Reviving the powerful modality of prayer in a modern world.
As a child, the warm salty streams of tears would often come like a flash flood washing over my small, round, freckled face — a deluge of fear, anger, and confusion. Desperate prayers to Jesus and God would pour from me to please, please, please help my mother, a young, abandoned, abused, and emotionally turbulent wife. I would attempt to summon my father back into my life through the tiny messengers of my tears, projecting my screams, right into his thoughts urging him to come save me. But he never came.
My crying fits felt as if they contained a thousand lifetimes of grief, causing it to spill out with primal power, causing me to convulse, yell, throw things, and eventually fall into a heap of exhausted pain.
These episodes occurred well into my late 20s. I still cry sometimes, but it is different now. Rather than uncontrollable fits filled with desperate cries and prayers to help my parents, it is a welcome cleansing of all the information my sensitivities trap in their filtering system. Now, at 40, the tears are my irrigation system precisely programmed to clear, reset, and uplift. My prayers are focused intentions, like arrows piercing pure potential and creativity. They are faith-driven, gratitude filled commands, sent like a programmers code to the generating, organizing and destroying forces (God) in this Universe. I send them from the God-consciousness dwelling in me — an S.O.S from the microcosm to the macrocosm.
I know that those explosive, emotion-filled prayers for my parents have been answered; not because they miraculously healed their traumas, addictions, and mental imbalances to become perfect guardians of my wellbeing. I’ve seen them continue through many painful and tragic ups and downs. I know my prayers have been answered because, throughout my life, I have been sent a top-shelf assortment of resources to help me understand, heal, and transform the trauma I experienced as their daughter. My prayers were answered through the lessons I have received from their example. These lessons have made their mistakes somehow noble and necessary, and I am now able to view and accept the totality of my parents without resentment, judgment, and blame. This energetic shift has blessed them and my whole family. My relationship with my parents has changed miraculously over the years; the more I show up and do my work, the more I accept and even celebrate their flaws, the more I forgive, and let go of blame, the easier things have become.
Is God REALLY Listening?
I realize how a prayer to help other humans can seem to go unanswered. If prayer is your thing, or perhaps used to be your thing, I’m sure you have prayed a lot for the people you love. I also bet you forgot to read the fine print in your “working with God contract” that says humans have free-will and are not guaranteed to accept the help they will be given and are not bound to follow the divine instructions handed down them.
I firmly believe that when we pray, intention goes to God’s switchboard and a call is sent out to the person we are praying for. That person can choose to ignore the call. They might answer, but there is some distortion on the line, and they hang up. Some hear the ring but refuse to pick up the phone. Some can’t even hear it ringing. The thing is, those of us praying have zero control over that.
We do have control over our own damn phone. I don’t know about you, but most of us humans these days have a hard time putting it down. Yes, I am referring to your smartphone, but guess what? You actually have a much smarter phone within you completely wired up to receive an f-load of help. Once you understand this and how it works, how to listen, show up, and follow the guidance provided, healing can happen fast. This is because you are making your own free-will choice.
I chose. I decided to use the resources that were sent to me to heal myself and alchemize all of that grief, anger, and sadness into the gold of wisdom, love, and service. However, I couldn’t choose that for my parents no matter how hard I prayed, cried, screamed, and raged. I was never able to force them to answer the call. I’m still unable to do so. However, through my choice to learn how to be with, feel, and cleanse myself, get support, give support, and share my experiences, I have broken the cycle of addiction, dysfunction, abuse, and imbalances that were passed down to me through my family line. I have exterminated the negative viruses infecting my DNA through dedication, practice, and service. New habits have been set in motion, and a fresh perspective on the family dynamics and experiences that have caused so much pain for so long have been integrated. This has made space for more acceptance, forgiveness, and love — big, powerful, unconditional love.
It’s OK To Be Skeptical
I understand that for some of you, this talk of praying for healing, the idea of a God available to help you, and the availability of magical resources to change a completely fucked family dynamic might have you about ready to throw that smartphone of yours across the room with fiery skepticism. If that’s you, I feel you, and I want you to let yourself be skeptical, yet choose to engage in the experiment of trying out a new approach. Consider that you have all of the resources you need to create change inside of yourself, and when you make powerful choices, become intentional about your life through prayer, and practice new ways of being that are healing and rejuvenating, you are accessing and activating the God within you. The consciousness within will co-conspire with the God consciousness outside of you, to create magic and miracles. However, you won’t ever know this, and come to believe it unless you commit to trying it out.
Before I became a full-time coach, spiritual teacher, and healer, I was a QA Engineer. My job was to create test strategies for websites, software, and apps and execute them. I would lead large teams of testers in preparing large releases for the public. For years my specialty has been to qualify intricate systems and quantify their results. I realized at some point, after changing careers, that I have been using this same approach in my personal healing, and in the strategies I use to I help others transform their lives. I’ve tested and proven these concepts I’m sharing with you to work in my life and have seen it work for countless numbers of my clients. This is why I feel comfortable openly inviting the masses to pray and to release any stigma around relating to God. You don’t have to be spiritual or believe in God, to get started with this work. All you need to do is be open, willing to try some new modalities, and set some intentions for how you are going to move forward.
Here are some simple ways you can get started:
1. Move Your Body, Breathe, and Meditate Every day
The process of healing yourself and subsequently your family and community is a noble and worthwhile project. However, be cautioned that it’s not going to be easy. Learning and practicing new ways of being, thinking, and feeling can be a recipe for procrastination, avoidance, and a powerful uprising of resistance within you of which you have never seen the likes. Because the resistance is real and powerful, you must commit to doing some things that will help you move that stuck, obstinate, energy through you and raise your vibration every day. This will give you the extra life-force, inspiration, and bandwidth to move through your life more consciously choosing words, thoughts, and actions that are in alignment with your healing and well-being.
I practice and teach Kundalini yoga because I have found it to be the most powerful technology for moving through fear, resistance, and to cultivate more life-force for myself quickly. It strengthens my nervous system and gives me fearless grace and kindness. Here is a simple routine you can try. Do it for every day for 40 days and see what happens. If you miss a day of your 40-day count, don’t worry, just start your daily count over at 1 when you restart.
Find a quiet place where you can meditate and do some light movement. Sit quietly in a cross-legged position, or in a chair and breathe long and deep in and out of your nose. With each breath, center yourself, and practice letting go of everything else but the current moment.
Tune in using the mantra Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo 3 times.
Do this breathing exercise to balance your Ego for 1–3 mins.
Put on some uplifting music you like, stand up and shake your body vigorously for 1–5 mins.
Relax flat on your back for 1–3 mins.
Do this meditation for relieving stress and clearing the emotions of the past for 3–11 mins.
2. Experiment with Prayer
You don’t have to be religious or spiritual to pray. All you need to do is speak, write, or think your intentions for creating change in your life and what you need help with. Ideally, you do this with a sense of reverence, devotion, and respect. Who, or what are you devoted to? Here are some ideas: You are devoted to your healing. You are devoted to creating more love in your life. You are dedicated to the elevation of your family, friends, and community. If you have a hard time with the God concept, think of God as Love. Invoke the power of Love to help you out. See what happens.
Here is a sample prayer you can start with. Feel free to modify it and make it your own. You can say this once daily, or whenever you like, as many times a day as you like. You can write it down and put it on your wall so you can see it every day. Have fun, be creative, and own your positive intentions!
Great Spirit, Spirit of All, God, Universe, Love (Insert what feels good to you)
I am grateful for my life and all of the blessings and gifts I have received. Thank you for ________ (Insert any specific things you are grateful for. This creates a positive frequency that supports your prayer.)
I am now accessing the power within myself and without to be with me during this time of healing. These are the things I am in need of help with and guidance on : ___________
I am praying for the healing, well-being, and elevation of my family, community, and all beings on earth. (Feel free to add any specific issues or conflicts you need help with for the good of all.)
I call upon my High-Self and Guardian Angels (Jesus, or any ascended masters you want to work with) to protect me, uplift me, and educate me with all of the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding I need to stay strong and balanced. (If calling on beings that you can’t see is too far of a jump at this point, just call upon the love in your heart and wisdom in the universe to guide you)
I pray for healing in my body, mind, and spirit. I pray for motivation, clarity, focus, and peace.
I pray for the support and guidance I need to be a successful, kind, loving and connected human.
I pray that all prayers in my heart come into fruition with grace, love, and divine timing that are for the highest good of myself, and of all beings.
3. Stop Blaming Your Family
If you want to heal yourself and create shifts in your family dynamics, you must stop blaming them for your struggles. Doing this is can be a challenging endeavor. As I write this, I remember once yelling into the phone to my mother, “Do you have any idea how much money I’ve spent trying to fix myself because of the damage you have created?”
It’s incredibly easy to blame your parents for your troubles, especially if they were addicted, obnoxious, abusive a-holes. If that’s the case, it can feel downright impossible to turn the mirror to yourself and start asking your reflection how you might be perpetuating the habits that have been passed down from your parents and ancestors.
As children, we don’t have free-will and choice in many ways. However, there is a point when we cross the threshold into adulthood, and we can choose how we want to live our lives. That means, if you are an adult, you can exercise your free-will, take responsibility for your situation and get the help you need to create the change you want.
4. Embrace Your Life Experience
I train healers, and in my healer training I make sure to let everyone know that they can learn lots of different modalities, but the most potent training they will get, that will help them create lasting change for their clients, is their life experience.
Embracing the problematic and traumatic life experiences you have endured, and gleaning the priceless lessons they yield, will give you a great deal of compassion and empathy for others. When you can authentically and vulnerably own what you have been through, and when appropriate, share it with others, you create connection, healing, and a reminder to yourself and others that we are never alone.
This kind of non-blaming, deep, authentic ownership of your life will create healing that will ripple out, even moving backward and forwards in your lineage to heal your family’s past and future.
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