When I pray and meditate, I’ve leaned never to ask for something for myself unless it will hugely benefit others. When I was younger, I would pray, visualize and meditate all kinds of things that I thought I wanted. After reading numerous self-help books telling me that if I visualized hard enough, those things would materialize, I want’ t going to give up. When they didn’t show up, I blamed it on myself – I wasn’t trying hard enough – visualizing clearly enough. However, this kind of thinking led me down a dangerous path because it encouraged me to think only about myself and to create lists of things that Sophie wanted – much like a child’s Christmas list.
Moreover, I always realized in hindsight that was I thought I wanted at the time, wasn’t want I really wanted – or more to the point, needed. This led me to realize that I don’t always know what’s best for me. I truly believe that a “higher power,” or a “higher” part of myself (call it what you will,) knows what is best for me to evolve. That is why it’s vital for me to meditate. It’s only by meditating that my thoughts slow down enough for me to see or hear what I need to do.
Meditation is rather like the mist clearing on a summer day. If I stay still for long enough, it clears enough for me to see everything very clearly – the “truth” if you like. Many self-help gurus tell us that we need to find our “truth,” but, it’s only by meditating that I manage to even glimpse mine.
It took me a good decade to understand that the only thing really worth asking for is that I can find a way to be of maximum service to those around me. When I connect to that kind of passion in myself – results appear very quickly.
It also took me a while to understand that I have to be careful even praying for what I think is best for other people. The truth is that I have no idea what is best for anyone. Each person has their own tangled path with lessons of their own to learn. This was a huge realization for me, because it stopped me wanting to care-take and try to “fix” everyone around me.
Aside from asking that I might be able to find ways to help others, my other prayer is about things in myself that I perhaps need to change. These are always powerful prayers, and this is where I have to be really careful what I pray for! If I ask for more courage – then I’m always presented with situations that demand a lot of courage, and I took always love the experiences that are thrown my way.
I was in the post office the other day. I stood in line behind a woman who was laughing. We got chatting and I asked her what was so funny. She said that she’d asked for more patience in 2013 because she was supremely impatient. She then pointed to a woman who was standing in front of the stamp machine we were waiting to use. The woman had a stack of literally 100 packets in a box, which she methodically and very slowly ,weighed & labeled – one at a time!!!! The laughing woman showed me the one tiny package that she had rushed in to mail, and that she was hoping it would take her no more than 6o seconds. She reminded me of my own impatience and we wound up having a great conversation.
My final prayer – and I don’t mean that I do an hour-long prayer ritual (all of the above can take a couple of minutes – even in the car,) but my final prayer is always “THANK YOU.” I’ve discovered that thanking God ( aka Great Spirit, Divine Intelligence, Force For Good etc,) for everything that blesses my life, is a great thing. It puts me in a fantastic mood, and I also believe that whatever I put my attention on increases. When I focus on Thanks, my attention is drawn to the love, prosperity and happiness that is lurking in almost every corner of my sometimes-difficult day.
