The power of prayer is life-changing and I can honestly say that I have never felt such peace and certainty of my connection to my own soul as I do now, therefor I want to share this with you.
When I speak about prayer, I don't mean that I kneel, fold my hands and beg and plead to God in a desperate way; not at all!
For me, prayer is the most empowering start on a day I can have, and the perfect end to a day. I usually always end my days with reading "A course in miracles", and the feelings I get from that is so strong that it moves me to tears quite often. Tears of joy and gratitude that is.
I remember many, many years ago when I went through some really heavy stuff with a lot of emotional pain, I used to ask God (or higher power/source/divine spirit or whatever you want to call it) "why my life was such a mess" and "why I was tuck in misery" so to speak- I was crying and begging God to help me, but what I didn't know at the time was that there is a "right way" to pray, a way which Jesus, Buddha and other highly evolved people have prayed, and that is called "affirmative prayer" and I'm telling you-- it has changed my life. I began to ask what I can do to help myself, how I can be that person I wanted to become.
Back in those years when I was struggling to survive my darkest hours I one day asked for help in a different way and from that moment on, everything changed and I was lifted up, spiraled forward, upwards and I was finally set free. I asked how I could become the channel of the qualities I knew God to be as you can see in step 1 later on where I describe the process of affirmative prayer, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. In hindsight I can see that the little change I made in perspective, changed everything. A little tweak in how I channeled my energy.
I am not religious at all, and it doesn't matter what faith you have, whatever you believe in; if you are having troubles right now, I invite you to do this prayer-- and after a while, if you continue to grow your connection with your inner self (God) this will become a natural way of starting your day and things will begin to clear up for you, the path forward will be revealed to you and you will be able to recognize the hand of God in your life. When you have grown into it, it only takes a minute to do and sets a good note to the day you have before you.
You don't have to be having troubles to do this at all. I often only say thanks for using me as a channel for whatever it is that I think I need at the moment.
I show appreciation for the presence of God in my life so to speak.
So take a few minutes and give it a go if you have something in your life that is bringing you down in some way, if there is something in your life that you would like to change.
"Affirmative prayer" is a five-step-process and I will here describe the short version of it.
By that I mean that every step is equally important and it is your own lever of consciousness that determines where you are on your own personal journey through life. Every step can be studied separately and I recommend it of course, because I know how powerful it is.Even if you don't want to study it further, you don't have to, because it will work regardless.
Step 1:
Recognition that God IS.
What is it that you are praying for?
This has to be positively written, because God IS only positive things.
For example:
Write: God is PERFECT HEALTH. God is FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. God is PEACE. God is MEANINGFULNESS. Anything that you desire in your life right now, write it down and acknowledge that God is those things.
So if you are depressed for example; what it is that you want to experience and feel instead of depression? If you are broke, what would you want to experience instead of that? If you worry and feel fear, the what is the opposite of that?
Step 2:
Unification.
Because we are made in the likeness of God; that mean that what we just described God to be, we must be too. Recognize that Oneness you have with God. You ARE that what God IS. Recognize it, despite what your physical eyes are telling you.
Step 3:
Realization.
Set the intention to be the outlet and channel for that which you are praying for. Describe the fulfillment of the desire, how does it feel now that you are FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT, have PERFECT HEALTH, INNER PEACE or whatever you wrote in step 1?
Write it down, describe it in the first person and in present tense:
"I AM PEACEFUL, FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT.. etc and it feels: wonderful, free, content.." etc.
Step 4:
Thanksgiving.
Know that the prayer has now been heard AND answered, and feel the gratitude of that knowledge. Bask in it and know that your needs are met NOW. Feel gratitude for all that you asked for, because it is already yours. Know that the positive change is now happening in your life.
Step 5:
Release. Release it to God, let go and let God take care of it.
It is done unto you in a perfect way and you just surrender everything to God. A transformation is taking place NOW. Release the matter to God.
After a while, you learn to do this in your mind, it becomes natural and you don't need to look at the steps in order to do this, although I write down almost everything I communicate to/with God, it makes it clear and and permanent.
Your thoughts and feelings will be written and you can let go of the thoughts easily because you know on a subconscious level that if you ever need to go back, it's stored in your notebook and there it is, you don't have to hold on to them anymore.
An important step is the step of letting go. There is a higher power within us all that I call God, that WILL answer every heartfelt prayer from you. When we pray in a positive way like this we are acknowledging God to be only good, because God doesn't know about lack or negativity.
We are in this way opening ourselves up for the "Kingdom of heaven", that is already waiting for us, within ourselves.
This prayer will leave you with a feeling of relief, and sometimes an indescribable inner peace will come over you, and you feel as if the heaviness has been lifted from you.
And it has, I can tell you that. It has. There is no need for us to be burdened with pain and struggle, we can always turn to the universe for help.
I'm a spiritual life coach, Reiki healing master, author and inspirational writer.
http://www.mariaerving.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/MariaErving
