Prayer and More Prayer

Today in my morning prayer time it hit me: One of the women that I sponsor is struggling and I thought, “She needs more prayer.” Things are not going her way, and she’s mad. I thought, “OK, how do I explain to her that it’s going to be a lot easier to surrender sooner rather than later.” Then I thought, “OK Diane, can you take your own advice?” 

Note to me: More prayer.

It seems so obvious, but now I also know why the “Twelve and Twelve” says, “We should not be lax on this matter of prayer”. It is like that old juice commercial that reminds, “I could have had a V-8”. So often after struggling, musing, wondering and making myself miserable trying to control something, I think, “I could have prayed-or maybe prayed sooner.

Put prayer first.

Yesterday I had a cranky day. Not quite relaxed, not quite working, slightly bored even though there was plenty to do; it was just an off day. When I did my 10^th step at night (I use the Ignatian Examen as my Step Ten format) I realized that I had skipped my morning prayer time, and from there the day was just unsettled. Note to me: Put prayer first.

Gratitude and Compassion.

I read this ages ago, and I keep a sticky note in my planner that says, “Pray for a grateful heart and a compassionate heart”. It’s a great piece of guidance and an all-purpose solution to things that bother me. Gratitude shifts my attitude. Gratitude reminds me of the good. Gratitude shows me that there is growth, change and recovery in my life when my feelings try to convince me otherwise. 

A compassionate heart softens me. Compassion helps me to see other people- (even people who I think are bad or wrong)—are mostly broken or troubled people. And often they are broken or troubled I ways that I am too or that I have been. Having a compassionate heart slows me down. I am more inclined to practice “restraint of tongue and pen” when I have a compassionate heart. 

But to get there: More prayer.

Years ago I thought that people who had years of recovery must be doing all the right things, all the time. But I don’t, we don’t. But we do have a couple of things that come with time. One is good recovery habits. So I pray each morning and I do a 10th step at night that closes with a prayer. If I skip either one I feel crummy, kind of like not brushing my teeth. So even if I’m rushed or even not feeling very sincere I’ll get on my knees and read the Third Step Prayer. I say the words out loud. Even if done without complete sincerity, it helps.

The other thing that people with long recovery have are stories. We have our own stories, but even better; we have other people’s stories too. If you go to meetings for lots of years you accumulate stories. So when times are hard I can lean into someone else’s story. I can recall what they said about the time when they prayed; or the time they yelled at God, and the time a prayer was answered in a miraculous way; or the time they let go of what they wanted and got something so better instead.  

And each time what I remember is: More prayer.

***

Lots more on prayer and long-term recovery in the book, "Out of the Woods" published by Central Recovery Press.

On New Year's Day

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
     to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
     unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
     that it is made by passing through
     some stages of instability—
     and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
     your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
     let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
     as though you could be today what time
     (that is to say, grace and circumstances
     acting on your own good will)
     will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
     gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
     that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
     in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

More On Willpower

I love the new book, “Willpower” by Roy Baumeister & John Tierney. (I mentioned this book here on September 1^st. ) Now I’m almost at the end but I have to share some more of this new book.

“Willpower” is for a general audience—especially business folks and parents-- who want to learn more about how willpower works, and how to both get more and teach kids to have some. But this is also a terrific book for people in recovery.

Here are a couple more gems from Baumeister and Tierney:

They write about why it’s especially beneficial to have a daily practice of prayer and meditation (as in our Eleventh Step). “A daily practice of prayer and meditation is an anaerobic workout for self control.” Now, we know that a daily prayer practice keeps us connected to a higher power and therefore more able to surrender and let go of things, but the bonus, I’ve learned from “Willpower” is that people who do daily prayer and meditation develop more self-control in other areas of their lives. So isn’t that a win-win for someone resisting temptation of any kind?

Another topic the authors write about that intrigued me is “The Hyperbolic Discount”. This is a psychological phenomenon that all people have to some degree whereby we discount the long-term impact of a short-term decision. This is a human foible where “we can ignore temptations when they are not immediately available but once they are in front of us, we lose perspective and forget our distant goals.” Hence we don’t drink today AND we don’t drink tomorrow. This is also the 2012 psychological explanation for the story from the Big Book about the man who has that glass of milk and just one shot of whiskey. It also explains my completing forgetting my goal to buy fewer cheap clothes and save for better ones when I am standing in Target.

There is more in these sections about Mary Karr—author of “Lit” and her recovery path and poignant stories about Eric Clapton and what helped him to get and stay sober—even when he had to face the death of his young son. Powerful, relevant stuff.

Surrender the Person

I’ve always included teachings from The Course in Miracles as part of my recovery. “The Course” was one of my baby steps toward healing even before I discovered the 12 step rooms. I’ve especially liked some teachings from Marianne Williamson.

Recently I picked up one of her books and read this guidance on getting through the emotions surrounding a difficult person or situation. Marianne suggests this prayer:

“Dear God, I am (scared, sad, mad, hurt, ___) about (name the situation). I place everything that happened, all of these people, and ALL of my feelings about it, in your hands. Please help me to see this differently. Amen”

Repeat as needed.

That prayer is not far from the two-week prayer we know from the story, “Freedom from Bondage” in the Big Book, but I like having the fill-in-the-blank formula. It comes in handy when I am really steamed or if I know I have lost all perspective. I think I’m going to keep Williamson’s prayer on a card in my wallet right next to my emergency contact info.

Come to think of it, that is my emergency contact info.

Prayer and More Prayer

Yesterday I had this observation: One of the women that I sponsor is struggling and I thought, “She needs more prayer.” Things are not going her way, and she’s mad. I thought, “OK, how do I explain to her that it’s going to be a lot easier to surrender sooner rather than later.” Then I thought, “OK Diane, can you take your own advice?”

Note to me: More prayer.

It seems so obvious, but now I also know why the “Twelve and Twelve” says, “We should not be lax on this matter of prayer”. It is like that old juice commercial that reminds, “I could have had a V-8”. So often after struggling, musing, wondering and making myself miserable trying to control something, I think, “I could have prayed-or maybe-- prayed sooner.

Put prayer first.

Yesterday I had a cranky day. Not quite relaxed, not quite working, slightly bored even though there was plenty to do; it was just an off day. When I did my 10^th step at night I realized that I’d skipped my morning prayer time, and from there my day was just unsettled. Note to me: Put prayer first.

Gratitude and Compassion.

I read this ages ago, and I keep a sticky note in my planner that says, “Pray for a grateful heart and a compassionate heart”. It’s a great piece of guidance and an all-purpose solution to things that bother me. Gratitude shifts my attitude. Gratitude reminds me of the good. Gratitude shows me that there is growth, change and recovery in my life when my feelings try to convince me otherwise.

A compassionate heart softens me. Compassion helps me to see that other people- (even people who I think are bad or wrong)—are mostly broken or troubled. And often they are broken or troubled I ways that I am too, or that I have been. Having a compassionate heart slows me down. I am more inclined to practice “restraint of tongue and pen” when I have a compassionate heart.

But to get there: More prayer.

Years ago I thought that people who had years of recovery must be doing all the right things, all the time. But I don’t, we don’t. But we do have a couple of things that come with time. One is good recovery habits. So I pray each morning and I do a 10th step at night that closes with a prayer. If I skip either one I feel crummy; it’s kind of like not brushing my teeth. So even if I’m rushed or even not feeling very sincere I’ll get on my knees and read the Third Step Prayer. I say the words out loud. Even if done without complete sincerity, it helps.

The other thing people with long recovery have are stories. We have our own stories yes, but even better; we have other people’s stories too. If you go to meetings for years you accumulate stories. So when times are hard I can lean into someone else’s story. I can recall what they said about the time they prayed; the time they yelled at God, the time a prayer was answered in a miraculous way; the time they let go of what they wanted and got something better instead. 

And each time the reminder to me is this: Prayer and more prayer.

Fasting from Fear

One gift of long recovery is discovering how many of the things we struggle with are simply part of being human. In the beginning we attribute all of our character defects to being alcoholic, but after time and work and making friends with many kinds of people I have learned that everyone is afraid, everyone has some kind of defense, and no one is loved as much as they really want to be. And in America, no woman is happy with her bodyJ.

I also love learning that most faith traditions have been trying to help their members with this pain of being human for ages and ages. Each faith tradition has a version of “surrender” or “offering up” problems; there is an injunction in every religion and every faith tradition to be present, to be quiet, to be in the now, to listen to the voice of something other than fear.

My spiritual director recently said to me that the Gospel of Matthew says that we are “relieved of our afflictions by prayer and fasting.” I had heard those words before but always kind of thought of “fasting” as an extreme, old-fashioned measure. And maybe a tad too sacrificial. But then she explained, using 12-step language, that “afflictions” are like character defects and that what the Gospel writer was saying was, “don’t feed the character defect; don’t give it more food, energy or fuel.” I loved that.

I knew immediately that what I most need to fast from is fear. I feel fear twinges all day and I can feel when my mind wants to feed that fear a huge meal of energy and give it more fuel. What I am learning is that when I sense that start-up to a fear thought or a fear scenario—(and its always some future scenario) I can say, “Nope my fear friend; you are going on a diet”.

And of course I also need prayer to make this work. Praying to stay aware of those first, tiny impulses toward fear, praying for the courage to catch it and not “play with it”, and then praying for the willingness to fast from that fear.

“We are relieved of our afflictions by prayer and fasting.”

Do you have a particular character defect that might benefit from prayer and fasting?

Praying

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Thomas Merton after Christmas

The day after Christmas and all through the house—profound gratitude.  Christmas and Hanukah are over. Gifts are opened, exclaimed over, exchanged and worn. Thank you notes to be written. Some I’ll mail but the biggest thank you’s I have this year are for recovery, the 12 steps, all 12-step programs, my dear friends, great therapist, fabulous sponsor, self-help books (always my cognitive life raft) and God. Thank you for recovery, change, self-awareness and the sometimes fast, sometimes slow, willingness to change.

Here is a gift.

 This prayer was written by Thomas Merton as he struggled with many things—including God—in his life

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadows of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Ah Ha! Humility

I have been having the most ego-ish couple of days. Fear and ego and “Do they like me?” “Am I good?” and “Do they think this of me or that of me?” Exhausting. The dog of my mind is yap yap yap. I know better, but when have we ever been saved by intellect?

The bad news: this feels like my newcomer brain. The good news: I have tools. The better news: I finally remembered to use them :)

I prayed, wrote in my journal, wrote to my sponsor, read some literature and walked really fast for 30 minutes. (Move a muscle--change a thought.)

It didn’t change right away—in fact it’s still nudging at me this minute. But when I sat to meditate I started to pray that my insecurity be replaced by confidence but then a wonderful thought came, “No what you need to pray for is humility, “Please replace my insecurity with humility.” Ahhhh, that’s it.

“Humility is perpetual quietness of the heart”. Dr. Bob said that. Humility is being right-sized—not good or bad, but one among many. ahhhhhhh…….

Surrender the Person

Here is a useful prayer for the post-Thanksgiving week. I learned this from Marianne Williamson who writes about practical applications of The Course in Miracles. One of my favorite quotes from  Williamson is a perfect reminder of our Step Three: “What is placed on the alter is altered.”

Here’s the format of her surrender prayer:

“Dear God, I am (mad, sad, upset, hurt about…) this person (name names). I place everything that happened, all that I fear might happen, this person, all of these people, and all of my feelings about this in your hands. Please help me to see if differently. Amen.”

Repeat as often as needed.

It’s not a prayer for magic or a prayer to make anyone right or wrong. It’s spiritual first-aid, “Take this.” And it is a prayer that I will be changed and that my perspective be altered.

Prayer by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage
I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here
among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.
The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?
My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.
Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.



                                                     ----Marie Howe, from “The Kingdom of Ordinary Time”

Make the Language Work for You

Every day I say--actually read-- the Third Step Prayer and the Seventh Step Prayer. As often as I can remember, I try to really hear the words I'm saying and not allow the rote familiarity to let me skim over the meaning. When I slow myself down and think about the words I can ask myself, "Do you mean this today?" And mostly I do or I  can pray about that too.

Years ago a sponsor showed me a word change she made that worked for her, and I have incorporated that. In the Third Step Prayer wherever it says "Thee" or "Thou" I say "you"and "Thy" becomes "your"...so my version of the prayer reads like this:

"God, I offer myself to you--to build with me and do with me as you will...Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do your will....Your power, Your love and Your way of life." That subtle shift makes the prayer true to me and helps me to better hear what I am saying.

Yesterday another friend gave me another shift to use in the Seventh Step Prayer that makes it more personal and more real in each day. Her suggestion is to make this addition/substitution:

Where it says, "I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character..." she suggested saying or thinking --kind of in parentheses--the actual defect that's on top of your list.

It makes the prayer go like this:

"My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character--(like my gossiping and my need to be in control) which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and to my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen"

In these ways I make these prayers very personal and relevant.

A Prayer for Monday

It is Monday and I am filled with fear. Fear about writing and about work. Fear about relationships and love and mostly fear about whether I really know what to do with my life. I kneel to do my morning prayers. I read step seven. And then I open my daily meditation book and here—torn from another book—I have inserted this page with a prayer by Thomas Merton.


Merton’s prayer says this:

My Lord God,


I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadows of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

There is some comfort in knowing that even Thomas Merton didn’t know what he was doing or whether he was doing the right thing. I smile though, noting that he does not say there won’t be perils, just that he won’t face them alone.

Well, that’s Monday too.

Habit is a Gift of Recovery

This week I am reminded of this lesson: Habit is a gift of recovery. Last week I had a “resentment relapse”. All the old fears and my head yakking at me. I was working up all my old fear scenarios—practicing my “I’m so smart” dialogues in my head, where I say the most cutting and the most clever remarks. Reminder: Insanity is talking to people who are not there. Another reminder from Alanon: resentment is giving up rent-free space in my head.

And perhaps the best reminder: resentment is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the other person dies of smoke inhalation.

But even with all that knowledge from years of recovery I was into it: My mental hand on my hip, my focus anywhere but on myself.

But here is the gift of recovery: Even as all of that was happening I was also praying, writing in my journal, calling friends to tell on myself, and going thru my lessons. Not the first day, but by day two I knew I had to pray for the person I was resenting. I wrote out my prayers—even while I was grumbling internally—and I started to pray for her happiness, heath, success and peace.

I find it helps me to write out the prayer and the numbers one to 14 and each day cross off a number as I offer the prayer. That way I do it whether I feel like it or not.

The habit of recovery saves my butt. It didn’t stop me from having resentment—but it got me started on letting it go even as I was playing with the matches.

Tiny Baby Willingness

Yesterday I found myself wanting him to not like her. Wanting him to not have memories, to not have feelings, to not have loved someone he loved a long time ago. Crazy, I know, but there I was. Knowing it was crazy didn’t help me until I saw—I saw—that my focus on him and her kept me stuck on him and her—and therefore not living or thinking about my own life. Even at that I still wasn’t completely ready to let go. So I prayed. A teeny tiny prayer for a teeny tiny bit of willingness to let go. And I felt the most miniscule, tiny, imperceptible but real, teeniest, baby shift in my heart.

It was enough that I knew it was possible to change. I remembered that the book says we need just the tiniest bit of willingness to open the door. So here I am only barely sincere, hardly open-hearted, but with the teensiest bit of willingness to let go and to allow myself to be changed.

Amen

Pray the Room

Earlier this week I was given a great piece of spiritual advice. I was worried about an upcoming meeting at work and just agonizing over things I needed to say and how it would all go. I knew I wanted God to work through me and I was using the prayer that I use whenever I chair an AA meeting: “Please let me carry your message and not my ego.”

I mentioned this to a friend and she made this suggestion:

“Before the meeting go into the room where the meeting will take place and pray the room.” Pray in the actual room so that you have invited God into the space where you will need his guidance.”

It was amazing. I went down the hall to the empty conference room and sat for a few minutes praying that God be in the room with all of us and yes, keep my ego out of it. The meeting began 20 minutes later, I said what I needed to say, not perfectly but I remembered it was not all about me, and it was fine.

I can’t wait to use this again for staff meetings and Board meetings and any place where I may tip toward fear or ego.

Beach Vacation

I leave tomorrow for a week of vacation. Two city days for museums and food and then four beach days for ocean goddess time and reading, beach walking and especially beach prayer.

Since early recovery I have taken all of my biggest surrenders at the beach. When I sit on the beach and talk to God and look at the ocean I am very clear that there is something bigger than me. I also do a prayer ritual at the shore. I take a stick or a piece of shell and just above the tide line I write the names of all those that I need to turn over to God. When the ocean moves and tide rises those names and my intentions are taken to sea, dissolved in salt water and taken from me.

As a mermaid at heart, this works for me.

St. Teresa of Avila Prayer

Let nothing upset you.
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything is changing;
God alone is changeless
Patience obtains the goal.
Who has God lacks nothing,
God alone fills all her needs.

Prayer of St. Francis

A couple of weeks ago I was telling a woman I know from program about some of my worries and she said, “Do you read the Prayer of St. Francis?” I made a face and she laughed and said, “Read it, read it.”

I have always balked at that prayer. I have resisted the way it puts others first and offers up humility and generosity. I have felt way too selfish for that prayer. The third step prayer and the seventh step prayer are asking for god’s help...but it’s God’s help to fix me. It’s about me having peace and me being sane. The St. Francis prayer is about serving others and giving peace and good to others.

But I felt that balk in me and I knew that was a sign. So I have been reading the Prayer of St. Francis. I’m giving myself three weeks. I do balk still. Am I really supposed to comfort others more than I seek comfort for myself? And to “understand than to be understood”? This is hard. Hard to say it and hard to mean it.

But like many other things in recovery I am doing this without believing it. I am on my knees and reading the prayer and trying not to choke on the words.

I’m giving it 21 days. God help me.

Get out of Gods Way

When I was very new to AA I heard a woman speak in a meeting and what she said made me truly want recovery. The woman was telling the group that the day before her daughter had been hurt in an accident near their house. The woman said that got into the ambulance with her daughter and she began to pray that her daughter would be okay and that God fix this situation. And then, she said that she stopped and changed her prayer. Instead she began to pray, “God help me to get out of your way.”

I was stunned by her words and I knew then that I wanted what AA people had and I understood that what this woman had came from being in this program.
That was more than 20 years ago. I still want it.

God help me to get out of your way.