Is there a place for prayer ?

What do you do daily that sustains you?

The things that are most important in my life are prayer, planning and playing. Without prayer I think I would have lost the plot a long time ago. If you are thinking “I don't need to pray to a nonexistent being, besides it never helps anyway” – I guess I'm there too! I don't pray to a nonexistence being that doesn't help, either. My prayers are a way of ordering my thoughts, of regaining my peace; of opening my heart and trusting that all shall be well. It can be scary and I don't always feel like doing it. Scary because it's like standing with your back to the edge of a precipice and leaning backwards, trusting that you will be caught as you fall towards the ground; and if you're not, that you will be given wings to fly.

Why lean backwards at all if you can't be sure that anyone will catch you. You lean backwards because deep down inside you know the key is letting go. Letting go of everything that keeps you rooted to the spot: fear, lack of trust, judgement, rationalisation v hope, a loss of hope, not believing in magic and failing to believe that anything is possible. Letting go occurs in your mind because it is your mind that is imprisoning you not your body. It is your mind that is telling you that there is no one to catch you, that you have to do it all by yourself. However, you never have to do it all by yourself, help is everywhere, love and peace are everywhere. Prayer helps me connect to this powerful belief.

So how do I pray? I write. I have a special book for this purpose and I just write and write and write some more. I write until I feel the peace start to wash over me; like the sea lapping against a rock lying at the edge of the shore as the tide comes in. With each wave the water slowly rising until it is finally engulfed.

I write until I feel a stillness starting to take over every other emotion. I write anything and everything. I pour out my heart not worrying about sentences or grammar and I just keep going until the stillness finally arrives. It's not like running out of steam because once I am still I don't always stop writing. Sometimes I start to write consciously and whatever I need to do next to move towards my goals, will suddenly become clear. It's like receiving an answer. There is no structure to my prayer, no purpose in terms of asking for anything, it all gets put down and what I require arrives. I feel deeply connected deeply at peace. I trust that whatever it is I need is known, that it is already working its way into my conscious awareness and that it is already starting to impact on the systems that it needs to impact on.

I initially started my prayer process as a journal, following the advice of the artist way, I would write my three morning pages. The Artist Way by Julia Cameron, is a beautiful book which advocates writing three pages first thing in the morning as a way of clearing your blocks to your higher creativity. In keeping with this concept I would write my pages each day, mainly in the morning but not always. I like it to be the first thing I do, but if I cannot manage that, then I do it when I get the moment back.

The moment, a space that only I am in and I have at least 30 min available to me. When I not able to do it first thing in the morning, I prioritise it in my head and set my intention and attention on finding the space and I always do. I found that the worst thing for me was to set any kind of “musts” or “shoulds” around it. Even though I do it daily now, there is no “must or should” associated with my commitment. I do it because now I love doing it. But before I really started to love it, I did it because the decision had been made. I took all the emotions out of the process, i.e. doing it ceased to be based on feelings. No matter how I felt, I did it. I'd say "I have decided this is not about how I feel. I am doing this because I choose to do this.” That was how I overcame my resistence; I was doing it because I chose to do it. I’d take out the paper and start writing and without the judgement, the structure, the rules, words just flowed.

What I write doesn't even have to make sense. I just write the words as they come into my head. If there are no words I write "I have no words to write today" and if the next thought is "I don't even know why I do this" I write that down too and so on and on until the words just come and then they keep coming. Sometimes I get to my peace and find that I need to write some more so I continue to write. You stop when you stop. The stopping sensation is strong and it is rarely when you have concluded what you were writing. I get a strong sense that there is nothing more to say. Sometimes the time stops me, i.e. I need to go and do something else or sometimes I realise that I have started to plan my day and which neans energetically I have already moved on to something else and so I stop. I always end with the words “thank you” and then I'm done.

How is this prayer? Aren't prayer is supposed to be about something? Aren't they lists of requests or confessions of wrong doings or asking for forgiveness? Surely prayers are supposed to exalt and glorify a divine being, God. Well yes, some prayers take this form, but I believe there is no “supposed to” about prayer. If your prayers are in any of these forms and it works for you, great. It never did for me; I could not experience the deep heart connection to my source using this formula. Perhaps there was just too much stuff in the way. The stuff I need to write out in my pages.

Once I get to the stillness there doesn't seem to be any need to utter any words. My connection to my source is made and in that space words aren't necessary.

What about silent prayer and meditation? How can you hear anything if you are busy writing? Writing is the process that takes me to stillness and when I am still I stop and I can meditate. My meditation can be an instant or it can be as long as 30 min. I've never tried hours but I guess that's possible too. Empty of words I rest in my stillness, allowing myself to be held up by the invisible hand that caught me when I relaxed and lent backwards, finally trusting that I would be held. If I don't get time to meditate at the end so be it. I don't beat myself up about it because then I would have the worst of both worlds: guilt and no silent meditation.

Realising that there is no champion’s league of prayer, there is no invisible yardstick or quality standard to achieve, set me free. I pray through my journaling because it works for me. I would encourage you to give it a try. It is a truly beautiful process.

Do you believe you have to be religious to pray? How do you connect to what you identify as your source? Please share your thoughts so that others can benefit from your insights too – I know I always do.


Next Planning and playing... coming soon.