A tight or painful chest, pain spreading to your arm, jaw, neck or back, sudden shortness of breath, a pounding or irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, faintness, or numbness can be a medical emergency — not anxiety. Do not try to breathe or pray it away. Call your local emergency number now and let a doctor check your heart first. This page is only for anxiety a professional has already helped you recognise, and is never a substitute for urgent care.
By Hayley Louisa Mark
You have decided to try it. That part is done. You read somewhere that you can pray with your body, and something in you said yes, that one, I’ll do that — and now you are standing in the middle of your kitchen, or at the foot of your bed, or in the small gap of floor beside your desk, and you genuinely do not know what to do with your hands.
That is the exact moment I want to meet you in. Not the deciding. The standing-there-afterward. The hands that have gone suddenly self-conscious, hanging at your sides like they belong to someone else. The faint embarrassment of am I really going to do this. The not-knowing where to begin, which is its own little paralysis, and which I think keeps more people from this prayer than any theological doubt ever has.
So let me just walk you through it. One movement at a time. Where to put your hands. When to breathe. What to say, if you want words. This is the four-movement body prayer in the line of Julian of Norwich — reach up, draw in, open out, rest — and by the end of this page you will have prayed it once, with me, and your hands will know where to go.
The short version (if you only have a minute): The body prayer of Julian of Norwich has four movements you pray slowly, one breath each. Reach up — open hands above you to receive. Draw in — bring those hands to your heart to hold what you received. Open out — turn your palms outward to release it to God and others. Rest — let your hands fall open in your lap to abide. Up, in, out, still. That is the whole shape. Everything below just slows it down.
First, the one honest thing about the body prayer of Julian of Norwich
I want to be straight with you before you give this your trust. Julian of Norwich was a fourteenth-century anchoress whose showings — visions received during a grave illness — became Revelations of Divine Love, the first book in English we know to be written by a woman. Her most famous line is this:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
That line is hers — from the thirteenth showing — not a verse of Scripture, and I’ll never dress it up as one. It is a human woman’s faithful echo of a divine promise.
And here is the honest part: Julian did not leave us a four-movement choreography with a name. What I’m giving you is a contemplative practice built in her line — shaped by her central images of being enclosed in God’s love, of being held as a mother holds a child, of all things made well. Christians have long prayed with the body using movements like these; I’ve simply matched four of them to four of Julian’s truest themes, so the prayer has a shape your hands can follow. Read it as a body prayer in Julian’s spirit, not a transcription of a manuscript. It is no less real for being honestly named.
Before you begin: where to put yourself
You don’t need a special place — just about a square metre of floor and the willingness to feel slightly silly for ninety seconds. That feeling passes. It always passes.
Stand, if you can, feet about hip-width apart, knees soft. If standing is hard today — illness, exhaustion, a body that hurts — sit with both feet flat, or do the whole thing in bed with only your hands moving. None of this requires a body that works a certain way; Julian prayed her deepest prayers flat on what everyone assumed was her deathbed. The movements scale down to almost nothing and lose none of their meaning.
Let your arms hang. Take one ordinary breath just to find it. Now we begin — one movement per breath, slowly, and then I’ll have you run the whole thing through on your own.
Movement One — Reach Up (to receive)
The body: On a slow breath in, raise both arms upward and open — not rigid, not straining for the ceiling, just lifted, elbows soft, palms turned up and open as if you were standing under a gentle rain and meant to catch it. Your face can lift a little too. Let your shoulders drop down even as your hands go up; we are opening, not bracing.
The breath: Breathe in for the whole lift. Let the in-breath and the rising of your arms be the same motion. Fill slowly.
What it means: This is the posture of the empty hand. You are not reaching up to grab — you are reaching up to receive. Open palms are the oldest sign in the world for I have come with nothing and I am willing to be given to. Before you do a single useful thing for God today, you admit you need to be filled first.
The borrowed line. Say it slowly, on the held breath or just after:
“Of his fulness have all we received.” — John 1:16
That is exact KJV, and it is the whole theology of this first movement in seven words. You are not the source. You are the cup. Reach up and let yourself be a cup.
Hold the lift for one slow heartbeat. Then we come down.
Movement Two — Draw In (to hold)
On a slow breath out, let your raised arms come down and inward, folding your hands gently over the centre of your body — one palm laid across the other, drawn in close but not pressed hard. Let your elbows soften toward your sides. This is the gathering motion, the way you might cradle something you have just been handed and do not want to drop.
The breath: Breathe out for the whole drawing-in. The out-breath empties you of effort while your arms gather you back toward your own centre.
What it means: Whatever you reached up to receive — mercy, steadiness, the bare fact of being loved — you now hold it inside. This is Julian’s image of enclosure: that we are wrapped round and kept in the love of God the way a child is held, the way (her word) a mother holds. You are not holding tightly. You are holding closely. Your folded hands know the difference.
The borrowed line:
“He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.” — Isaiah 40:11
Exact KJV. Read it twice and notice it is not you doing the holding — it is you being the lamb that is held. The drawing-in of your own arms is just you agreeing to be carried.
Stay folded for one slow heartbeat. Feel how safe the body reads this posture. Then we open.
Movement Three — Open Out (to release)
The body: On a slow breath in, uncurl. Let your arms come away from your chest and open outward in front of you — elbows leaving your sides, palms turning to face away from you and slightly up, hands spreading to about the width of your shoulders or a little wider. Not flung wide like a stage gesture; opened, like a door easing back on its hinge. You may feel a small vulnerability across the front of your body as you open. Good. That is the posture working.
The breath: Breathe in as you open. It seems backward — surely releasing should be an out-breath? — but I want you to take in the willingness first. You breathe in the courage to let go, and the letting-go itself happens in the stillness right after.
What it means: What you received and held, you now do not keep for yourself. You open it outward — toward God in offering, toward the people you carry, toward the world. It was never meant to be hoarded against your chest forever. Julian’s whole vision bends outward toward all manner of thing being made well — not just you, all of it. Open hands cannot grip; that is the point of them. You are practising, in your shoulders and palms, the daily art of releasing what you are tempted to clutch.
The borrowed line:
“Freely ye have received, freely give.” — Matthew 10:8
Exact KJV. The first half is movement one. The second half is this movement. Your own arms have just carried that whole verse across your body, from up-and-in to out-and-open.
Hold the openness for one slow heartbeat. Let it be a little uncomfortable. Then we come to rest.
Movement Four — Rest (to abide)
The body: On a slow breath out, let everything lower and settle. If you’re standing, let your arms come gently down and your hands fall open at your sides, or come to rest open in front of your hips. If you’re sitting, let your hands rest open in your lap, palms up, fingers loose — not gripping, not even holding now, just open and still. Let your shoulders drop one last centimetre. Let your jaw unclench. Let your face do nothing.
The breath: Breathe out long and slow and then — this is the actual prayer — stop performing the breath. Let it become ordinary again. Let it breathe you. You are no longer doing the prayer. You are resting inside it.
What it means: This is abiding. Not reaching, not holding, not even giving — just being kept. After the work of the first three movements, you stop working. You let the held-open stillness say what no words and no gesture can: I am here, you are God, and that is enough for this minute. This is where Julian lived. Enclosed. At rest inside a love she did not have to earn or maintain.
The borrowed line — and this one is not Scripture, and I will tell you so plainly. It is Julian’s own, the place we started:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” — Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (not Scripture)
Let it land in open palms. You don’t have to believe it all the way today. You only have to let your hands stay open while you hear it.
Rest here as long as you like. Thirty seconds. Three minutes. There is no timer on abiding.
Now pray it through once, on your own
Here is the whole thing with the words stripped down, so you can run it without scrolling. Read it once, then put the screen down and do it.
- Reach up — breathe in, arms lifting, palms open to receive. “Of his fulness have all we received.”
- Draw in — breathe out, hands folding to your heart, holding what was given. “He shall… carry them in his bosom.”
- Open out — breathe in, arms opening, palms turning outward to release. “Freely ye have received, freely give.”
- Rest — breathe out, hands falling open and still, abiding. “All shall be well.”
Up. In. Out. Still.
Do it slowly. Do it three times through if once felt rushed. The movements are simple enough that within a week your body will know them without the page, and you’ll be able to pray this in a hospital corridor, in a parked car before you can make yourself go inside, in the dark at 3am when words have entirely run out. That is the gift of putting prayer in the body — the body remembers what the anxious mind drops.
A note on the science
There is a real, measurable reason this prayer settles you, and it has nothing to do with the words being magic. It is the out-breath and the open posture doing physiological work.
Movements two and four are paired with slow exhalations. A prolonged out-breath is one of the few voluntary levers we have on the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic (“rest and restore”) branch of the autonomic nervous system: slow exhalation tends to slow the heart and signal safety to the body. An open posture — uncrossing the arms, lifting the chest, turning the palms up — removes the protective bracing the body adopts under threat, and the nervous system reads that openness as I am not in danger right now. You are not imagining the calm; you are gently down-regulating an alarm system through breath and stance.
A boundary I’ll hold firmly: this is the body growing quiet enough to pray. It is not a mechanism by which prayer is “proven” or God is summoned. The physiology and the faith are separate rooms. I can tell you why your shoulders drop; I cannot, and will not, tell you that a slower heart rate is the Spirit. Those are different claims in different languages, and honest work keeps them apart.
The body-science here reflects established neuroscience of the nervous system. What the science actually says about a settled body → · the research behind these pages
A few sub-notes, for when the practice gets real
“I feel ridiculous.” Everyone does at first; it’s unfamiliarity, not a verdict. Do it alone, door shut, until your body stops narrating. The self-consciousness usually fades by the third or fourth time.
“My arms get tired / I can’t lift them.” Then shrink the whole thing. Reach up becomes lifting your hands a few inches off your lap, palms turning over. Draw in becomes a hand on your chest. Open out becomes turning your palms outward where they rest. A prayer your fingers can perform is a complete prayer.
“My mind wanders the whole time.” Of course it does — that’s exactly why you’re using your body. When your mind drifts, your hands are still praying and can call you back. Don’t scold yourself; just return to the next movement. The returning is the prayer.
Take the prayer with you
Free, no strings: I made a one-page Four-Movement Body Prayer Card you can print and keep where you’ll actually use it — by the kettle, in your Bible, taped inside a cupboard door. Four movements, four lines, the breath cues, big enough to read at arm’s length. It is yours.
→ Download the free Four-Movement Body Prayer Card
If you want to go deeper: Our Stilling Waves contemplative journal carries this same body-prayer rhythm across a full season of guided pages — room to notice, to write the line that found you, to let the practice become a daily habit rather than a one-off.
→ See the Stilling Waves journal
Keep reading in this series
- When Your Body Won’t Sit Still to Pray: Julian of Norwich and the Lost Art of Body Prayer — the why beneath all of this, and Julian’s own story.
- Seven Body Prayers for When Words Run Out — if you want a buffet of simpler prayers to try before committing to this fuller one.
- Is It Okay to Pray With My Body? What Body Prayer Actually Is — and Why It Isn’t Yoga — for the honest question sitting in the back of your mind.
Frequently asked questions
Is the four-movement body prayer actually from Julian of Norwich?
The images are hers — receiving from God’s fullness, being enclosed and held, all things being made well, and resting in a love we don’t earn. The choreography of four movements is a contemplative practice built faithfully in her line, not a transcription from Revelations of Divine Love. Pray it as a body prayer in Julian’s spirit, honestly named.
What are the four movements, in order?
Reach up (breathe in, open palms, to receive), draw in (breathe out, hands to heart, to hold), open out (breathe in, palms outward, to release), and rest (breathe out, hands open and still, to abide). Up, in, out, still.
Do I have to say the words out loud?
No. The words are borrowed lines to give each movement meaning while you learn it. Many people pray this silently, or eventually drop the words entirely and let the movements carry the prayer. Use them as long as they help.
Can I pray this if I can’t stand or lift my arms?
Yes. Every movement scales down to the smallest gesture — a turned palm, a hand on your chest. Julian prayed her deepest prayers from what everyone thought was her deathbed. A prayer your fingers can perform is a whole prayer.
Is this the same as yoga?
No. The intent and direction are entirely different — this prayer reaches up to a personal God to receive, hold, release, and rest in him, not inward to empty the self. We unpack that fully in Is It Okay to Pray With My Body?.