Taking the Slow Road to Letting Go, We Conspire series
- Watch: Today is a Time for Mercy, Richard Rohr’s Homilies on YouTube
- Practice: Allowing God to Love us Practice, Daily Meditations
Hope While Managing Illness
A daily contemplative practice, even just 15-20 minutes of silent meditation, can help us embrace change, reduce stress, offer emotional balance, and relieve anxiety.
- Listen: The Path of Great Suffering, Another Name for Every Thing podcast
- Read: Christ Suffers with Us, Daily Meditations
- Watch: Solidarity with Suffering, YouTube
- Practice: Spiritual Practice for Crisis, Daily Meditations
Grounding During Major Life Changes
With a regular contemplative practice, you can find the courage and wisdom to embrace new chapters—like becoming a parent or losing a loved one—with an open mind and heart.
- Listen: Everything Will Be Alright in the End, Richard Rohr’s Homilies podcast
- Read: Encouraging Words in Times of Fear, We Conspire series and ONEING
- Watch: The Importance of Presence in Difficult Times, YouTube
- Practice: Nondual Seeing, Daily Meditations
CAC emeritus faculty member Dr. Barbara A. Holmes writes, “We live in a world saturated with the love and intentionality of an ever-present God, and we are not alone.”
We hope these resources help you feel love in the challenging times, find God in suffering, and remind you that you are not — and never will be — alone. We invite you to share your stories of navigating life changes with us.