How To Pray

We talk about prayer kind of a lot. So if you’re wondering why, what is prayer, or how to pray, we made this episode to start a conversation with you! We want to open up the conversation about prayer so that it can include everyone. Whether you use prayer to talk to god or consider yourself an atheist or agnostic, we’ll share how we believe this spiritual tool can work across the board. At the end of the day, maybe it doesn’t matter if you want to know how to pray to god or just how to connect to yourself on a deeper level. We believe that the power of prayer can come alive for all of us, no matter what we do or don’t believe in. So join in the fun as we talk about how our relationships with this tool have changed over the years. We’ll also share our favorite practical and healing prayers, in case they might be helpful to you. What’s your relationship with prayer like? Come join the conversation and let us know about your beliefs and experiences.

Transcript

Thanks for joining us here on Pretty Spiritual where we're attempting the unthinkable about how to navigate this messy,

Beautiful,

Imperfect life with spiritual tools,

What,

Principles,

And our own personal stories.

So we're not experts,

We're not religious,

We're definitely silly.

We're honest,

Real,

And willing to share.

So join us as we connect,

Bond,

And grow together.

Hello friends,

Welcome back.

Hi.

We're back.

We're so excited.

We were on summer break.

We missed you guys.

I am Annie,

And I'm here with Ella and Lindsay.

Hi.

And today we're talking about prayer.

We know that the word prayer is really loaded for a lot of people,

Whether positive or negative,

Almost everybody associates the concept of prayer with a specific religion.

Instead of being so tied to organized religion,

What if more people saw prayer as a spiritual tool that was roomy and welcoming,

Like practicing kindness or being of service or meditation?

So my hope for today is that we can pull this sticky word prayer out into the light,

Loosen some of the rigid ideas that potentially could be holding it back from being a useful tool to more people,

And also explore practical tips for how to pray.

And I guess the reason I want to do this is we've heard from some of our listeners,

Which we love.

Thank you so much for people who reach out to us.

And one of the topics that's come up has been prayer and kind of like,

Why do we talk about it?

So in my head,

I'm thinking,

Well,

What if prayer isn't solely religious,

And it could be a spiritual tool that anyone from atheists to agnostics to people who identify with a religion to people who are just kind of see themselves as spiritual,

Then anyone can use and celebrate and benefit from prayer.

So our hope is always to be inclusive.

So if you are religious and have a prayer practice specific to your faith,

We want you to know that we're talking with you too,

And that we love you.

Just because we're having this discussion about prayer being something that isn't religious doesn't mean that we don't want whoever to use it however they want.

And that we are big fans of anybody on a spiritual path that's guided by love.

The power of prayer is obvious.

Yeah.

Amen.

Can we close up shop early?

Yeah.

That was it.

Finished.

Done.

Doesn't matter.

High five.

People have not talked about this for millennia.

So we got it.

We just solved it right here.

Boom.

It's what we do best.

Last thing before we get started,

If the word prayer makes you want to throw something,

If it gets your hackles up,

If it triggers you,

Whenever we say it,

Just mentally insert another word,

Maybe invitation or heart opening or spiritual connection or whatever you fancy.

Such a great idea,

Annie.

Hey.

Practical suggestions.

We're just trying stuff.

It's so great.

Let's dig into what we think about prayer.

We'll each talk about what we mean when we say the word prayer,

Such as what it means to us,

How our idea of the word may have changed over time,

Maybe even what prayer is not to us,

But most of all,

Why we pray.

Ella,

Why don't you get us started?

Yay.

Thanks,

Annie.

That was such a great introduction to the topic.

And I totally relate to being someone who wanted to throw stuff when I first was given that spiritual suggestion of pray.

I was like,

Gross.

That doesn't apply to me.

Fortunately,

I was pretty desperate at the time.

So I tried anyway,

And what I started to realize as soon as I was attempting to pray is that I didn't know how to pray.

And so then when I tried,

It just felt really creepy,

Pretty disingenuous,

Maybe like verging on psychosis,

Not sure.

It wasn't something I wanted to keep doing,

And it didn't feel like it was quote unquote working,

Whatever I thought that was going to look like.

But I did hear things like,

That's normal.

It's supposed to feel like that.

Keep doing it anyway.

So I kept trying to practice prayer,

Which at first was this just kind of talking to or at something bigger.

I was never sure what.

I'm still not sure what.

But these days when I need help conceptualizing God or higher power,

And I'm having difficulty with that,

I substitute the spiritual principle of love or my heart.

Anyway,

So I was trying to make contact with something,

Not sure what,

And was talking to,

Asking for what I needed or wanted.

And what prayer has kind of become for me over time as an anchor to that thing that's bigger than myself,

Which is my heart and my highest intention.

What prayer signifies for me now is this moment to pause and touch into that loving intention and let it guide me in the day to day thoughts and actions and attitudes of my life.

William James says,

All religions and spiritual traditions begin with the cry,

Help.

And I think that if you are considering prayer or if you're someone who prays regularly,

Then that probably resonates.

And that's what prayer is to me on the most fundamental level is this acknowledgement that I feel small,

I feel alone,

I feel separate,

And I need help to let go of those limitations and join back in my connection to life and other beings.

Prayer is the awareness that I need help and then an attempt to vocalize that intention,

Whether it's out loud with spoken words or if it's contemplative inside my head.

Just to kind of solidify this into an actual prayer so I can demonstrate what I'm talking about for me.

One of my favorite prayers goes something like,

May whatever arises serve to wake me up or may this experience serve my freedom.

And so this kind of prayer for me,

It soothes that part of me that's so desperate for help that feels alone and separate and usually not enough.

And then it grounds me in this process or presence that's much bigger than myself,

This intention to be free and wake up from the trance of separation and aloneness.

So just keeping it real light over here,

Just wanted to.

.

.

No big deal.

No bigs.

Thank you,

Ella.

I love hearing about prayer because it is such an ever present word and concept in our culture and our society,

But it's really private.

And often we don't hear people talking about what their relationship to it is.

It's fun to hear what we all have to say.

Annie,

Do you want to talk to us about prayer?

Yes.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to introduce this because prayer has been such a strange journey for me.

And one of the things that popped into my head is in Spanish to say to dream about is sonar con,

Which means to dream with.

So instead of saying,

I dreamt about Lindsay and Ella,

I would say I dreamt with Lindsay and Ella.

And so in that vein,

What if praying wasn't speaking to or like Ella was saying at some distant God or idea,

But this instead to connect with whatever is in our hearts.

Prayer used to mean something really limited to me.

I had a set idea in my mind what it was.

It was associated with the religions that I grew up around,

Pews and kneelers and prayer book.

I had opinions about prayers and they didn't apply to me because I wasn't religious.

And like Ella was sharing,

I had this moment where I hit a bottom in my life and prayer became one of the suggestions to grow.

And thank goodness pain is the touchstone for spiritual growth because I became willing to do things that I did not think was a good idea.

You know,

I'd spent 32 years having an opinion and then having someone present like,

Why don't you try this?

I'm like,

I don't actually think that that's going to work for me,

But I was desperate enough to experiment with it.

So I became willing to take suggestions for trying tools I didn't think I wanted or needed.

And it was hard like Ella was sharing,

Prayer felt really constrictive to me.

I would try praying and I would judge myself.

It was like half my brain was doing the action and the other half was the little peanut gallery from the Muppets commenting.

I loved meditation,

But when I tried praying,

It felt like I was faking something and didn't have any meaning to me.

And it took years of experimenting with it for it to be something where I didn't feel contrived or self-conscious in the act.

And I don't mean to say that in a way that might dishearten people.

Because maybe other people won't have as many like built up layers of defense as I did.

I was really stiff.

And I had to find my own relationship with it that had nothing to do with what I had learned about how other people use prayer or other people's beliefs.

Like I just needed to develop my own.

And now I think prayer is a way bigger concept than what I had kind of limited myself to understanding in the past.

Personally,

I really work on a daily basis to cultivate a relationship with a higher power and I don't know what that power is.

It's like part of me,

It's outside of me,

It's inexplicable.

And prayer is really part of me cultivating that relationship.

But I honestly believe that prayer works for people even if they don't want or have or are interested in a connection with some kind of divine relationship or a higher power or God.

For me,

The word prayer just means an invitation,

A willingness,

A surrender,

A heart opening.

So it could be to this higher power,

Whatever yours might be,

Or it could just be ritualistic saying shared between friends that have meaning and intention and it kind of like creates connection between people.

It could be communing with nature,

Like that sonarcon,

It could be like being with nature.

So to me,

Prayer is a way to open my heart with words and intention,

Different than meditation,

Which for me is often quietness.

And then the prayer is this initial opening up with words and intention to invite in peace,

Ease,

It's an invitation for way forward,

It's an invitation to find strength.

So it's me opening out and at the same time being willing to let in and often the letting in happens during the meditation time.

That is what's happening in my brain right now with prayer.

Pony,

What's cooking over there with you,

My sweet lady?

Wow,

What an interesting topic.

I never wanted to turn towards prayer.

I feel a theme here.

It makes so much sense for so many different reasons.

So I'm really interested in what our listeners like,

What are your reasons for not wanting to turn towards prayer?

Why the resistance to prayer?

Even when I hear the word prayer,

I'm like,

That's not for me and I don't want it.

Because of this topic,

I got to look back and question,

Wow,

Why is this here?

Why is there this natural defiance aversion to prayer?

I believed it was a tool for religious folk.

Religious people were not to be trusted.

As I moved around from Mormonville,

Utah to Bible Belt,

Oklahoma,

And bless you all,

This is just my experience.

But coming as an outsider and being put into the middle of that was very difficult for me.

This is just the places that I had been.

So it doesn't mean by far that this is where all of these are,

But I lived this and it's my experience.

So I'm just going to share about what it was like to be ostracized for not believing in or being a part of their religion.

I was a child.

So I just hadn't been introduced to into tools or any other way or a God or whatever it was.

My grandfather,

I believe,

Was a horrendous man who hid behind the cloth.

And because of these experiences,

I thought religious people and their tools could not be trusted.

I'm also a closet spiritual person.

I love how Annie talks about before she came out as spiritual.

I relate with that so heavily as I don't want to be confused with religious people due to the exclusive shaming and all the ways I've witnessed religion used to veil people's bad intentions as good because they are religious church-going people.

It's been really complicated and confusing to find my path to prayer.

Fortunately for me,

I was taught that people that scoff at prayer are usually the ones who haven't tried it enough.

Mix that in with desperation and pain,

I believe I was just happened to be on my knees from crying and I thought,

Hey.

I guess this is the moment where I do that whole,

Hey God,

You're there,

I'm here,

What's up?

I'm already down here.

I can't get up.

I'm distraught.

And that was truly my first prayer.

God,

You're there?

I'm here,

Pretty sure.

What's up?

I wrote that in a journal and it's so cool because I didn't remember that,

But to read that it's like,

Wow.

The beginnings,

The eking out the beginnings on this path.

So what of prayer?

Prayer for me is stopping time for a brief moment to recognize I'm floating through infinity.

I'm part of everything and nothing all at once.

I'm embedded with eternity.

All of these worldly problems or inquiries are simply passing circumstances.

Prayer allows me to pause the moment and sync up with the greater,

Unsuspected inner resource and creations,

The sacred pause.

The willingness to stop and halt myself will and join the will of the world.

This sacred pause and call to something greater than my tiny plans and desires opens up the space for the unknown to be here,

Present and welcomed.

That is what prayer has become for me as I understand it now.

It's an open-ended inquiry to be guided freely to the will of the world and to be a part of everything in it,

Which you ladies had really beautifully so described.

To hear that it's like,

That's really what is going on here for me to really surrender and take that moment.

Before I think prayer was really my demands on something else to go my way.

It was always,

I really needed a husband for my mom.

That's one of my first prayers that I remember.

And so then when God didn't answer those,

I felt betrayed and hurt.

So it's really quite a marvelous thing now to be open and to really pause in the moment where I need something to be a certain way.

Or it's got to be this way.

And when I pause in the moment and then I say a prayer of,

I don't know,

But I'm willing for you to show me.

And oftentimes my prayers are,

Lend me,

You know,

Goddess,

I love the female.

What can I say?

I'm such a lady.

And I have no understanding of what it is,

But I just say,

Goddess,

Lend me your eyes.

Lend me your ears.

Help me to see this situation as you would.

And that's helped me so much.

Thank you so much,

Pony,

For those beautiful words.

What we're going to do now is have our spiritual toolbox party.

So ready for the party.

We are going to talk about actually the practical action of how we pray,

What it looks like,

What it feels like,

Anything in particular that we do,

Any practical tips that we have.

So if anyone is listening and hasn't ever experimented with prayer,

Maybe they can go away from this episode with some things to just try out.

Ella,

Why don't you share your recipe book with us?

Here goes.

So like I said,

For me,

Prayer is,

Or the thing that precedes prayer is that moment of like,

Help.

And usually how that feels is like I'm really tensed up or really clenched up about something.

So the first part of prayer is pausing in the middle of whatever that is.

Usually there's like an activity happening also.

Sometimes not.

Sometimes I'm just thinking and clenching up.

But so I pause,

Whatever that is.

Usually I put my hand on my heart and I take a deep breath into that heart space.

And it usually means that I come into my body if I,

Even if I only stay for a moment,

That for me is a really important part of prayer is that I can feel my heart,

But I can only really feel it when I'm living inside my own body.

So I just come in here and tap into that connection and feel that feeling.

And when I'm doing that,

I'm connecting with this true deep intention that my heart has for love and connection.

And as I breathe into that space,

I'm breathing into all these different barriers I've created that prevent me from really being able to connect with other people and instead are causing me to kind of clench up out of feeling separate and not enough.

So in some way I'm saying,

Help.

There are moments alone when I find myself really gripped by anxiety or overwhelm and I can just pause and invite in something bigger.

Often times,

As I've shared on our podcast before,

I do this real time shower pause thing where I'm in the shower and I've done this lengthy physical therapy and morning spiritual practice routine.

And then I'm planning all the things that I'm late to do now because I've been so spiritual all morning.

No time to pray.

So I notice myself in the shower,

Which maybe could be this really pleasant,

Calming experience.

And there's this frenetic brain energy.

So if that's happening,

I pause.

I have these moments frequently throughout the day.

That's just kind of a funny regular one that I experience.

But then there are also interpersonal moments when I pause and ask for help when I'm inside a relationship or an interaction with someone else.

The kind of obvious ones I can think of are,

I'm being blamed for something that I feel isn't my fault or someone is laying out some really tempting emotional bait for me and I want to lunge and pick it up with my teeth.

So delicious.

Yum!

Or in a really simple way,

I might just be taking something or someone personally.

So for me,

What it looks like in that moment is I feel my body starting to react.

And what that feels like usually is my heart starts racing,

Which is accompanied by my brain telling me all these really seductive comebacks to what was just said to me or in an even funnier way,

Sometimes planning what would sound like a good comeback,

But also still sort of sound spiritual so I could cover all my bases.

That'll teach you.

So sneaky.

Oh my.

So I feel my body reacting.

It gets tense.

I furrow my brow.

I've got this anxiety in my gut.

My heart's racing and I breathe into the direct physical experience of my body's reaction,

Which spoiler alert,

It's pretty uncomfortable to feel that.

So I feel it.

I feel it reacting.

I breathe into it.

And that prayer is an in-the-moment grounding in the container of awareness,

Which helps me make space for the feelings I'm having,

The feelings the other person must be having,

And our tender,

Sweet little,

Fragile selves.

What that does is show me that the feeling isn't going to kill me,

Apparently,

Because I'm still here,

Nor does it need to dictate my behavior.

So I stay really close to the physical.

I breathe into it.

And I offer myself comfort by coming back to this deep intention to be loving and kind and present,

Period.

And if it's hard for me to do that in this moment,

Then it's serving me because it's teaching me how to be kind and loving and present when it's hard.

If that's my deepest intention,

Then I guess I'm grateful for what's happening right now.

And sometimes if it's appropriate,

I'll walk through what I'm experiencing with the person who's there.

And I can say,

Like in intimate relationships,

I can say stuff like,

Wow,

This is really hard for me to take in right now.

I'm going to need to pause.

Or I'm not sure how to respond to what you just said.

So I'm going to need to take a moment to feel that.

There was a Zen teacher I really love who would excuse herself from difficult conversations by saying,

Pardon me.

I need to step aside and feel something right now.

And I just always love that so much.

So if I'm taking something on,

If I'm having a hard time taking something in,

I can do this whole process internally.

I ask my heart to help me not take it personally.

I ask my heart to speak through me when I'm not sure what to say.

And I keep coming back to living from this deepest intention.

And then maybe I can relax and not take the rest of it so seriously.

So sweet.

Thank you,

Ella.

So much there.

Oh,

Annie,

What's your experience?

Thank you,

Tony.

Do you have something to share?

Oh,

I do.

Oh my gosh.

I can't wait to hear about it.

What's it going to be?

This is how I pray.

Physically,

This is what it looks like.

I,

In the morning before I meditate,

I say a prayer to kind of ease into the process.

And sometimes my brain is so busy.

For example,

This morning,

I will repeat the prayer until I can get through it without being distracted.

So this morning,

I said the prayer that I was saying probably 12 times,

Because I got so I was thinking about,

I was very busy.

I had a lot of important things to think about.

And so that is kind of like a sign to my brain.

Like it's time to ease into meditation,

But also it's this,

Like I said,

This opening out and letting in for me.

What that looks like physically is me sitting in meditation.

But usually throughout the day,

When I pray by myself,

I'm usually in motion,

And I pray when I think about it.

And I will have something out,

Just it'll pop into my mind.

I'll be like,

Oh,

I pray right now.

And so I do,

Which I just want to say is so wild and weird compared to where I was eight years ago,

Because I would have made fun of me.

If I was sharing this with eight years ago,

Annie,

I would have said,

So I,

If I'm running around,

I'll,

I'll stop,

I'll close my eyes as a way to feel grounded and connected.

As part of my prayer practice,

I don't kneel or bow every once in a while,

If I'm at home,

I will just to experiment with the willingness of it.

Sometimes if I feel like saying a prayer in child's pose,

That can be nice.

But usually it's just me standing still and putting,

Like Ella said,

My hand on my heart.

What is it about the hearts?

We just love the dang hearts for the connection.

And I soften my eyes and my chest muscles.

And then I say whatever it is that I want to say in my prayer.

What it feels like.

I imagine relaxing my whole body.

I imagine or envision a sense of safety and connection.

If I'm praying with another person,

For example,

Before we record these podcasts,

We say a prayer together.

I envision an energetic connection with us,

Like between us.

If I'm praying with my higher power,

I envisioning the light of whatever that is kind of filling me and glowing me up.

If I'm praying in nature with gratitude,

I envision myself interconnected with my surroundings.

Or if I'm praying for some type of guidance,

I envision releasing my worries or my needs kind of out of my brain in this upward funnel,

Just like letting it flow up and out and creating room for some type of intuitive thought.

So that's what it feels like.

That's what it looks like.

And then when I do it,

Like I said,

Usually in the morning,

And then just during the day,

Whenever I think of it,

I could be in the grocery store line,

In a car,

Working.

It often pops into my head now as a solution if I'm overwhelmed.

Like I'll get into like gears are grinding,

I gotta fix everything.

I'm like,

Oh,

What?

Maybe you can say a prayer.

And it's just like putting some lubrication on a jammed up engine.

Things just kind of start flowing a little bit smoother.

I also pray when I'm flooded with gratitude.

If I get really jazzed about something,

Or if I feel like something's really beautiful,

And I get overwhelmed and I can't handle it,

I'll say a prayer of thanks.

I'll say hot dang,

Life is so sweet right now.

Like what a nice prayer.

Hot diggity dang.

I have prayed in a lot of bathrooms.

If I'm in situations where I'm uncomfortable,

Or I'm overwhelmed,

A bathroom is such a great place to go have a moment of respite with a wall between me and the world.

I can just kind of repeat whatever prayer I'm using until I feel re-centered in my body and my brain and kind of safe to go back out into the world.

So it's a handy tool for grounding,

For navigating cravings,

For calming nerves.

So what happens when I pray?

Like Lindsay said,

I was a prayer scoffer.

Oh my.

I remember when I was suggested to me to first start experimenting with prayer,

The person who did so said,

Why don't you take some prayers that you know and rewrite them so that you're comfortable with them?

So I rewrote one on this really small piece of paper with little words and I put it in like the tiny little hidden pocket of my jeans because like God forbid someone would know that I had a prayer written.

I was so mortified that someone might know that I was trying to pray.

I have passed out on lawns all over the country,

But God forbid somebody might know I'm experimenting with prayer.

You must stay in the spiritual.

You can't recover from something like that.

Yeah,

You can't come back.

A reputation never comes back.

Do not tarnish my reputation.

So like I said,

I had opinions,

But it turns out once I put aside my ideas of why it wouldn't work,

Who it was for,

Not me,

Then once I just tried it,

I just get so much comfort.

I get great comfort from praying.

I get a sense of peace.

I get connection.

I get intuitive thoughts.

Like I said,

That oil on the jammed up engine loosens everything and some other ideas that maybe have come from I don't know where kind of appear and I have some solutions that I didn't have.

So personally,

I get guidance from prayers.

I feel a sense of safety after I pray.

And if I'm agitated,

I can just repeat prayers that I like and my brain starts to calm down and get more space.

So that is hopefully a mini summary of how I pray.

It was a little jumbled up with personal stories and escapades.

It was so perfect.

It's all we got.

It's all we got.

Oh my gosh,

Good point.

That is all we have.

Pony,

What's praying look like for you?

Well,

I wanted to touch on,

I really appreciated what y'all said.

And I like this idea that there's this sacred pause.

And then I get to come back to my body,

Which oftentimes I've left.

I was just remembering the saying,

My body is my temple.

And I had never really thought about this,

The pause,

Building a temple and this safe place that I can go that I've cultivating because I started connecting with something and saying prayers.

So I just was having that vision and really grateful.

Just talking about how prayer is portable.

I love that saying.

So if I didn't pray in the morning,

I can remember it anytime.

Anytime is a great time to pray.

On a real note,

I was just sitting here having all these inadequate feelings about myself and how amazing these women are.

And I didn't take it to the right notes and it could just go on forever.

And I just paused.

And one of my favorite prayers that I say oftentimes is whatever I need to look like,

Whatever I need to say,

I am willing if I can be useful and helpful to somebody else.

And that really takes the pressure somewhere else than what I was living before.

And isn't that kind of like the idea of like making it to the temple?

Like as soon as you walk in the door,

There's some kind of relief or comfort.

So interesting,

My beliefs and my biases and what happened to me when I was younger just really formed such a solid wall that something that could be so useful and helpful to me,

I just not willing.

I'm pretty defiant and rigid and punitive with myself oftentimes.

And with prayer,

I'd like to just say it's really hard to do if you aren't in the habit of it.

So I wanted to just say to start simply.

I shared with you like my first prayer and it could just be so simple as that.

That was really my first willingness.

It's so sweet and special to me to remember that.

It's the tiny beginnings that start ourselves.

The journey of 10,

000 miles begins with a single step.

There are all kinds of prayer,

Different prayers for different occasions.

I find my main go-tos are to connect with my innermost self,

My questions,

My queries,

To hear my needs and listen for answers,

To align my thoughts and prayers.

But if I'm not in the habit,

Then this is difficult for me to do.

A way that I got into the habit of praying and what I also like to talk about is this really has to become a personal experience for yourself.

We're here sharing these personal experiences to invite you to see what would work for you in your own personal way.

So more than likely,

It's not going to look like what our examples are,

But we'd love to hear if you give this a shot,

What your personal experience and what your examples turn out to be for you.

Such an exciting journey to know that we get to tailor make this life,

These experiences,

Our attempts at exactly what they would look like for us.

So I'm encouraging myself and everyone to see what it's like to have an experience with prayer.

And for me,

My first experience so that I could get into the habit,

It had to be something that I was doing all the time and also something that I was in a lot of pain with.

And there's something that I,

It's very simple for me when I'm at the gym and it sounds,

I don't care what it sounds like.

This is my life.

And what my life is,

Is I go to the gym most days and it's really hard and I don't want to go.

And there's a moment in the workout where I'm certain I'm beat.

It's done.

It's over.

I can't do one more thing.

And that is the moment that I remember I had this really special tool,

Prayer.

And I am so glad that I started doing this because it was the exact example that I needed for myself because all this time I've been such a scoffer and so embarrassed of my closet spirituality and really cynical.

I'm just doing this because I hear these suggestions bring relief and I,

You know what?

I'm a junkie for relief.

I got to tell you,

I'll go after it.

I'll almost try anything.

Seven years later,

That's what I noticed.

I really wait seven years.

That's my number.

So that's what I do at the gym,

On the rower,

At any moment.

It's really clear to see when I'm dead,

I got nothing.

I need something else and so many times over as my mind syncs up to myself just offering up whatever this moment is and whatever it needs to be and to give me strength and I'll do whatever it is.

And if that was to stop or quit the workout,

Then of course I would love to.

I will do that.

But what oftentimes happen is that there's this unsuspected inner resource that whether I'm distracted,

Right?

Isn't that lovely that prayer could just be a distraction?

And it's more than that.

From my experiences that I've had,

There has just been this deep well of a power that's greater than myself that can actually be my future self that believes in my present self saying,

Come on,

You can do this.

You got this.

The gym for me is just a place where I learned about processes and taking care of myself and it's really where I get a lot of spiritual experience,

That and my bicycle.

So those will oftentimes be the places that I talk about and I'm so excited to learn about and hear where your spiritual experiences come from and what they look like for you.

I would love that so much because I know if we're on this path,

We're trying stuff and we have something to share.

So email us.

Oh,

Please let us know.

Yeah,

Tell us what's happening.

We're at prettyspiritualpodcastatgmail.

Com.

We also have a website.

Www.

Oh,

I was waiting for it.

I was hoping so hard that that was coming.

Pretty spiritual podcast.

Com.

Let's just connect.

We want to what are we going to talk about next week?

Next week is a very exciting topic.

And I'll just start by asking you a question.

What do you find unacceptable?

That's going to help you look at acceptance.

Oh,

It's a big topic.

We're going to get into it.

Can't wait.

Ladies,

I loved hearing everything that you had to say about prayer is so so nice to hear to talk about this.

And I want to just close with this really beautiful quote from Thomas Yellowtail.

He's a Crow medicine man and Sundance chief.

Prayer is our entrance into the unseen world.

It is by prayer we can call upon the powers and laws of the Great Spirit.

The spirit world has powers and laws that are different from the physical world.

The spiritual laws allow healing to take place.

They allow forgiveness to occur.

They cause miracles to happen.

They cause hate to disappear.

They heal broken relationships.

They guide every moment of our lives.

They allow us to love even when it's hard.

Prayer allows us to access the spirit world.

Oh,

Thank you so much for that.

Can't wait to meet back here again in this spirit world next week.

Bye.

Thank you.

Reviews

Love it. I’m an atheist in recovery who is also a closet spiritualist getting to grips with prayer. Going to come back to this again…🙏

This touched on so many of my own thoughts about prayer and "closet spirituality". Thank you! 🙏🏼

Awesome discussion -excited to hear more of your podcasts! TY!

Prayer definitely has tied so closely religion for me. I’m absolutely going to start practicing prayer to the Goddess ❤️

Wow, first time listener & definitely going to continue. I love the synergy between all of you & individual insights, just real & honest. Thank you. I grew up with religion & ran away from it in my teens. Which led me to Spirituality. However, Praying remained with me, it was one of the few things that felt genuine throughout my journey. Over the years as I've matured so have my prayers, from pleading or begging to being open & connected heart to heart with Divine Source, a definite 2 way unspoken communication, all is conveyed & received via Praying.
I would love to discuss how Prayer & Law of Attraction compliment each other or do you find that Prayer can override LOA ?
Namaste

I love you, girls! That was so beautiful to listen to. Thank you! 🙏🏼❤️

I am so glad I stumbled across you on here. What a find! This is a marvellous podcast full of lots of useful information and tools. I really admire your candid approach and ability to make yourself vulnerable to demonstrate the power of prayer. Wonderful thank you

Have been asking myself this for years. Embarrassed to ask others how to pray. You gals are a gift. Thank you xoxo

Great podcast! Love listening to you all!
I am so grateful for the tools that I received by listening today.
Thank you for being so vulnerable!
Tammy

Well I almost didn't listen to this podcast as it has a very negative connotation for me, but I figured as it's you ladies, it'd be worth a listen. I'm so glad I did as it's given me such a different view on prayer. Will definitely start slowly and try it out... thank you ladies for being so real, honest and open. Love to you all 💜x