The Examen is not the Examination of Conscience which a person does in preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Rather, it is an Examination of Consciousness, that is, the consciousness or the awareness of God's presence and God's activity in one's life. The presentation of this prayer which Fr. Dennis Hamm, S.J. wrote for America magazine for May 14, 1994 is helpful. In that article (in Links below on this page), he explains the five steps very easily:
1. Pray for light, so that we can see things as God sees them and can make some sense out of our messy lives.
2. Review the day in thanksgiving. When we recall what God has been doing in our lives, we can be grateful and experience the virtue of gratitude which Ignatius prized so highly.
3. Review the feelings which surface in the replay of the day. Fr. Hamm is on target here because God speaks to us more clearly through our affect than through our intellect. This helps us to pay greater attention to our feelings and emotions.
4. Choose one of these feelings (positive or negative) and pray from it. When a person prays through a negative feeling which surfaced, that person finds that he or she is more in touch with what God wants to say to him or her.
5. Look toward tomorrow. If something has gone poorly in the day, it will be good to correct it. If something has gone well, it will be good to choose to continue it.