Prayer - SoulSpring - A hub for conscious insights on all things life, wellness, love, transformation and spirituality

The Prospering Potential of Tuning Into Your Higher Power

Colette Baron-Reid

HOW TO PRAY FOR REAL AND STOP BARGAINING

Before I knew a better way to communicate with the Divine, I used to pray a lot. I always believed in a power greater than me. I just thought that Power was following me around with a fly swatter.

I mentioned last week that I saw the world as ensouled, like I do today, every animal with a spirit, every blade of grass, rock or worm. So why did my prayers hardly ever work? I was serious about prayer! My prayers were so strong and so meaningful and so so so powerful!

Prayers are powerful and mine should work.

Not really, today looking back I know my prayers were totally lame, if you really want to know the truth.

And, here’s why.

My prayers were bargaining prayers—prayers of pleading spectacles of need and serious purveyors of lack.

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Find Freedom with the Three Powers of the Serenity Prayer

Colette Baron-Reid

This week’s Goddess message that jumped out at me was the goddess Sophia who represents Divine Wisdom. Her archetypal meaning refers to the wisdom that doesn’t come from integrated human experience, rather the wisdom given to us directly from Source- a higher wisdom, a higher ground from which to see that is greater than our human experience. So how do we access this, and what does it mean for us, when we do?

After this intense Scorpio Full Moon weekend, we’re offered a new beginning where we have time to integrate what we’ve learned keeping in mind what is ours to shift and also what is not ours. Divine Wisdom refers to how we manage our expectations and projections, and what we make things mean. Can we break through the illusion and surrender to what truly is?

Of all the prayers that best illustrates this is the Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

If we look at this prayer in three parts, the first part is about surrendering to a Higher Power, acknowledging that we are seeking peace and help to radically accept what is in front of us and to recognize when we are powerless.

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How can we reorient ourselves towards the divine?

Ram Dass

We all get preoccupied with where we’re not.

I mean, I get letters from people all the time with vivid descriptions of where they’re not. The amount of consciousness they invest in writing the letter to describe where they’re not…but every now and then, I get a letter and all it’s filled with is page after page of, “Ram Ram Ram Ram,” and I read every page. Every page. What else is there to write?

See, the process for those that have a scientific vent, that want it said that way, the process is really nothing other than completely reorganizing your cognitive map, so that you see the entire universe from another place – from your Divine Self.

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The Answer Was Easy

Polly Wirum

I arrived home with suit cases to unpack and responsibilities waiting for me. Occasionally after traveling, there is a slight lag in my enthusiasm for house hold chores. Other times, I love opening windows, lighting candles and getting to work. It just depends on how I’m feeling.

That day, I had to do something to stir up the energy, not just in my mind, but my body. It felt like low energy was filling up the space around me. I needed a little something to make me feel awake, alive and inspired. I put the challenge out to my family, what activity were they up for? We all love being outside, but I needed something out of my comfort level. I knew that if I did something with a little fear factor, it would wake me up.

The answer was easy... Zip lining. I have always declined zip lining on family vacations. I don’t like the height, or the lack of control. Perfect; two things for me to work on, letting go of control and letting go of my fear of height.

Reservations made! I unpacked my suit case and began to look forward to a new adventure. As soon as the commitment was made, I felt better. My body and mind responded to the idea of an adventure. I felt lighter. A heaviness disappeared and things began to flow.

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Ask and You Shall Receive!

Kelley Kosow

Often, people think that as a life coach or teacher of personal growth and transformation, I know how to "do life" better than others and can somehow fly above life's ups and downs. Although I, like many life coaches, do have a big toolbox full of techniques, practices, and knowledge to support me in traversing life's challenges, I have found that in certain emotionally charged situations, all that I know is definitely not the cure-all for all that I feel.

The past few months, I have been dealing with a situation which I thought I should be able to process, deal with, work out, fix, find peace with, and move on. I have read about it, sought help from professionals, healers, and teachers, and looked at my core wounds, projections, and automatic self-sabotaging behaviors. On a cognitive level, I understand what is being triggered and how I should handle it. But the truth is, there is an ache inside of me that just won't go away. (Now let me pause and say that since I am a big believer on calling myself on my own BS, it is very true that on some level I might be getting something from holding on to my pain. However, that is another newsletter and teaching.)

This past week, another incident occurred in this ongoing situation which triggered another palpable response inside of me. I knew that I had to dig deeper in my attempt to heal and grow. I had to find other resources. I just had no idea who or what to turn to. I was so caught up in my own drama, I did not realize that the answer to my search was sitting on my nightstand.

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Can Prayer Save Your Life?

Arielle Ford

Although she passed away five years ago, my sister, the beloved spiritual teacher Debbie Ford, has left a powerful legacy with her new book, YOUR HOLINESS.

Through world-renowned medium, James Van Praagh, I received a clear message that she wanted to share with the world a life-changing prayer book. I had no idea that she had written such a book, but once James shared the messages, a quick search unearthed this beautiful, enlightening, and inspiring work.

What you may not know about Debbie and WHY she wrote this book:

Decades ago, Debbie was a drug addict.

At a certain point she knew that if she didn’t get help, she was going to die.

On the tenth day of her 4th rehab center, she was getting ready to run away in search of drugs. Instead, she went into a bathroom, with a very dirty floor, she got on her hands and knees and prayed, and God responded and gave her the strength to get sober.

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Stop Suffering

Peggy Kornegger

So much of our personal suffering is self-imposed. We struggle against the way life is unfolding, trying to force certain outcomes. When we fail, we are miserable. Our minds replay our supposed failures over and over again, triggering memories of past “failures” so that finally we are drowning in an avalanche of suffering. We see ourselves as victims, barely able to carry on beneath the burden of unfulfilled dreams, of life’s unfairness. The promise of abundant possibilities and self-fulfillment seems to elude us again and again. What if we are only living out our mind’s perception of life—a self-constructed illusion that keeps us trapped in struggle and unhappiness? Our personality self, or ego, which is connected to the mind, engages in the world at the level of effort and trying. Our souls exist in connection to a Higher Self, or God. When we completely surrender to something greater than our own individual personality selves, we let go of suffering as a way of life.

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Ask the Friend for Love – exploring living prayer

Tara Brach

Prayer, when cultivated consciously, energizes and guides us on the spiritual path. This talk investigates the difference between wanting, with its narrow fixation, and the prayer that arises out of our deep heart’s longing. We explore how living prayer, the prayer that arises from consciously inhabiting longing, can carry us home to loving presence. As John O’Donahue writes, prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging. ~ (a favorite talk from 2010).