Mother Natalia

And so the goal is, if we can have this short prayer that's

memorized and that we can start to say naturally, then it can become something that we pray without ceasing.

If it doesn't take too much of our attention, then we can even be praying this in the midst of a conversation, ultimately.

I wouldn't start with that.

Or while doing the dishes.

Mm-hmm.

which the Jesus prayer is also referred to as like the prayer of the heart.

It's talked about synonymously with that.

So this is called a chotki or chotki, which is just the Slavic word for knot, K-N-O-T.

So it's just named after the fact that it's created with a series of knots.

And it's to give a physical object to hold onto as you're repeating the prayer so that you have a way of, I guess, like focusing your attention, you know.

You have something that you're doing with your hands in order to bring you to the present and to focus.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

So, and I've heard stories like this.

So this is part of why to go back to the praying without ceasing, I like to pray the prayer, and this is a very common practice, to pray the prayer with my breathing.

And yeah, you might hear that it's like dangerous and you should do that with advice and stuff, but I've never known someone to be hyperventilating as they're praying the Jesus prayer.

So I think, you know, proceed with caution.

But if you time the prayer with your breathing,

So I typically pray in Lord Jesus Christ, pray out Son of God, pray in have mercy on me, pray out a sinner.