The other day I heard someone say, “Worry is a form of prayer”. That got my attention. I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but it is quite true when seen from a scientific or energetic perspective. “Pray without ceasing”, we are told, but how exactly are we praying?
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If prayer, in its simplest form, is a conversation with the divine, and we know the divine is omnipresent, then wouldn’t the divine be aware of the content of all our thoughts? Unless, of course, you really believe the divine only listens when we are intentionally praying.
So, if any part of our thinking or speaking comes from a place of worry, anxiety or fear, that is also heard by the divine. From a more ingenuous perspective, we might hope the divine sorts through our thoughts and only pays attention to our specific prayers, i.e.‘the good stuff’. We might think our worry is automatically translated to a request from a place of compassion or love.
Prayer is a beautiful contemplative practice, providing a space of quiet being with the divine in its most essential form, available in every moment. We are encouraged to bring our worries and hurts to the divine in this space…but what we too often forget is to let them go and open to the presence of the divine. Too often we continue to chew on our worries.
From a scientific or energetic point of view, what you think and feel is what you get. When you’re worried, it’s easy to find many other things to worry about. Thoughts combine with emotions that then become patterns or states of being. Emotional states attract similar emotional states.
Emotions are the glue that holds our thoughts in place. Grace from the divine is the grease that softens the entanglements and emotional release can bring us out of that confusion into wisdom. Our human ego mind doesn’t have to figure it out. Divine insight comes as we let go of the old worries and provide more space for new thoughts of gratitude, joy, love, compassion, and well-being.
Gratitude and joy lift you and those around you higher. Worry triggers memories of other worries in yourself and those around you. This can lead to a ‘pity party’ or ‘worry fest’ (not to mention panic attack these days) until you become aware of what’s happening and choose something different. By all means, cry the tears, shake with terror, scream in rage in safe places. And then know you can CHOOSE what you think more and more. You can choose to dwell on the ‘good stuff’.
I wrote about this in a previous post, From Worry to Wonder. When I find myself caught in a loop of worry or stuck in imagining the worst, I choose to open to wondering how the divine is going to handle this. I shift into a lighter place of curiosity, of wonderment. I remember other times I was in this loop and how magically the situation was transformed. I wonder what gift I am to receive this time even as I remember to welcome the awareness of choice, release the emotions around the old pattern and allow divine insights to open me to my new way of being.
Change is seldom easy, but oh, so worth it when we see the shift from the old to the new! Have you experienced this? What works for you? Does this change your understanding of prayer?
[avatar size=”thumbnail” align=”left”]Quan Yin – goddess of compassion[/avatar] by Eloecea
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Header image courtesy of NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope