Prayer

I originally posted this as a comment elsewhere and thought it was worth posting here as well since it probably fell on deaf ears where it was originally posted:

“I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him."

~Eric Clapton

I grew up in an extremely religious household so prayer was a forced part of my every day life growing up. I wasn't so keen on the prayer at meals or the prayer on our knees, but I did actually enjoy my conversations with God before I fell asleep at night. They were quiet whispers in my head. Even though I had been taught I needed Jesus as a go-between to talk to God, I just dialed up God directly every night anyway. lol My prayer to God gave me a place to talk about things I didn't think I could talk about with anyone else and it carried on well into my 20s.

I'm not sure when it was I stopped praying. I can't tell you when I started to think that maybe there was nothing at all out there. I just know that at a certain point I stopped believing in anything and called myself an atheist.

I think we sometimes have to tear down all of our beliefs so that we can rebuild with a new foundation. I had to get to a point where I believed in nothing so that I could slowly start to discover what my spiritual truths actually are now.

Trauma from my childhood left me disdainful of Christianity. My knee-jerk reaction was to roll my eyes and completely disregard anything remotely christian based.

Fast forward to now and I have come to a new understanding of many things. I see prayer as being a three-fold thing:

1. It can focus intentions and intention is what creates the world around us.
2. It can be that time to talk to our people on the other side...our guides, our loved ones.
3. It can be a time to plug into our God-selves and have a direct line to much needed insights.

I have come to a place where I believe what we call "God" and what we connect to is actually a spark within ourselves since we are all an aspect of Source/God. I sometimes call my God self "my higher self" because I truly believe when we connect to God, it is simply a much bigger part of our spiritual selves.

Photo By Cory Richards

I can now see how certain traditions in Christianity got started...like praying before meals. Again, it is about intention and when you infuse your food with gratitude and give thanks, it actually gives it a boost and makes it higher vibrational. Think of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his work with water and how using different words and phrases actually changed the shape of the water crystals. Gratitude is powerful. I think Yeshua/Jesus understood this and tried to share it with his followers and somewhere along the way the reason behind it got lost. Yeshua was a lot more new age than people realize. I wrote a blog about him recently and what his message actually was should you want to read it.

Advice To Our Younger Selves, Falling In Love, and Gratitude

So it all started with a comment on an Instagram picture Deryck Whibley (Sum 41) posted of his 17-year-old self.

Me: What advice would you give to your younger self knowing all that you know now?

Deryck: I would say keep doing what ur doing kid, ur gonna love every min of it.

Me: Seriously that is it? Omg I have so much I would tell my 17 year old self. The biggest changes I have made have been within the last 5 years. I wish I could have made some of those changes a lot younger. I marvel at some of the younger people today and how they just get some of the things that it took me 30+ years to figure out. I'm glad you have no regrets. When you have kids of your own, that perspective might alter a little.

It inspired me to post a photo of my younger me and say some of those things to her. I posted this photo: 

And this was what I said:

I asked @sum41 what advice he would give his younger self. He didn't have much he would tell his younger self, but I have plenty I would say to my younger me knowing all that I know now. 

Dear younger me, let go of the anger and stop building walls around your heart because they will be hard to tear down later. Love yourself wildly and passionately. There is nothing to fear. Let the fear go that was taught to you by religion. Enjoy the little things in life because those are what matter most. Don't worry about what others think of you. The only opinion of you that matters about you is your own. If you see an opportunity in front of you, take it. It might never come again. That person you thought would always be there just might die tomorrow. Tell people how much you love them and tell them often. Don't ever stop writing and trust your own intuition.

And then my West Coast BFF, Shannon, posted this photo of me in the comments on Facebook:

I had never seen this photo of me before and it struck me and made my grinchy heart grow a little. This photo is SO me in a nutshell....happiest with a pen in my hand and deep in thought. But look at her! Just look! She is BEAUTIFUL and AMAZING and CREATIVE and FEELING and yet she never thought she was pretty enough or smart enough or thin enough or talented enough. She never thought very much of herself at all. All of the negative self talk....all of the closing off and walls she put up because what she felt she didn't think she could handle and she didn't want to be weak and crumble. She didn't want to be vulnerable. Her heart eventually became frozen in layers and layers of ice so that she could numb herself from being able to feel.

I sat there wishing I really could reach back and hug my younger self and give her the advice and wisdom I have today to share from my experience she didn't have yet. I was talking to my East Coast BFF, Ziba, and telling her all of this. I have done so much inner work and gained so much momentum just from talking about everything rattling around my brain with Ziba. She and I have similar issues we need to face and "self love" is a topic that has come up a lot.

As I mentioned to her, everyone is talking about loving the self first. We hear it over and over and yet we just nod and say "okay" but none of us really understand what we need to do and how to achieve it. Self-love is almost as mystical and elusive as dragons, unicorns and the perfect romantic partner. But today, something clicked and I completely understand what I need to do. I can see it, feel it and taste it in a way I couldn't before.

What I need to do is romance myself. I mean, I need to treat me the way I would a lover in the beginning stages of a relationship. I need to shower her/me with poems of love, tender words, kindness and consideration. I need to let her know that I love every aspect of her. I need to let her know that I love even the negatives and the dark side because even our shadow selves need to be loved.

I have an exercise in mind that I want to practice. I am going to visualize my now me with me at different ages and I want to love her. I want to tell her all the things she needed to hear back then but didn't. I want her to feel SO much love that all of her walls crumble. I will love myself so much that the inner fire and light will burst outward and disintegrate the fortress that has kept my heart a prisoner and hidden away.

I think this is key for moving forward and achieving all that I wish to achieve in my life and I feel really optimistic about it. I can't wait to start romancing myself.

I invite all who read this to post a photo of your younger you and give him/her advice from what you know now. I invite you to fall in love with yourselves and give yourself the love you desire so much. We often seek love from external sources when really the love we want most of all is our own.

I want to say thank you to Deryck for being my muse and posting things that make me ponder and contemplate life. I want to thank my West Coast BFF, Shannon for always being there and just getting me and loving me in the way I need to love myself. Can you believe it has nearly been 30 years ago that we met?! I want to thank my East Coast BFF, Ziba, for being there everyday and talking through so much of this stuff with me. I can let my spirituality hang out all over the place with you and be my weird self with you. I appreciate the presence of all of you in my life no matter what form or capacity. Love and gratitude to you.