Resting in God

"In meditating," he [St. Francis de Sales] says, "we as it were count the divine perfections which we find in a mystery, but in contemplating, we sum up their total." The contemplative gaze is a holistic one, and one steeped in love. We are in the presence of God, and like human lovers who "are content, sometimes, with being near or within sight of the person they love without speaking to her, and without even distinctly thinking of her," we simply rest in God's nearness.

This contemplative repose is easily disrupted if we become overly aware of ourselves, a special temptation in modern times. People who "voluntarily forsake [the state of contemplative repose] to note their own behaviour within, and to examine whether they are really in content, disquieting themselves to discern whether their tranquility is really tranquil, and their quietude quiet," soon become distracted.

Rather than maintaining their focus on God, they "employ their understanding in reasoning upon the feelings they have; as a bride who should keep her attention on her wedding ring without looking upon the bridegroom who gave it to her. There is a great difference ... between being occupied with God who gives us the contentment, and being busied with the contentment which God gives us." We must stop studying our emotional reactions as though we were involved in a scientific experiment if we are ever to meet God as he is. Though honest self-awareness is critically important to the spiritual life, contemplation only happens when we learn to set aside self-study in order to lose ourselves in God.

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

I agree that this is quite a challenge in modern times where, as a people, we tend to analyze everything up to and including ourselves. However, it is a part of "letting go" in general to just push those inclinations aside when it comes to prayer.