Meditation and Prayer


Those of you who have heard me speak at book signings or at Ranch know that I often include meditation and prayer as two of the best beta-endorphin raisers in the world. They are a key part of Step 7 and creating a life that is rich, full and loving. We have people in our community who come from many backgrounds with many ideas of prayer and meditation. And many folks who have been raised in more traditional communities think of meditation as either some esoteric thing that has nothing to do with them, or some new age thing that feels strange.

Let me say a little about the context I am using when I refer to these. For me, neither is denominational or scary and both can do many things. I think the most important thing is to know why one prays or meditates. It is the *why* that gives the quality of the prayer or meditation and makes it of one order or another.

You may pray or meditate to open yourself up to the Divine Force, you may pray or meditate to reject ordinary awareness, you may pray or meditate to enter the depths of your being, you may pray or meditate to learn how to make sense of things and integrate all you are learning. You may pray or meditate for others.

You may pray or meditate to enter into peace and calm and silence - this is what most folks do, and often with little success. But you can pray or meditate to receive an energy that heals you, to see places in your heart that are asking to be healed, and to learn to see how you are progressing. You may pray or meditate for very practical reasons: when you hit a rough time, when you are looking for an answer, or when you want some help in what choice to make.

I think all of us have our own mode of prayer or meditation. But if we want the prayer or meditation to be dynamic, we need to have an aspiration for progress as we sit in prayer or meditation. If we come to either with an open heart and ask that we be helped in our progress, profound change will emerge. Come to prayer or meditation with that sense of desire to grow, rather than wanting to escape.

And here is another idea, one that may sound strange. Ask for your body to be healed, this healing of our bodies is key. We need to see our bodies as having value, and we need to want to perfect them rather than ditch or run from them, or ignore them, or drug them with alcohol, sugar, caffeine or white stuff. If we see our bodies as instruments to help in our process, then we see our doing the food, doing the process of the 7 steps as part of that commitment. We do this, not to climb out of the hole of our addictions, but to discover this connection to what Star Wars called *the Force* - our healing power, a power that will nourish and sustain us.

Putting prayer and meditation into a healing body is a mighty tool for transformation - way beyond crawling through the day wishing just to stop hurting. Prayer and meditation create an inner silence of wonder, a beatitude and a way of being that is not possible in regular life. Both shape my day in a big way. It is the core of my step 7.

(c)Kathleen DesMaisons 2006 All Rights Reserved