Shifting Slowly

I believe many don’t pray because they simply don’t know how to pray or who to pray to or what to pray about or that it has to be this big, drawn out, theatrical performance with lit candles, in a dark room, on their knees at a particular time of day or all day and all the time.

It’s really much simpler than this. Often we pray when we’re in need, in trouble. So many of us don’t often pray when things are going well because we simply forget to. We are happy and don’t need help, so why pray? We often think of prayer as our last resort. And this is where the trouble lies.

Prayer should become like the glass of water we seek daily to quench us. It should become as easy as breathing and as present in our lives as we are. It should become as easy as it easy to talk to a friend or a mother or sibling.

The word ‘prayer’ gets a bad rap. The minute one thinks of it, they think, religion, God, spirituality. What if we changed it to ‘express’. What if we asked ourselves daily, how can I express my gratitude, my pleas, my needs, my scares, my wishes, my hopes, my thanks? Who can I talk to? Write to?

Grab your cup of tea and sit and just talk. That is prayer. Close your eyes if you’d like to, so as not be so distracted. And whatever comes up, just say it to whomever you want to pray to. Whomever you believe created you and this earth and is not of this earth. Whomever you believe is all powerful and knowing and loving. I pray to God, to me He has a name and a face. To me, although I say, He, it doesn’t necessarily make or break what I pray about. Gender is of no importance to me. For some it is. So be it, make it a she or neutral. Truthfully, He is a Spirit, not of this earth and is so grand and encompassing that whatever you make of who you’re praying to is fine. He has come in many forms but one thing remains-He is One. There is no one like Him. No one that will understand you more, love you more, protect you more and believe in you more. So again, whomever or whatever you pray to, remember that. That’s what makes prayer so powerful and useful, that it’s not just a conversation with a friend. It’s a conversation with someone or thing that has the power to move mountains.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to make it understood that prayer is a conversation and should not be a recitation. When we recite, eventually we are not even listening to the words we are reciting. They hold no value. We are merely like robots pushing our mouths open and reciting words we’ve memorized.

In a conversation, you don’t know what will come up. You can talk about what’s happening in your life, what you’d like to happen. You can pray about not understanding things and wishing to. You can ask for strength to complete a task or ask to be uplifted. You can pray for others and their well being. You can ask to be guided and to have your eyes and ears peeled open to see and hear of any signs that are meant for you. For some it may feel like a one sided conversation, but in this way, you are really getting every and anything off your chest that you otherwise don’t know how because of so many reasons we sometimes don’t share our thoughts with others; rejection, judgement, laughed at, confused, ashamed, guilt. Sometimes we just want to be heard and not necessarily spoken to.

Just knowing that you can speak without fear of opposition, is already a great step in prayer. Well, what’s the point then? some of you may ask. I can just talk to myself and figure it out.

Have you guys ever talked to yourselves to try and figure a problem out only to repeat the same story over and over and have it snowball into something else? A scenario so big you don’t even remember how you got there. Then what often happens are the menacing thoughts because you’ve filled your head up so much, there’s no room for anything else. This often causes anxiety and depression.

Praying eases you of these thoughts. Because as you pray and talk about the thoughts in your head, you release them and the more you pray, the more you realize how easy it easy to share those thoughts and soon your thoughts lessen because they’re not getting so crammed up there and you have room to hear the messages. The messages come. Maybe not in the way you think or as soon as you think. Our time is very different than that of God’s or the Universe. We, as humans, want things done and answered now. We seek quick gratification. Instead, we should pray for patience and ask that whatever it is we are seeking, is truly meant for us. If so, to let it find its way. We can ask for patience and we can even ask to be able to see/hear the answers when they arrive.

We’ve got the conversation part down. Now, lets move on to other ways you can pray.

Journaling or letter writing. We’ve all written letters or emailed a friend, right? It’s the same format with prayer writing. You can write it to a “friend”, that friend being the person you believe to be greater than you or you can journal it. Journaling is beautiful because it’s like diary writing. Whatever you write, is between you and those pages and of course, whoever you imagine is listening to your pleas and thank you. (And yes, I meant ‘pleas’ and not ‘please’).

I’ve found methods like these to work for me. There is not a ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to praying. There can’t be. We are all made differently in the way we think, feel, speak and believe. Therefore, how you approach prayer should equal to how you approach life.

The main point is to not keep it in. Not think you’re alone in anyway. That there is someone or something greater than you that has your back, that wants all the goodness and riches of this world you deserve and more. That you can count on someone/thing other than yourself. That you don’t have to carry the burdens of life on your shoulders. That you have a way to release your feelings and thoughts and not keep them in only to feel heavy and explosive.

What if I don’t believe in God or something grander than me? I believe this is where you need to start expressing and asking questions. Ask yourself, where’d I come from? Who built this body of mine, these cells, these organs, all the things inside of me so intricately that I don’t even have to think about breathing or tell my heart to keep beating? Ask yourself the hard questions first. Consider where you came from, how you were made, how the grass and trees and flowers and animals of all kinds were made. Begin there. Begin at creation. A creation that could not possibly have been made by man. So when you begin there you can begin wondering and coming up for yourself who you think has your back. Who you think is all encompassing, all loving, all knowing. There’s got to be, right? You have an entire life to find these answers and these questions too can be prayed and written.

It does not have to equal God for you. It can be someone or thing entirely different. I am not here to try and convince you or preach to you. I am simply saying; there is a way to let go and let be all your anxiousness, all your burdens and you do not have to get down on your knees for it and look up at the sky. You can sit at a desk, in a park, on a mountain and look around you and say, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you or help me, help me, help me.’ You can even say, “I don’t know what to say. Where to begin. What to ask for. Help me understand.”

And watch how the power of letting it out unfolds a whole new way of looking and appreciating the world around you.