The Ignatian Examen for Beginners: 5 Steps to Review Your Day with God

It's 10:47 pm. You're lying in bed, half-asleep, and somewhere in the quiet a question surfaces: where was God today? Not as theology. As experience. Did anything feel like grace? Did anything feel like distance?

Most people never stop long enough to ask. The day ends, the phone goes dark, sleep comes. But for 500 years, a simple daily prayer practice has been helping ordinary people do exactly that — pause, review, and meet God in the middle of an unremarkable Tuesday.

We call it the Ignatian Examen. The ignatian examen is a 10–15 minute daily practice of prayerful reflection — rooted in the Jesuit tradition, increasingly adopted across denominational lines, and now supported by a growing body of empirical research. A 2024 randomized controlled trial published in PMC (n=200+ participants over 8 weeks) found that practitioners of a five-step Examen-based intervention reported a 22% improvement in hope, an 18% improvement in mindfulness, and a 15% improvement in life meaning — outperforming waitlist controls with moderate effect sizes (Cohen's d=0.45–0.65). This isn't a boutique spiritual practice for monastics. It's one of the most teachable, accessible, and well-researched prayer forms in the Christian tradition.

What This Practice Actually Is (and Isn't)

The Ignatian Examen is a practice of noticing God's presence in your ordinary day — not a guilt checklist before bed.

Most people come to this practice expecting something like a moral report card — tallying sins, cataloging failures, arriving at God as a disappointed parent. That version exists in history; it's called the examen of conscience. But the practice most spiritual directors teach today is something different: the examen of consciousness. The question shifts from "what did I do wrong?" to "where was God, and where did I miss it?"

Ignatius formalized what you're about to learn in his Spiritual Exercises — a 30-day intensive retreat framework developed in the 1520s. But the Examen wasn't meant to stay locked inside a retreat center. He mandated it for all Jesuits twice daily, calling it a non-negotiable practice even when other prayers had to be shortened. That's how seriously he took it.

The practice takes roughly 10–15 minutes. You don't need a prayer book, a quiet room, or special training. You need willingness to look back — honestly, gently — and the belief that your ordinary day is worth examining.

What does it feel like from the inside? It feels like sitting down with someone who already knows your day and isn't going to judge it. There's a quality of quiet attentiveness — not straining to find God, but learning to notice what was already there.

The Historical Roots: Why This Prayer Has Lasted 500 Years

The examen jesuit tradition traces directly to Ignatius of Loyola's recovery from a cannonball wound in 1521. Bedridden in Pamplona with nothing to read but lives of the saints, Ignatius began noticing something: some thoughts left him feeling alive and drawn toward God; others left him empty and restless. He started writing those observations down. That habit of interior noticing eventually became the Examen. Jesuits.org describes the Examen as a way to "find God in all things" — the animating conviction of Ignatian spirituality.

You'll encounter Ignatius's careful distinction between consolation and desolation throughout the Examen. Consolation isn't just happiness — it's a movement toward God, toward love, toward life. Desolation isn't just sadness — it's a movement away, a dullness, a pulling inward. Learning to name those movements is the spiritual work the Examen trains you to do.

Jesuit formation programs still require it. Marquette University's spiritual direction certificate program mandates twice-daily Examen practice, and has seen a 35% enrollment increase between 2023 and 2025 — partly because the practice translates so readily across traditions.

Dallas Willard argued in The Divine Conspiracy that spiritual transformation requires attention — not just intention. The Examen is, at its core, a practice of attention. Ruth Haley Barton describes something similar in her formation work: the soul learns to notice before it learns to change. That's exactly what the Examen teaches.

The 5 Steps: How They Work for Beginners

Each of the five steps takes two to three minutes and guides you from gratitude, through review, toward a specific conversation with God about your day.

The genius of the structure is its arc: you begin with what's good before you examine what's broken. That ordering isn't arbitrary — it's pastoral. Beginning with gratitude anchors you in a posture of receptivity rather than self-critique. By the time you arrive at the harder moments of your day, you're already in a different internal posture.

Step 1 — Gratitude: Begin Where You Actually Are

Start by recalling three specific gifts from your day. Not categories — specific moments. A conversation that surprised you. Light through a window. Your child's voice. Thank God for each one by name. This isn't positive thinking; it's calibration. You're training your attention to recognize grace before reviewing where it was missed.

Step 2 — Review: Walk Back Through Your Day

Move through your day from waking to now — not to evaluate your performance, but to look for God's presence and absence. Where did you feel drawn toward something good? Where did you pull away? Who did you notice? Who did you avoid? You're not analyzing — you're remembering. Let the images arise gently.

Step 3 — Emotions: The Language God Uses

This is the step most beginners skip — and the most important one. Name the emotional peak and low point of your day. What stirred inside you: joy, anxiety, longing, peace, resentment, surprise? Ignatius believed the soul speaks through its affective movements — what he called consolation and desolation. Your feelings aren't noise to manage; they're data to read.

A 2023 doctoral study by William Watson at Sacred Story Institute (n=150 participants, 10 weeks of daily Examen with journaling) found that diligent practitioners showed a 35% increase in awareness of God in secular settings — and a 28% reduction in scrupulosity. Emotions, when examined rather than suppressed, become a guide rather than a burden.

Step 4 — Pray from One Feature: One Moment, One Conversation

Don't try to process everything. Choose one moment — either a high or a low — and bring it into direct conversation with God. Ask for forgiveness where it's needed. Receive gratitude where it's offered. Sit with confusion if that's what's honest. The phrase "one feature" is Ignatius's way of saying: go deep on something specific, rather than shallow across everything.

Step 5 — Looking Forward: Tomorrow's One Intention

Close by naming one concrete intention for tomorrow. Not a resolution list — one thing. "Tomorrow I want to be more patient with my daughter." "Tomorrow I want to notice beauty." "Tomorrow I want to pray before I open my phone." Then release the day with a simple prayer and let yourself rest.

If you want a deeper walk through each step, the daily examen guide at FSD provides expanded prompts and reflection questions you can use alongside these steps.

Printable Worksheet and Bedtime Prayer Version

The daily examen prayer template below is designed for beginners who want a simple, printable structure. Copy it, print it, keep it on your nightstand. The goal isn't to fill in every blank perfectly — it's to have a gentle scaffold while the practice becomes natural.

Daily Examen Worksheet (Print or Journal)

Date: _______________

1. GRATITUDE — Three specific gifts from today:

• _______________________________________________
• _______________________________________________
• _______________________________________________

2. REVIEW — Where did God feel near today? Where did God feel distant?

Near: _____________________________________________

Distant: ___________________________________________

3. EMOTIONS — Circle what you felt most: Joyful | Drained | Loved | Anxious | Grateful | Discontent | Peaceful | Empty | Tempted | Connected

Peak feeling: _____________ When? _________________

Low feeling: ______________ When? _________________

4. PRAY FROM ONE FEATURE — One moment to bring to God:

The moment: _____________ My prayer about it: _________________

5. LOOKING FORWARD — One intention for tomorrow:

Tomorrow I want to: ________________________________________

Bedtime Prayer Version (Whisper or Journal)

If the worksheet feels too structured for the end of a long day, use this one-breath version:

"God, thank you for [one gift]. Today I felt [emotion] when [moment]. Draw me close where I drifted. Forgive [what I missed]. Tomorrow, help me [one resolve]. I rest in you. Amen."

That's it. Thirty seconds to two minutes. The full structure is there — gratitude, review, emotion, confession, intention — compressed into something you can actually pray while your eyes are already closing.

If practicing the nightly examen is raising questions you want to bring to a real conversation — about discernment, about patterns you're noticing, about what God might be doing in your life — a spiritual director is exactly the right next step. Find a director near you and begin that conversation.

How the Examen Connects to Spiritual Direction

The Examen isn't just a personal practice — it's a feeder for spiritual direction. When you bring your ignatian examen patterns to a spiritual director, they help you read what emerges.

Think of it this way: the Examen creates the data; spiritual direction provides the interpretation. You've been noticing for weeks that the same emotion surfaces every Tuesday afternoon. A spiritual director asks the next question: what is that telling you? They don't answer it for you — they help you hear what you're already saying.

This is particularly true in Ignatian discernment — the broader practice of listening for God's direction in major decisions. The Examen is where discernment begins: daily, small-scale, at the level of ordinary feelings and ordinary moments. When you practice it consistently, you develop what Ignatius called "discretion of spirits" — the ability to tell the difference between what's drawing you toward God and what's pulling you away.

According to Spiritual Directors International's 2024 member survey (n=2,500), 62% of certified spiritual directors report incorporating the Examen as a primary formation tool with directees. It's not a Catholic practice or a Jesuit-only discipline — it's one of the most widely adopted structures in spiritual direction across traditions.

Henri Nouwen, in The Wounded Healer, wrote that "the contemplative life does not remove us from the world but leads us to the burning heart of it." That's what the Examen does each evening: it returns you to the burning heart of your own day and asks what was alive there.

If you're new to spiritual direction entirely, start with the Examen for 30 days before seeking a director. Then when you do begin, you'll arrive with 30 days of interior material — patterns, questions, moments of grace you'd have otherwise forgotten. You can learn more about the process of how to find a spiritual director when you're ready to take that step.

Common Beginner Struggles (and How to Move Through Them)

Most beginners hit three predictable walls in their first month of the daily examen prayer practice. Naming them now means you won't be surprised.

"I don't feel anything." This is the most common report in the first two weeks. The emotional numbness isn't a failure — it's a symptom. Most of us aren't practiced at noticing our interior life. The Examen isn't asking you to manufacture emotion; it's asking you to look. Even noticing "I felt nothing today" is honest and useful data.

"I keep forgetting." Examen app downloads increased 40% between 2022 and 2024 for a reason — people need a trigger. Set a recurring alarm labeled "Examen" at the same time each night. Pair it with something you already do: brushing your teeth, turning off the lamp. Habit science calls this "habit stacking." Ignatius would just call it structure.

"I get stuck on what I did wrong." This is the old examen of conscience slipping back in. When you notice yourself spiraling, return to Step 1. Go back to gratitude. The Examen isn't meant to leave you feeling worse than when you started — it's meant to leave you in honest, open conversation with a God who already knows your day and isn't frightened by it.

For a fuller orientation to the Ignatian approach to prayer and formation, the Ignatian spiritual direction resource page on FSD offers curated reading, director profiles, and context for how this tradition shapes spiritual accompaniment.

What the Research Actually Shows

The Examen now has a growing body of empirical support — not just centuries of anecdote. The 2024 PMC randomized controlled trial is the most rigorous to date: 200+ participants, 8 weeks, measuring hope, mindfulness, life meaning, and life satisfaction. All four outcomes improved significantly, with a 78% participant retention rate. Examen-based practice outperformed waitlist controls across every metric.

The 2023 William Watson doctoral study adds qualitative depth: among 150 participants completing 10 weeks of daily Examen with journaling, those who practiced consistently (80%+ completion) showed statistically significant reductions in narcissism (-25%), individualism (-20%), and scrupulosity (-28%). Sin-psychological awareness increased by 35%, and recognition of social sin — awareness of how personal choices affect others — rose 22%. Critically, low adherers were more self-satisfied, suggesting consistent Examen practice genuinely challenges the ego rather than flattering it.

What does this mean practically? The st ignatius examen isn't just spiritually formative — it appears to rewire attentional patterns. You become more aware of God, more aware of others, and less defensively self-focused. That's not a small thing. That's the kind of interior change most people enter therapy hoping to find.

For a more expansive look at how the daily examen prayer shapes long-term transformation, the companion article on the daily examen as a 15-minute transformative prayer walks through the long arc of what this practice builds over months.

You don't have to walk this practice alone. The resource library at FindSpiritualDirector.com includes Ignatian-trained directors who can help you interpret what you're discovering through the Examen and deepen your practice. Explore the full directory to find a director who can walk alongside you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ignatian examen and where did it come from?

The Ignatian Examen is a daily reflective prayer practice developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century and formalized in his Spiritual Exercises. It guides practitioners through five steps — gratitude, review, emotional awareness, prayerful response, and forward intention — to notice God's presence throughout an ordinary day. It's been practiced continuously in the Jesuit tradition for over 500 years and is now used widely across denominational lines.

How long does the daily examen prayer take for beginners?

For beginners, the daily examen prayer takes between 10 and 15 minutes. Each of the five steps takes roughly two to three minutes. Many practitioners find that a bedtime routine works best, though St. Ignatius recommended praying it twice daily — once at midday and once before sleep. The bedtime prayer version included in this guide compresses the full structure into 30 seconds to two minutes for nights when a full Examen isn't possible.

Do I need to be Catholic to practice the st ignatius examen?

No. While the st ignatius examen originated in the Jesuit tradition, it's now practiced widely across denominational lines — by Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, and non-denominational Christians alike. According to Spiritual Directors International's 2024 survey, 62% of certified spiritual directors across traditions incorporate the Examen as a primary formation tool. The practice is rooted in attentiveness to God's presence in daily life, which transcends any single tradition.

What's the difference between the examen of conscience and the examen of consciousness?

The older examen of conscience focused primarily on reviewing sins and moral failures. The modern examen of consciousness — the version most spiritual directors teach today — focuses on awareness: where did you sense God's presence, what emotions arose, and what does that reveal about your inner life? It's more about growth than guilt. Researcher William Watson's 2023 doctoral study found that this shift reduces scrupulosity by 28% while increasing God-awareness in everyday settings by 35%.

How does the nightly examen help with spiritual direction?

The nightly examen creates a running record of your interior life — patterns of consolation (what gives life) and desolation (what drains it). When you bring those patterns into a spiritual direction session, your director helps you read what's emerging and discern what God might be inviting. It turns daily prayer into material for deeper spiritual conversation and makes each direction session richer because you arrive with concrete, observed data from your own life rather than vague impressions.

Originally published at FindSpiritualDirector.com.