then, listen to the answers you get
For decades, I’ve believed in the existence of a larger, mysterious, big-picture benevolent Entity who is the pattern for goodness, who encourages us to become our most perfect selves, who loves to see us love each other, the Talmudic angel who whispers to every blade of grass, “Grow!”
However, I’ve only recently become able to ask the Divine for anything. This may be odd, but it’s true. Lately, though, I discovered how to pray to the Universe in a way that felt very satisfying.
Here is what I’ve learned, and here is how I plan to use it in the future, and how you can use it, too.
Here’s my story:
Arriving at a semester where neither college where I’d had been adjunct teaching needed me, I decided to use Bob’s inheritance to buy a block of time to write before I started focusing on job hunting. I’ve got several ideas for books that will be a blast to write and that I believe will help people, a huge motivator for me. I’ve written all my life for work and for fun; I produce some fine text, if I do say so myself; and I know pretty well how my creative process works; however, I’d never been able to devote my time off to writing. I know Bob, Dad, and Grandma are somewhere cheering me on between heavenly hands of 500. I’ve got he skills, I’ve got a project I’m psyched about, I finally am in a position to do it. Sounds great, right?
Well . . . . not exactly. This amazing gift from the Universe, being in a position where I finally could write, put me in a place where I was completely miserable. I felt helpless, at a dead end.
My neuroses had always prevented me from working properly; for much of my life, I wasn’t even comfortable with being alone to write. When I’d had summers off from teaching, the last thing I wanted to do was to look at text. Instead, I dug in my yard like a groundhog on meth. And I have ADD that, even though it’s now treated with meds, still confounded me when faced with an open chunk of time.
Plus, of course, I had a Mormon tabernacle choir of Asshole Voices In My Head to distract and demoralize me.
Finally, I’ve always taught, since I was about 22 years old. If school was in session, I was teaching. That was my identity, so much that well into the first week, I didn’t even call what I was doing writing; I called it not teaching.
Yet somehow, when both institutions were not going to need me at the same time, I’d known it was a sign I should take a chunk of time off to write. Work on at least one of the books. I desperately needed help, so this one, the self-help book, was clearly the one to focus on. Get the blog ready to look at. Get a book proposal ready to send out and start shopping it around to editors and agents.
At first, it was difficult even to tell people I planned to take time off to write. I felt crazy. Luckily, it became less difficult once I started to tell people. Nobody dumped me. Nobody decided I was too crazy to maintain a relationship with. That’s a relief. The more calmly and seriously I tell someone what I’m doing, the more calmly and seriously she or he seems to listen to me.
So I was excited about my project, but I expected that learning how to use my time to write, my own stuff, full-time, would be a struggle. The struggle was complicated by the fact that I’d gone off both Wellbutrin and Prozac. [I can’t explain this bizarre act. I’ve since gone back on both meds.]
“Struggle” does not begin to describe it. For the first couple of weeks, I felt active emotional pain, nearly every minute of every day. I had been depressed before, but nothing like this.
My miserable state of mind certainly focused me on finding, trying, and thinking about things I could do to get through this. But I was — whew! — struggling. I was suffering.
This was what brought me to prayer.
I was walking Clyde at Riverview Park along the trail there. Clyde was engrossed in the smells. I was feeling actively horrible.
I’d done enough work that I understood intellectually that I was part of the Universe, that I belonged to It [I was Its creation], and that It had an interest in my functioning well.
I looked up into the January-dark, completely overcast sky, and said,
“Look, I can’t do this project, do my own writing process, on my own. I can’t solve this problem by myself. I’ve tried different things, and I’m stymied. I don’t know what I need.
“This mental state doesn’t help me be my fullest self, to best be the unique creation You made me to be. I feel that getting past this block will help me be a better creation. Writing the book will help me be a creator as You are a Creator, and it will help other people.
“Please help me. Thank You.”
Then I just dropped it. Left it alone for awhile. I knew I’d asked for help, and it felt satisfying to ask for help I really needed. I didn’t know what kind of help would appear for me, or when. But I felt I’d done my job. I’d done what I could. I felt I was leaving it in somebody else’s hands, some Higher Power.
Something shifted
After I did this, something shifted. I felt differently about my situation. My picture morphed from “I’m not doing this” to “I’m doing something scary and wrestling with my blocks to doing it” and “I’m doing something different and feeling scary feelings about that and struggling with those.”
I felt very different about everything, a blessed relief.
How you can use this method for yourself,
and how I intend to use it in the future.
Here’s my recipe:
- Focus on a problem, or part of a problem, that you feel truly stymied by or helpless against. The feeling of helplessness, I think, was part of what made my prayer feel so satisfying. Handing the problem over to a higher power absolved me for awhile of actively tacking that particular problem. That in itself was helpful.
- Engage your meta-mind by writing about it. Define the problem. You do not have to speculate as to its causes: just describe it in terms of how you feel, right now. (It beats pummeling the wall with your fists).
- Describe your Higher Power, too, as accurately and in as much detail as you can. What are Its values? I’m betting that any work you do in this area is going to help you sooner or later. And please post your description in the comments section. I’d love to read these; I’d love to know how other people think about the Divine.
- Having defined your higher power, make a prayer that appeals to Its values. I noticed myself using as a pattern for my prayer: Elizabeth Gilbert’s prayer that the guy she was divorcing would just sign the offer her lawyers had made him [in Eat, Pray, Love]. Gilbert got meta- with her problem by thinking what would likely convince a Supreme Being who values the things she believes It does.
- Describe how you want to feel when your prayer is answered. Elizabeth Gilbert says about prayer in Eat, Pray, Love (2009) “If I want transformation, but can’t even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I’m aiming for, how can it ever occur?” You don’t need to know how the problem will be solved, but you have a pretty good idea how you’ll feel when it is no longer a problem.
- When you’re ready, deliver your prayer in whatever way feels right to you. Write it down, sing it, draw it, or just say it.
Then let it go. Do something else completely unrelated.
And watch and listen for the answers.
Think UP! 