Praying Made Easy. 2. Past Self-Doubt

Getting past self-doubt is a normal, natural desire. Just is it’s perfectly normal and natural to doubt the ability to do

certain things. Even the most confident individual experiences self-doubt in the face of certain things.

That’s a problem when those doubts get in the way of what we want for ourselves, what we want to do, and who we want to be.

Our self-doubt can become a burden or an obstacle. That’s when our self-doubt may have an infectious result and negatively draw down other parts of our Self and of our life.

I remember doubting my ability to recognize and understand the many many processes at work in a job I’d just begun. That doubt produced two results:

1. It slowed down my ability to do what I doubted and so it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2. It impacted negatively other areas of my work: facilitating, problem solving, coaching, decision-making.

My favorite children’s book to this day is The Little Engine That Could. There is only one change I would make to the story. Because I’ve come to believe that my thoughts generate my reality, I would have the Little Engine chug up that hill saying, “I know I can. I know I can.”

As you consider praying away any self-doubt you have, introduce the art of denial. Eyes closed. Breaths taken. Simply yet forcefully state, “I deny that I doubt myself. I deny that I think I cannot and instead I know that I can!”

Next, see yourself doing and achieving whatever you doubted. See it specifically.

Today’s Past Self-Doubt Prayer

Source of Strength,
I flat out deny my doubts.
I place in complete denial any thoughts,
any emotions that “I cannot…”
I affirm that I can.
As I am your perfect creation,
I Am. I am able to do and I am blessed to have.
My certainty, Spirit, is born of my faith
that you are my Source, you are Power and Presence
in every aspect of my being.
As you are my Power and my Presence,
I am Power. Your Divinity fills me as Christ Spirit.
I deny all doubts.
I celebrate my certainty.
So it is and so I love you, God.
Amen.

Love and blessings,

26 October 2017

Praying Made Easy. 1. Work Day Prayer.

“Praying made easy” (and a good work day prayer) seems a good idea considering how often I hear people express difficulty with their praying. This new series is to offer comfort and support to anyone and everyone who wants greater ease with their praying.

Not sure how long it will run. I know I’ve now got 40 items I want to cover. 40 is a good spiritual number, but I’m not sure we’ll stop there.

Please know I will cherish your comments, questions, suggestions. Thank you.

Praying Made Easy. 1. Work Day Prayer

I’ve heard more than one person say to me they need a prayer that gives them a good work day. In a humorous way but with an I’m-serious-about-this undertone, they’ve asked for a work day prayer.

I’ve suggested, “Just say it. Just say you expect to have a good-better-best day at work.” I cannot say my suggestion has been followed. So this seems a good place to start.

Before you start your work day prayer, allow yourself a moment when you will contemplate the good (better, best) work day. Close your eyes. Breathe slowly, deeply a couple of times. In sequence, allow your mind to see three elements of your work day. Visualize you performing each task. Clearly see the specifics that make the work element good (better, best) for you: a completed task, positive feedback, feeling fulfilled, contribution to a larger process…

Include those specifics in your work day prayer. Consider which is more powerful to you: asking that those specifics occur or affirming with gratitude that they will occur.

My own work day prayer changes almost every day because I have different things I have to do almost every day. You may also. Visualizing what’s in your day occurring successfully can be of help.

Today’s Work Day Prayer

Good Friend God,
who keeps me company all day at work,
I am pleased by the prospect of this
approaching work day.
I already feel accomplishment, productivity
and creativity. I thank you in advance.
Meetings are going well.
Training design is streamlined, innovative.
Answers to clients in a hurry are calm
and affirming.
Looking ahead with you, Sweet Spirit,
assures me that today is already good,
better,
best.
And so it is. Amen.

Love and blessings,

23 October 2017

Morning Rituals. How many?

Morning rituals are, literally, an everyday occurrence. Many would think that a ritual is spiritual and a routine is just a repeated behavior. Like a routine, a ritual is repeated. And we can give our routines plenty of spiritual energy.

Do you have spiritual rituals? Are they attached to your morning? A University of Connecticut research study found that people are “most spiritual” in the morning. A total of 2,439 people in the US took two surveys each day for two weeks between November 2013 and May 2015. The results pointed out that respondents feel more spiritually alert and connected immediately after arising. (Note: the survey also found that individuals felt greater spirituality while listening to music, reading or exercising, as well as while praying or meditating.)

I’ve always been a (very) early riser, even written about daybreak before. In the last year, as I have increased my morning rituals in number, I’ve begun to get out of bed earlier…and earlier.

I find the hours pre-dawn through and beyond the sun’s rise nothing but good. I find them soothing and exciting, calming and motivating, mystical and earthbound. My rituals involve many, maybe most!, of the usual practices. Actually, there can be as many morning rituals as we want there to be. We can create whatever rituals satisfy our spiritual yearnings.

However, there are a very common several. Enter “spiritual morning ritual” in Google and you a long listing of websites with numbers. 6 Morning Rituals…7 …The Morning Rituals of 10 ….11 …5 Morning Rituals.

And the majority of them mention at least one of these specific rituals:

• Prayer/Meditation
• Movement/Exercise
• Writing
• Affirming
• Visualizing

I’ve perused a number of the listed sites. I offer you these:

• 5 Morning Rituals to Start Your Day with Magic: a set of rituals that allows you to add your own dose of spirituality.
• 7 Things Mindful People Do Before 9 A.M: really like this one, perhaps because I do most of the 7.
• 9 Simple Morning Rituals That Could Change Your Life: this one has some good “simples” and a couple a bit farther out.
• 10 Magic Morning Rituals: A Spiritual Guide to Waking Up: some beautiful ideas here.

It is your morning. It’s the start of your every day and can be as fulfilling as you want it to be. For me, a few rituals help insure that fulfillment.

I’d love to hear of your morning rituals.

Prayer to the Morning Rituals

Good Morning, God, and thank you that it is!
Thank you for allowing me to know that every day
turns a new page in this glorious life.
I am eager to learn from you any ways,
any songs or dances or rituals of any sort
that add to my day’s good start.
You bless us with day break and its flow
into the day filled with activity and energy.
You fill us with the joy of waking up fresh and ready
for each day.
Thank you, God, for giving us tiny ways to celebrate,
to recognize, to accept the blessings each morning signs.
Blessed by the Christ Spirit within us, we say thank you!
And so it is. Amen.

Love and blessings,

14 September 2017

Hurricane Prayers

Between Harvey and Irma is the perfect time for Hurricane Prayers. So little time, just two weeks. And between Irma and Harvey is the perfect space for Hurricane Prayers. So little space, in the scheme of the Universe. No matter how many prayers we’ve said since Harvey first became a threat, since Harvey came ashore with record-breaking damages, another prayer won’t hurt.

Let’s rephrase that, another prayer will only help.

My circuit of praying began when Harvey was beginning to threaten from just inside the Gulf of Mexico. Then I prayed that it would weaken, become nothing more than a heavy rainstorm. As it neared landfall and even picked up strength and danger, I prayed that it would follow the most favorable (read, least destructive) path. We learned of the destruction of Rockport and Port Aransas, TX (where we’d spent four days three weeks before), and I prayed for quick return to normalcy for people in those two towns. Then it turned and paid Houston and Beaumont unwelcome visits with several days of incessant rain, and I prayed that the rain would end and the water would subside as fast as Divine Order ordered.

And now we’re between Harvey and Irma. At this moment, pummeling Puerto Rico and threatening the southern tip of Florida.

So now’s the time and we’re in the space to pray for what has happened, to pray for what may be ahead. Hurricane Prayers. And, yes, they are prayers for the hurricanes.

Like so many, many others I prayed ‘against’ Hurricane Harvey and it may seem it was to no avail. I don’t see it that way. That house pictured above with water to the roof is my brother’s, just outside of Beaumont. He called as I began to write this. They’d gotten into the house yesterday; all the water had drained away. His first words were, “We were crying last week; we’re happy this week. Life is a wonderful thing!” The water hadn’t gotten to their second floor. Although they’d not moved everything upstairs before they left by boat, a great deal was saved. They’d prayed and felt their prayers were answered.

So now I’m praying for the recovery, the replenishing of homes and lives of everyone who experienced loss because of Harvey. I claim that’s a prayer for Harvey, for returning to our wonderful life despite the destruction.

Now, too, I’m praying for the power of Irma and the path of Irma. Like before, I’m praying for it to expend its energy, for it to take the least harmful path, for it to spin and blow itself into just heavy rain and gusting wind.

Hurricane Prayers

Powerful Creator of Nature,
the damage of Hurricane Harvey remains
and will for a long time being removed from our sight.
We welcome the chance to affirm our certainty
that it will be removed, that life as we knew and loved it
will return with even greater peace and joy.
We thank you that no matter how much we lost, how much
we suffered, it was no more.
Maker of Winds, we charge our prayers with energy and intensity
and faith as we proclaim that Irma spend herself
perhaps in record time.
If it be your Divine Order, she may take the path of least destruction,
blow winds that do the minimum of damage,
drop rain that runs quickly, harmlessly into the oceans.
Pilot of All That Happens and All That Is,
we praise your power and the beauty of its expression
even while we affirm that we view its strength
and not feel its hostility.
So it is. And so we thank you, God.

Love and blessings,

 

6 September 2017

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