Thoughts And Prayers

I'm happy to invite you to listen to this fantastic and insightful conversation about the process of praying. In this episode we take a look at the effects of sending positive energy to those in need, and dive deep into thoughts and prayers.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to the podcast.

Today we are talking about prayer.

Right?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Which is somewhat of a hot button topic right now.

It's a hot button topic,

And it's a hot button topic especially for you.

Right,

Yeah.

So obviously the reason why we wanted to talk about thoughts and prayers,

And prayer in general,

And the power of prayer,

Whatever we're going to end up talking about,

Was because of all of these tragedies.

Specifically the school shootings and stuff,

And that was what prompted me to suggest this because even Kevin Smith,

The director,

Writer,

Of a bunch of comedy movies had a massive heart attack.

And Chris Pratt,

Who is a huge actor from the Guardians of the Galaxy Parks and Recreation,

Offered his thoughts and prayers to him on Twitter.

And he got lambasted by a ton of people for offering thoughts and prayers.

Because it was right on,

It was like a week or two after the Parkland shooting.

And so there was still such an outrage of thoughts and prayers don't do anything,

Directed towards shooting tragedies and the gun control issue in America.

But then people started attacking him.

There was nothing that he's going to do personally for Kevin Smith.

Kevin Smith can pay his medical bills and he's not a doctor,

So there's nothing that he's going to do to help him,

Except for offering him his prayer.

So I was like,

We've got to talk about this because I want to hear what you're talking about.

What's funny is this just completely took a different slant than I had in mind already,

Which is fun.

Which is exciting.

I know you brought it up and of course I'm aware I was in Florida at the time of the Parkland shootings.

You got there the day of.

So I was around all that,

Maybe a little bit more of a hotbed being in that state at the same time.

But the whole country is aware of it.

And we're just talking about how five minutes ago I got an email from my son's principal about the walkout on March 14th.

And it's,

I was,

So of course I had heard about the slams on thoughts and prayers and everything.

But I didn't even really take it,

I didn't make the connection when you brought up this subject.

I mean I did lately,

I was like yeah we could go there.

And then I just moved on and I was focused on thoughts and prayers,

Not the aspect that they're getting slammed,

Which just is,

I'm glad that we're doing this topic even more now because of what you just said.

So that was always,

It was always going to be the show.

Once a month we record two episodes of this show.

And you were in Florida so I said hey when we come back I have an idea.

And then about a week and a half ago a family friend of mine,

Their six year old boy went to the doctor for headaches and found out that he had a brain aneurysm.

So they were preparing to do the surgery.

It's a very unique type of aneurysm.

There's only been five cases in the US before this.

And while they were waiting to do the surgery the aneurysm burst.

And he's had a lot of ups and downs since then.

They've had to do surgeries and put in coils to stop bleeding and a ton of stuff that I'm not going to get into.

So after a couple days of just reaching out to our local churches and friends and stuff,

The family said that they wanted to put it on Facebook.

And they did.

And for some reason I was like,

I should do it too.

Just something that I knew about,

I thought that I knew how to word it.

And I was like,

Let's see what we can do.

Well the past 24 hours or so my phone is constantly dying because of all of the updates.

As of about an hour ago we went over 1,

000 shares.

And we're reaching 1,

000 comments and I have no idea what the comments on those 1,

000 shares are and stuff.

But we have thousands of people now praying for.

.

.

His name is Cassiel.

You can go to my Facebook page.

My name is Ben Barber.

You can find me through Glen.

And so I don't know what the result of all of this will be by the time people listen to this podcast.

But I have been amazingly touched by.

.

.

And the family,

I've kept them updated on what's going on with the Facebook chain and everything.

And they have been really touched.

They're not necessarily a religious family by any means.

But there's a sense of not feeling so alone.

Right.

And that other people care and you're a part of and just plain good energy.

Exactly.

So that has really changed my perspective.

Even though I was four,

Sending thoughts and prayers to people who are going through something.

This gave me a little bit different perspective on it that I thought was strange.

Well,

And the timing is perfect because when we go to record this,

It's like,

OK,

It starts with the school shooting topic.

And then this happens like right before.

And it's just.

.

.

This is the type of stuff that happens pretty regularly in my life,

In your life,

In my clients' lives.

It's when you start finding these synchronicities,

When you're heading in the right direction,

When you're doing the right thing.

So I think.

.

.

I'm going to start with the Parkland shootings and that outrage to prayer.

I think just because it might be a little bit simpler.

It's just.

.

.

The point is that you can't sit around praying and saying nice words and not doing anything when there's action that can be taken.

And that's the outrage.

There's no problem with prayer.

These kids or anybody else that is outraged that people are sending thoughts and prayers would not be outraged by people sending their thoughts and prayers if it was followed up with action.

If there was something actually being done,

Then they'd be like,

Oh,

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers and we're working on a solution.

They're upset because nobody's working on a solution.

They're just focused,

Sitting around,

Sending thoughts and prayers.

Thoughts and prayers,

We're the ones that live on this earth.

We're the ones responsible for our own society.

We're the ones that have to take action and adjust things when they're not wrong.

Sitting around,

Waiting for God to come down and move us around like little figurines or something ain't going to happen.

So it's our lives,

It's our society,

And we are responsible for what happens in it.

So sitting around sending thoughts and prayers isn't going to make God come down and do something different.

Now,

Is it nice?

And we'll get into this a little bit more later.

Are thoughts and prayers helpful?

Yeah,

I think they are.

But we also have to take action too.

It's just like sitting at home when you don't like your job.

It's the exact same thing.

If you sit at home going,

I don't like my job,

Please God help me.

I don't like my job,

Please God help me.

And you don't do anything,

Guess what?

You're not going to like your job 10 years from now and 20 years from now and 30 years from now.

And you're going to go,

God,

Why have you forsaken me?

It's because you haven't looked.

You haven't done anything to try to better yourself.

You haven't taken any responsibility for your life.

And action is important for us because our relationship with,

I believe that our relationship with God or the divine or the universe or whatever it is that makes things happen.

And obviously I'm talking to people who are even contemplating prayer.

If you don't believe in anything larger than yourself,

Then why would you pray?

So I'm talking to those people,

Most people do believe in some sort of organized power up there that makes things happen in a certain way.

So I believe our relationship with that thing,

Whatever it is,

That existence up there,

Is based in love.

It's not based in control.

And as soon as a power comes in and starts moving us around to make us do what's better for ourself,

Which overrides our own self-will,

Because we have the self-will to do whatever the heck we want to do right now,

And we have the self-will to choose a relationship with God.

We have the ability to choose to do the right things.

But as soon as that power comes in and starts moving us around like figurines,

Now it's based in control.

It's not based in love.

Because we're not choosing to do what is in alignment with our highest good.

We're being made to.

And that's not a loving relationship.

So that's why we have to take the action.

We have to be responsible for our own lives.

I lived 20 years very dysfunctionally,

Which I talk about often.

And when my son was having difficulty in school in first and second grade,

And I needed to figure out how to teach him to deal with what he was going through,

I stopped and I thought,

Well,

What's the difference between when I was dysfunctional and when I woke up and started being functional?

And what I came up with was,

That was when I took responsibility for my life.

And I stopped blaming everything and everyone else other than me.

And I went,

Okay,

How can I teach him to take responsibility for his own life?

And I needed to teach him that he was responsible for his own happiness and his own unhappiness based on the choices he made.

So that's the biggest piece.

We need to be responsible.

And we need to be responsible for the society.

We do.

Not pointing the finger up at the governmental figureheads going,

You're not doing what you're supposed to.

Maybe they're not,

But they're just a perfect reflection of us because we're not.

We have to take responsibility,

Take action.

And I think the fact that the kids are fed up and outraged,

I think they have a right to be.

Because these shootings have been going on a long time and nobody's taking the action.

So that's where the outrage lies.

I don't think it lies with the prayer.

Like I said,

If people were taking action and sending prayers,

They'd be like,

Thank you for your prayers.

So they're just fed up saying,

Don't just send us prayers.

Maybe it's not coming out like that,

But that's the anger behind it.

So there.

Something that you always talk about is how God speaks to us in opportunities.

Right.

So that's something that just kept echoing in my head.

Like,

You know,

One of the reasons why these things keep happening is if you don't do anything about something,

Right?

You keep saying it.

But you want it to change,

You're going to continue to get opportunity for it to change.

Right.

So when you're,

It's a horrible thing,

But I think that it's true.

I think that because we want the opportunity for this to change,

Right?

We'd never want it to happen again.

We want people to wake up and do something about it,

But it never happens.

Right.

And it's going to continue happening.

So it's going to continue to happen until you do something about it.

Absolutely.

And that's why I like,

You know,

I don't like a lot of the debate.

And I started getting sucked into it a little bit and I had to pull myself back out because it has a very strong pull.

But the one thing that hopefully this might not spark a debate is what I,

The thing that jumped out at me down in Florida and the reason I got sucked back in was because I saw this one video of this girl saying enough.

And she,

I think she may have even been one of the ones saying that I was sick of your thoughts and prayers.

And you know what?

The fact that she said,

You know,

I'm spiritual and the fact that she said we're sick of your thoughts and prayers,

It didn't even faze me because that wasn't her point.

Her point was that we want action.

And I shared it at first and said,

You know,

This is what change looks like.

It's a calm determination.

And I don't care if it's coming from a kid.

I don't care what they think the solution is.

I don't,

I'm not getting into that debate.

All I care is that I saw a kid,

And it could be a kid,

An adult,

Anybody.

If I see anybody stand up and go,

This is no longer tolerable,

Period.

I don't want to hear your words.

I want to see some action,

Period.

And we are not going anywhere until it happens.

That gets me excited because that's what change looks like.

And that's what I,

That's what we all want.

We all want change.

So not to get into the debate of guns or not guns or any of that stuff.

It's just we all want change.

And when somebody stands up and says,

I want change in a calm,

Focused,

Determined manner,

That's when I get excited.

And that's what got me all riled up where I started sharing stuff and got sucked into the debate and had to pull myself back out.

When I got sucked into that debate,

It's funny because I think I was,

I kind of get held up for this.

Like a couple months ago,

I was listening to Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra.

I hear they're good.

Yeah,

They ain't bad.

They're like the best in the world right now.

So they were debating,

Not debating,

They were discussing things.

Deepak Chopra was saying how he still gets sucked into things sometimes,

Even how much he tries not to.

And he said particularly on social media.

And he was like,

So I'm going to hand this question over to Eckhart Tolle because he's closer to the absolute than I am.

And Tolle was like,

Yeah,

Well,

Let's be fair about this.

One of the reasons that I don't get sucked into this stuff on social media is because I don't partake in social media.

Because if I did,

I very well could get sucked into because it does have a very strong pull.

So listening to those two say that,

I kind of felt a little bit better that I got sucked in.

Like,

Okay,

I'm in good company.

It's got a very strong pull when you start debating this stuff.

But it really is about change.

We need to take action and change things.

And then I think we'd be surprised at how people are really embracing thoughts and prayers again.

Yeah.

All right,

So moving on then from that example.

Yeah,

To really the power of prayer.

And at this point,

One of the benefits of our scientific existence is that we have studies on everything.

Sometimes we can lean too much into it.

But we do have studies on everything.

And they've done lots of studies on the power of prayer.

And one of them,

I was just looking at one,

And it said this little statement at the end,

Which I found really helpful.

Let's see.

It said scientists,

Well,

I'm not going to sit here looking for it.

So basically it said scientists can't tell you if God can hear your prayers,

But they can tell you the positive benefit that the prayers are having on you and your psyche.

So that's what a lot of these studies are leaning on,

Which is good.

It's just study something measurable.

We can't see God.

We can't talk to Him.

We can't ask Him.

So let's focus on the benefits of the person giving the prayer and people receiving the prayer.

And that's the type of stuff that we can measure.

And like you said,

With this little boy that everybody's praying for in his family,

We don't know how it's going to turn out.

But just when you're going through a difficult time,

Even if you're not particularly religious,

To know that there's thousands of people wishing good thoughts for you,

It does make you feel less alone.

It does make you feel that it's more than just you trying to handle this.

And it can bring some solace and a little bit of comfort in a difficult time.

That's worth everything right there.

If that's the only thing that it ever did,

That would be enough.

That would be a good enough reason.

So that's one benefit.

And then there's other studies that meditation and prayer are very closely linked.

Because especially you can meditate on a specific outcome,

Just like a prayer.

So in that way,

They can be kind of replaceable with one another.

And there was a study I heard about recently,

I think it was in the 70s,

Where there was really high crime in Washington,

D.

C.

Maybe.

And they had done this study and they said,

Well,

If we have this amount of people meditating on lowering the violence and the crime level in Washington,

D.

C.

,

For this period of time,

We should be able to lower the crime rate by this much,

Which I believe was 25% over a period of time,

Which was a summer.

So this is what they projected they could do.

So they had the people do it,

And it dropped it by 25% that summer.

Are you kidding me?

So this type of stuff has been scientifically tested and proven.

But of course if somebody's looking to punch a hole in one of those,

I'm sure that they'd be able to find a way.

Absolutely.

But I think that the main thing to take away from that is that thoughts become things.

That's sort of an irrefutable fact,

That thoughts become things.

Thoughts are irrefutable to us because we live it,

But there's lots of people that would try to refute that.

But they found in quantum physics that they can measure a unit of energy that's a thought.

It's energy that can be measured.

So if you can measure a unit of energy that's a thought and energy never dies,

Then it must transmute into some other form of energy.

So what does a thought turn into?

Is it going to turn into something not related to what you're thinking?

Probably not.

It's probably going to transmute in the direction of what you're thinking.

Otherwise,

Why would it start out as a thought?

It would start out as something else if it wanted to transmute into something completely non-related.

Absolutely.

Are prayers going to always save a situation?

No.

Not in the way we see or not in the way we want.

Right.

Millions of people can pray for a certain outcome of something and they don't get it.

That isn't always a bad thing.

No.

It's difficult.

It's just like everything else.

It's difficult when it's happening to us.

If somebody steals your wallet,

You're running around going,

Are you freaking kidding me?

Somebody stole my wallet.

I cannot believe somebody stole my wallet.

This is ridiculous.

Oh my God.

And you're all upset.

But then if a week earlier I walked up to you and said,

Did you know that sometimes people steal things?

You'd be like,

Of course.

What do you think?

I'm stupid?

Of course people steal things.

It happens all the time,

Every day.

But then when it happens to us,

We take it personally and go,

Oh my God,

How could this happen?

So we have to be careful of that emotional aspect to things.

When somebody is sick and when everybody's praying for them and they die,

Suddenly we go,

Oh my God,

Why doesn't God answer prayers?

It's like,

Well,

What were you praying for?

For that person to be healed.

Okay,

Well,

They are healed.

They're on the other side and they're fine.

They are no longer suffering.

Just because it didn't look the way you wanted it to look doesn't mean that your prayers weren't answered.

It just means that God decided that this was better.

Maybe that person was going to be worse off.

God's perspective is a hell of a lot better than ours.

We've got this minute little perspective and we think we know what's best for everyone and everything,

And we can't see 99.

9% of the picture.

And then all of a sudden when somebody that does see 100% of the picture makes a different decision for the highest good of everything,

We go,

Oh my God,

Where is he?

He's abandoned me.

It's like,

No,

This was the best outcome,

The best solution.

I understand that it's difficult for us to process that and accept that,

But there's a lot of things that are difficult for us to accept and process.

Have you ever had a time where prayers for you really affected your life or for someone that you knew?

I think you see it in recovery a lot.

Can you draw a straight line to it?

Not usually.

Sometimes you can,

But not usually.

In my life,

I don't know.

I was on the verge of death.

Why I was able to wake up and start a new life,

I don't know.

I don't know exactly.

Maybe it was prayers.

I've had discussions about this.

I've talked to people.

I've talked to my family.

Part of me waking up was motivated by my son.

I look at that and I go,

Okay,

Was it because my father was my Little League coach growing up and even though I didn't like it,

It displayed to me that a father should be there for their son?

Was it because people prayed for me?

Was it because of 16 million other moving parts?

I don't know.

Was it a combination?

I don't know.

I think a lot of times prayer can lead people in the direction of things and give them that little extra spark of hope,

That little caring.

There was no shortage of people trying to tell me that I needed to change my life,

But as soon as somebody told me,

Glenn,

You need to do this or Glenn,

You shouldn't be doing this,

My mind shut right off because I wasn't open to it.

But if somebody looked at me and said,

My thoughts and prayers are with you,

Of course I'm sure if I was in bad space there were some times where I could be like,

Screw you.

I'm sure I did say that in my head or maybe out loud.

I don't know.

That's tough to argue with.

I also remember that there were times where somebody said,

I'm praying for you.

I was like,

Yeah,

Well,

Okay.

It didn't elicit the negative response,

The rebellion in me that other things did.

So maybe they did affect me in some way.

So about nine years ago,

I had H1N1 when the swine flu,

When it was really,

Really bad.

It was killing a ton of people.

This probably should have been one of the people.

I had the symptoms.

I didn't go to the doctor.

By the time I did go to the doctor,

It had also given me double pneumonia.

I was fine one day and then that night I crashed.

They sent me away from our little small town hospital to Yale Medical Center and they had to put me in a coma for two weeks.

When I woke up,

I was on dialysis because my systems had started shutting down.

My kidneys failed.

In the same day I woke up,

They told me that I would be in the hospital for months and then I would be on dialysis for probably about two years before my kidneys fully came,

Or about a year before my kidneys fully came back.

Then I would have a feeding tube and stuff for another month or so.

That was on a Monday.

Later that day,

My pastor came to see me to tell me what was going on.

Actually,

The next day,

By Wednesday,

They took the feeding tube out.

I was eating solid foods.

By Thursday,

I could talk.

Wednesday,

I was walking around.

Saturday,

They did the last dialysis that they ever had to do.

I was home.

That was in November.

I was home in Westerly for Thanksgiving.

By the first snowfall in December,

I was back at home.

That's huge.

Really,

It was like a miracle from how bad it was.

I really can't really give that to anything other than the doctors and prayer.

Because tons of people were praying for me,

Including my mom called the White House.

My mom called the White House and asked them to pray for me.

Nice.

She's a little extreme.

That's it.

To really wrap it up,

Most of the time,

We can't draw a straight line because it's invisible.

But when we look at it,

If you look at who recovers and who doesn't in extreme situations,

One of the things that you're going to find people who make miraculous recoveries is people praying for them and them having hope.

A lot of times,

That hope comes from people praying for them.

It's good energy.

Everything is energy.

We're energy.

The entire world is energy.

Everything is energy.

If we're putting good energy towards things,

It's going to have a tendency to shift things in a positive direction.

Maybe not always the way we want,

But the positive direction.

I think that that's the biggest takeaway.

I saw a video,

And I'm not going to get into it,

But I saw a video of somebody who recovered dramatically recently,

And he just reminded me of that.

He had hope.

He had hope.

He was supposed to be in the hospital for 40 days.

He left the next day or something.

His injuries were extreme.

Stuff like that,

It's like,

Why?

He wasn't sitting there going,

Oh,

This is never going to heal.

I'm going to be in this bed forever.

Oh,

My God.

That wasn't the thoughts going through him.

That wasn't the energy going through him.

That's not the energy that was going on around him.

It's just like that.

That's it.

It's the power of prayer.

It's the energy we bring in.

I think we need to be even more conscious of that when we're dealing with a sick loved one.

What energy are we bringing in?

Are we bringing in fear and going,

Oh,

My God,

You poor thing?

Or are we bringing in love and hope?

Because that's the energy in which we want to send to people in prayer and also give to our loved ones when things are difficult.

Give them that hope.

Anything is possible if we put energy towards that.

So as usual,

You know,

Hey,

I don't know everything.

I can't tell you what to believe.

But from my experience and what I've seen,

Putting good thoughts and energy towards a situation is helpful.

And if you want to call that prayer meditation or just plain positive thinking,

Whatever,

If you're heading in that door,

If you're looking and walking towards a solution and feeling positive,

That's when things sometimes happen that you want.

If you're sitting in negative energy,

Feeling depressed,

And there's no good energy coming towards you in the form of prayer or anything,

That's usually when things go bad.

So pray.

In my opinion,

Pray.

Thanks for listening,

Everybody,

And we'll talk at you soon.

Reviews

I agree! Prayer can be limitless so I personally try to broaden my belief of what prayer is. If I begin thinking of prayer as not only the traditional Our Fathers and Hail Marys that some of us may know and utilize, but include in the definition all forms of gratitude, gestures such as intentional smiles, well wishes, nurturing actions, positive energy, etc., as “living prayers”, I find I am actively prayerful and connected to something amazingly higher most of my day!

Confirmation and scientific evidence thatprayer works. Thoughts are things.