Latest / Energy With Alex / 8. Finding My Way Back to Prayer

Transcript

8. Finding My Way Back to Prayer · Energy With Alex

• Alex Williams: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Energy with Alex podcast. I'm Alex, your host, and this is your space to romanticize your life so that you can drop into the present moment and find magic in every single day. This is also a place you can always come to for honest truths and deep conversations and a lot of fun too. I am so excited to have you here. Let's get started. Hello everybody, welcome back. I am so excited for another episode. Things have been really great over here. I went to Kansas City and I did my 10K and it went fantastically. I PR'd by 45 seconds, I believe, which was really fun because I have never ran in the cold before. So that was an experience. It was like 39 degrees when we started running. And I was wearing gloves, I was wearing a sweater at first. I felt like I couldn't feel my legs, which was a very, very strange experience. I am not a big fan, honestly. I obviously prefer it over like the 85 degree humidity days in Georgia when I was training over the summer. But I am gonna have to get used to being cold because that is like my least favorite feeling ever. So yeah, but then it warmed up, the sun came up, and I just I felt really good and it was a fantastic trip. Everybody in my family ran a different race, and my sister-in-law ran her first ever marathon. And my goodness, it is first of all, I'm so proud of her for everything that she accomplished and just seeing the five months of training that she put into this and like seeing it all actually come into fruition on that day. And also there is something so profound about cheering on everybody else that was there as well. That was like we're all there trying to reach our goals, different paces, different distances, different races. Especially at the marathon finish, I got to see just people crossing that finish line, crying, families cheering their people on. And it was just. This beautiful expression of humanity that I just feel so grateful to witness. And it just keeps reminding me to always set goals that feel a little bit scary, that feel a little bit out of reach. And that's kind of the point of life because a lot of those people didn't know if they could actually do it. Usually 20 miles is the the longest long run that you do in a training plan. So so many of these people that were running. When they reached mile 20, they still had a whole nother 10K, which is the distance that I ran as my actual race. They still had a whole nother 10K with distances they've never ran before and didn't even know if they were fully capable of doing it or not. I mean, obviously you can train for it, and a lot of them were able most people were able to get through it successfully. But it just reminds me to set goals that feel slightly uncomfortable and out of reach, train for it and just prove to yourself, prove to your body, to your mind, to your spirit just how capable you actually are. So if there's a goal that feels a little bit stretchy that you've been wanting to reach lately, this is me telling you and and inviting you to join in on that as well. Take the chance, take the leap, make a big goal and Train for it. It doesn't have to be a race, it doesn't have to be a run, but whatever it is, work towards something that gives you even more purpose every day, something that you can work for, you can track your growth in so many different ways. It's just a beautiful way to remind ourselves that this is one of the best things about being human is that we get to continually see what it is that we can do, and yeah, so. That was a really beautiful weekend for me and I'm really happy to be back. I currently have my puppy Chai on well, she was on my lap. Now she's just kind of like sitting behind me. So hopefully she is on her best behavior today. I just, I don't know, it probably would make more sense to like put her in a room while I record, but I just love having her near me. She brings me so much joy, and I just think she's the cutest little thing, and I just she wants to follow me everywhere. So Go right ahead, girl. Anyways, so this is what I wanted to talk a little bit about today. The topic of prayer. This is an interesting one. And I don't really have too many notes on it because I kind of just want to see what comes forward today. I think that this is a message that a lot of people are ready to hear, or a lot of people are curious to hear more about. And it's not really something I hear. talked about too too often. And so I just wanted to kind of play around with this in this episode today. Just the way that prayer for me has personally evolved and the different ways that prayer has played a part in my life. the ways that maybe it has hurt me, the ways that it it has empowered me and where I'm at with it all now. My very first episode is about my story being raised as a Jehovah's Witness. So if you haven't listened to that one yet, that I think is my most popular episode yet. So I would love to hear your thoughts and if you connect with anything on that. So go ahead and give that one a listen if you haven't already. But just as a little recap, I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. And then when I was about 18 years old, I left that religion. And I'm 31 now, so it's definitely been a journey for me. And I've definitely been through a lot just leaving and deconstructing and figuring out who I am and what my own beliefs are without someone or some community or society or leaders telling me what I have to believe in order to belong. So that's been a pretty big journey for me. And one thing that I think is interesting throughout it all is following the thread. Through the lens of prayer. Like, how has prayer played a part for me throughout all of this? So the way that I used to pray, or the way that I was raised to believe was the correct way to pray, was it was always to a specific being, God, or Jehovah God is what I was taught to call him. I would always pray to God, and that was kind of like the Only way to pray. And it was pretty structured. It's like when I would pray a lot of times before bed, and I mean every night before bed, if throughout the day, if there are things that were troubling me. I mean, in the Bible it does say, like, give all of your worries or anxieties to God. And so in that way, it was really impactful. It made me feel protected to know that when I was feeling anxiety or I was feeling overwhelmed, I had this form of prayer, this form of communication that I could reach towards. And I always knew that God was listening. And I honestly did feel the support, or maybe I believed at the time like the Holy Spirit. Was reaching back out to me and I did feel comfort. So when I would pray, whether it was at the end of a long day before bed or in moments when I was feeling stressed, or just throughout the day, when I would pray, I really did feel a peace come over me. And so that was a beautiful plus or pro that would come from the kind of prayer that I did growing up. and I did love that. Some of the I guess cons, or I don't even want to label things as negative or positive, but something that might have had more of a negative effect on me was just the structure around prayer and just feeling like it had to be a certain way. So while praying to God did help me a lot, there were also a lot of restrictions on how I could pray. for example, a lot of times you pray before your meal to thank God for your food. But then if you're with other people, you want to pray as well. Or you'd pray before a Bible study or If you're with a group of people, you usually start the event with prayer a lot of times if you all are on board with that. And something interesting about the religion I was raised in specifically was Women, they could pray, like we could pray to God individually. And if we were with a group of other women or sisters, they would call it, you could have somebody pray. However, if you were praying around a man and it was a group prayer, the man would always have to pray. It was even like if an adult woman was there to pray, but there was A much younger boy or man, teenager, whatever, if they were there because of their gender, because they are technically a man, so they should be more of a leader than a woman, they would have to be the one that prays. a woman can't lead a prayer if there is a man, a boy, or anyone else there. So if for some reason, I don't know, let's say There is a man there, but he has a very sore throat and he can't pray that day or something. I don't know. I'm trying to think of a specific reason why the woman would have to open it up in prayer, then she would have to wear a head covering. She would have to cover her head as a form of respect and humility in front of the man. And so while, as I said, I did feel loved and empowered. When I would pray to God myself, there was always this kind of sense of me being like the weaker gender or just not empowered in that way. Because I knew if I was with a group of people and there was men around, they're always going to take top priority in order to be allowed to talk to God for the group. So I thought that was always an interesting thing. But you know, when you are raised a certain way. And those are the rules, you kind of learn that those are the rules. Now, later on, when I left, and I can look back, I can realize that feeling like I'm not capable of praying for other people just because there is a man around, that to me now feels like it takes away my power a bit. I don't like the way that that feels. And it's not any way that I would want to continue forward in my own belief systems that I've started to gather now. so that was kind of how I prayed back in the day. I followed those rules and I always prayed specifically to Jehovah God. one other plus is praying as often as I did when I was younger. It did foster within me this love, this passion for the divine, for the connection that I felt like I had to something greater than me, to something out there in the cosmos. Even though I was only allowed to believe in one specific God, it still gave me this beautiful feeling of connection, something bigger than just myself. Because when you are On earth as a human, and you're going through so much, it can feel easy to feel isolated, to feel like you're doing this all on your own, to feel alone, confused. And so reminding yourself or creating that habit of reaching out to something more than just this physical human version of yourself reminds you. That there is so much more going on behind the scenes than we realize. it does help with anxiety and it does help with overwhelm because a lot of times when we're just in the human mind and something happens that is threatening to take us out of our power or to make us feel like it's the end of the world. And then we take a moment to kind of step out of the human mind and pray to something beyond us. It just reminds me that there's so much more going on and helps me realize that there's a bigger picture here. Maybe this situation, it might be very big to me and it doesn't undermine that, but it also reminds me that it's okay if things aren't always going perfectly in my life. There's always a greater purpose. There's always more things happening behind the scenes. Take a deep breath and realize that it's not the end of the world. I'm going to be okay. It's just part of the complexities of being human. So that's something I really love about prayer. Now, another thing that I thought was interesting though is when you do teach someone that there's only a very specific way to pray, and only a very specific being that you can pray to is as we get older and we grow and we evolve. I mean, I had a huge shift and transformation and Painful, painful way of kind of growing out of these belief systems. But even beyond that, maybe you haven't left a childhood religion or you aren't having such a huge moment of change. But throughout our life, especially as we start to grow from teenagehood to early adulthood and onward, we begin to Detach more and more from our parents and from our family and those systems. And we start to figure out what it is that we actually believe. And so as we grow and we evolve, our beliefs are going to grow and evolve. And that's not a bad thing. That's just taking all of the things we've learned from our own family and our own community that we grew up in. And then we're starting to take things. Maybe we went to college, or maybe we traveled or moved somewhere else, or just met more people as we got older. We start to collect more experiences and more viewpoints and perspectives from other people and other experiences that we've made. And we start to kind of collect them to create this beautiful mosaic of experiences and It creates a whole new belief system of who we are, who this person is. I mean, we're not supposed to be exactly how we were when we were 16 years old. We were completely shaped by the people around us at that time that have always told us what is true and what is false and who we are. And that's totally fine. I mean, that's how it's intended to be in the family system. And then if you tap on top of that. The idea that you're raised in a pretty strict religion or just religion in general, that adds another layer of ways that you're supposed to be or the person you're supposed to become. so as you grow up a little bit more and you become in your twenties and your thirties and more, obviously your brain and your identity is going to Shape itself differently over and over and over again. And every single year we should be finding out more things about ourselves, more ways that we view the world now. I think that that is a beautiful thing. And if we were only raised to believe that there's a certain way that we're allowed to pray and to a certain person or being or God that we're allowed to pray to, and that's it. Then when our belief systems do start to change, especially if it's in a more grand way than it was before or more than the typical person, then it can feel kind of unsettling because you're like, Am I allowed to keep praying? What if it's not exactly the same God? Or what if I have a little bit of a different viewpoint on how I view God? Am I still allowed to pray to God? Who is God? And that can kind of cause some isolation and make you really feel into your humanness again without reaching back out to anything bigger than yourself. That's what I found for me, anyways. When I left at 18 and I went through a long period of time throughout my 20s where I just I was really stripped from everything that I believed and it was very unsettling. It was like I was in this wishy-washy state where I didn't have my old belief systems anymore, but I didn't yet know where I stood with myself. And so I didn't feel like I had the right to continue to pray because I was always told that prayer was to Jehovah God. But now I was kind of. Grieving the God that I grew up to believe in, because I didn't know if that was the God that I worshiped anymore. I at that point didn't even know if I believed in God at all. But I missed prayer as a part of my daily routine deeply. I mean, I might not have said that at the time, but it felt like a piece of me was missing. Because when you do pray to something bigger than yourself, and then all of a sudden that line of communication is gone. It feels like there is an emptiness within you because that's part of your daily routine. It's a beautiful way of energy healing, honestly, that so many of us have. And so in those moments of fear and overwhelm and anxiety, it's so much easier to turn to different vices or different unhealthy ways for me to handle that stress. And just like this. Overwhelming sadness of feeling like I lost the connection to something bigger than myself. that is something that I kind of blocked out in that chapter of my life. I didn't pray at all. I definitely didn't use the word prayer, even if let's say I'm feeling really anxious and I'm like, I don't know if you've ever had an anxiety attack or a panic attack, and you're just almost praying, like, please, please help me feel okay. Get me out of this. Let me be okay. Let me be safe. I didn't know who I was praying to. I didn't know what was happening, but I was reaching out to something. I wouldn't have called it prayer at the time. but there was definitely times in my life throughout my twenties where I was reaching out to some sort of comfort beyond me and refusing to call it prayer because I felt like I lost Prayer. Like I wasn't going to pray anymore because I left that belief system, which meant I kind of lost the right to pray, or I wasn't praying the right way anymore. So it didn't mean anything. It was just a very confusing time. It wasn't until I started to get into energy healing, Reiki breath work. my gosh, breath work was a fantastic way for me to start to heal my relationship with. Prayer. And I think the biggest reason why breath work and Reiki and energy healing has healed my relationship with prayer is because the biggest part with energy healing in any form is to start with an intention. Especially with breath work, having an intention ahead of time. It's like taking all of this fresh energy that you're about to create with your breath, and you're giving all of that energy a pathway to take. Somewhere to go. And so when you set an intention ahead of time, it's putting a little bit of structure on something that you're probably gonna go really deep in. When you're breathing for five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes onward, you are going to go to a lot of places, a lot of emotions might come up, a lot of memories might resurface, traumas might come up that you've been holding onto within the body for a very, very long time. Crying might happen, anger, whatever it may be, it can go a lot of places. And so when we set that intention ahead of time, it's putting a little bit of structure, kind of like that masculine energy on a very feminine energetic practice. It's adding a little bit of safety there. It's like, okay, this is what we're here to explore. This is my intention today. So now I trust that anything that comes up in this session, even though in the moment it might feel too overwhelming or it might feel really painful. I know it's for a purpose. I know it's following the intention. And then so often, more often than not, when we get out of it, we're like, okay, that felt really weird. It felt really crazy in the moment, but I see now what it was that this intention was trying to show me. So I would set intentions always before any session, breath work, energy healing, Reiki. I started to realize that my intentions kind of were prayers. I mean, I'm sitting there and I'm asking for something, whether it's a certain way that I'd like to feel after the session, whether it's something I'm ready to release from my body, whether it's something I'm ready to invite in, or clarity I'm trying to get in the stage of life that I'm in, whatever it may be, I am essentially praying. And that was one of the first times that I realized like, wait a second. Prayer doesn't have to be this super structured thing, like this outline that I have to follow to a very specific person. Prayer can just be speaking your wishes out loud just hoping that it's heard and trusting that it is heard by something greater than myself. I don't need to even know exactly what God I am praying for. In that moment, I'm actually praying. Myself a lot of times. It's like asking my higher self or asking the tools, the modalities that I'm using to get the thing that I'm trying to get in that moment. And that's a prayer. And that's just as worthy of a prayer as someone who's doing a more traditional prayer to their specific God that they've learned in religion. They're both important, they're both true, and they're both worthy. And that was when I started to realize, okay, do I feel safe saying that I pray again? I didn't know at the time. And I think it's important to kind of titrate those experiences as you are deconstructing and refiguring out what your beliefs are. It's okay to kind of play around with different things, like saying the word prayer and seeing how you feel. Maybe it still feels a little icky to say it. Maybe it's starting to feel a little safer. I don't know. Just play around with it. Try again. If at some point, maybe a couple months ago, you said that you're gonna pray, and then all of a sudden you had this feeling of panic in you, release it. Just say you're setting intentions. It doesn't, words are honestly just words. We put our own spin on it according to our own traumas and experiences and perspectives. And so we can change the words up. It doesn't matter. If the intention is there, it's there. Whether we're saying prayer, intentions, wishes, desires, whatever the words are, they can be interchangeable. Same thing with the word God. That was a really tricky word for me for a long time. I would never say God. I would say I would start to get comfortable with saying universe, source, higher power. But now I do use God a lot. And it has taken, I mean, I was 18 when I left and I'm 31 now. And It's only been the last few years, couple years, that I felt comfortable using the word God again. And that feels really good to know that I can kind of continue to grow and evolve and believe in different things and challenge myself to use words again and take back kind of the power that those words used to have on me and let it mean its own thing for me. So after I started playing around with the idea of intentions, that was when I started to realize that. I think I am starting to get comfortable with saying that I pray again. And I started playing around with praying before meals again. I was praying in a way of not just praying to God before my meals. It was like this prayer of gratitude. And I would usually start it with thanking everyone and everything that played a part in getting all of these ingredients together on my plate. That was kind of eye-opening for me because I'm I'm not really praying to one source for bringing this food to me. It's like this understanding, this interconnectedness of the world that let's say I'm eating a beautiful meal, eggs and bread tomatoes and garlic and all of that. let's say my husband cooked it. For us that morning. So I have so much gratitude for him. So it's like I'm sending this energy of gratitude towards him. But also, we got all those ingredients at the farmer's market or the grocery store. so there's like this gratitude that I'm sending to all of those people that played a part in that. There's people that had to grow those tomatoes. There's people that had to make that sourdough bread that I'm eating now. There's the chickens that gave me the eggs and the people that are raising the chickens in a humane way. then there's the people that drove the ingredients to the grocery store. There's the grocery store clerks that are charging me out for my food. There's me or Adam who paid for the groceries. Like there's so much to be thankful for just from that plate of food. And I didn't want to just pray to one thing that just kind of umbrellaed everything down, like it's responsible for everything. No, I wanted to send gratitude for everyone and everything that played a part. And so that opened my mind even more. And so now where I'm at is I pray constantly. I love prayer. It has completely come back into my life. In such a grander scale than I could have ever dreamed of. I still do pray to a God. I do pray to God, universe, source, because I do believe that there is that beautiful feeling that you get when you pray to source, when you pray to God, when you are reaching out and you actually feel that protection, or when you're trying to manifest something and you're in this co-creation process with God. I really do feel that and I love that I can feel that again and even greater than I ever felt before. And there are so many other spirits and energies that I can pray to now. And it just adds so much freedom and richness to my life. I pray to Mother Earth constantly when I especially am outside on a picnic blanket or I'm sitting in a chair in the sun and I've got my cup of cacao in the morning. I always add Mother Earth into my prayer because I mean I'm living on Earth. What a beautiful thing. I can feel her energy. She is what keeps me grounded and she is what brings so much beauty to the seasons, to the food that I eat, just to the fact that I'm able to be human. And I really do feel like it's helped my my struggles with anxiety. Because now when I am feeling anxious, I can create a grounding cord and ground down into Mother Earth, say a little prayers to her, and I really do feel that protection and that groundedness. Like I'm good, I'm taking care of here. I pray to Mama Cacao. cacao is a spirit herself. And so when I do drink cacao, I do so with reverence and with respect. I always set an intention and I pray. over my cup of cacao. We kind of talked about this a little bit w in the whimsy episode that I did recently as I speak my wishes out, my desires out for the day into my cup of cacao or over her. I can feel the steam like rising above me. And then as I drink it, I can really feel this co-creation process. It's like I have just prayed over her and now as I drink the cacao, I can feel the warmth traveling down my throat into my heart space. And it's just this really beautiful ritual that I get to do every single day that adds magic and beauty into my life. So I pray to Mom Cacao, Mother Earth, my higher self. This is a big one. I mean, especially if you do have religious trauma in any way that you're trying to work through or deconstruct from, you don't have to pray to a God or to a spirit or to anything at all. You can pray to yourself. Everybody can feel that energy of your future self, the part of you that really wants the best for you, the part of you that is reaching for those big goals, the part of you that knows what's best for you, the part of you that's not fully human. It's like I know that there's this part of me that is able to Make my dreams come true and pray to that version of you. Pray to the version of you that that is leading you every day to greatness, right? The person that made you sign up for that big goal. It's like, why did I do that? Because in the day-to-day, you're like, Am I capable? But when you signed up for that thing, that big goal, you did believe you were capable, or you wouldn't have. Signed up for it, and that was your higher self, right there. So pray to her, pray to that version of you. Pray to your inner child. My gosh, we all could connect more and more to our inner child. Our inner child is full of joy, it's full of childlike wonder, magic. We all deserve to have more play and more childlike joy in our lives. And so praying to our inner child. And then also our inner child probably has things that she's dealing with, maybe her own abandonment wounds, or ways that she was made to feel small or not worthy. Pray to her. Help her heart. And the more you connect with her and the more that you connect with play, the bigger and greater and more magical your life becomes. So pray to her. If that's all you do. Is just pray to your higher version of yourself or your future version and your inner child version of you. That's already a really beautiful, magical life. we don't even have to pray to the other spirits or the other gods right now if that feels like too much to you. when I I have a goddess deck, and so if I pull a goddess card for the day or for the season or the month or whatever it is, I'll pray to that goddess for wisdom. Gosh, there's just there's so many things that I pray to. just like realizing when I pray with my food for everything and everyone that played a part in it, it reminds me of how connected we all are. the same goes with prayer with other things. When I'm praying to a goddess or I'll pray to Jesus sometimes as a prophet. and gain clarity in that way if we're praying to these different spirits, these different goddesses, prophets, Mother Earth, Mama Cacao, there's so many different plants that we can pray to, oracle cards, it is a way to remind us that we are all divinely connected and that there are so many sources of protection and empowerment within our lives. It's a really cool thing now because my husband and I aren't traditionally religious. we don't go to church and we don't label ourselves as a certain religion. But something definitely has shifted recently. And, you know, after I really invited prayer back into my life in a grander scale. It's like this shift has happened within us. And now before meals, we pray with each other. We take turns. First of all, it's so healing for me that sometimes when we bow our heads to pray and we hold each other's hands, he's like, You pray. And it's such like a simple thing that happens. Like it's so normal that sometimes I have to remind myself, like, wow, I used to not be allowed to do this. I used to not be able to lead prayer. Ever, if there was a man here. And now my husband is here asking me to lead the prayer because he trusts me and he wants to hear what I have to say and the intentions I have for us that day, And it's just it's a really beautiful way to see and to track my own growth and my own story. And it's also just a beautiful way to connect deeper with someone. To just pray together. And when he prays, I love hearing the things that are on his heart for us and for himself and for our day and for the season of life that we're in. And we have so many reasons to be thankful. I mean, we literally bought our house this year. And that's another thing I'll pray for is I'll pray to the energy of this house because my gosh, it feels so meant to be. I mean, I'll tell that story one day on the podcast, but we manifested this house in 26 days, which the realtor was like in disbelief by how quickly and easily it happened. It was the only house we looked at and it was just kind of like, yep, this is the house. And I didn't need to look at any other place. we weren't even looking when we saw this house. And then we just we were interested in it and everything just seamlessly came together. And I believe that this house, these Walls that I'm in right now are here for my protection. And I it's one of my greatest manif manifestations to date. So I do I pray to the energy of this house to keep it safe, to keep us safe. And it's it's something that my husband and I never want to take for granted. This life that we are building. And so when you have people, it doesn't have to be your partner, it could be your friends, it could be your family, it could be. your cousins, it could be your coworkers, if you are working towards something together with someone that you care about and you're able to pray or just come together and and listen to what is on everybody's heart for that goal, it just expands the feelings of love and gratitude all around. so prayer for me is back in full swing and I'm never gonna let it go. I'm actually also praying to my spirit babies because I have felt like, especially my son, I know that I'm gonna have a son one day. I've felt his energy. I already know his name, and he has felt like he's floated around me for quite a long time, my spirit baby. and I do feel the energy of another baby as well, and I trust that they're gonna come down at the perfect time. Until then, I'll keep praying with them. I'll ask them, like, hey, I really want you to come so soon. And this is what I'm working on in my life right now. And while you are still up there in the cosmos, can you help me out and move things along for me and your future dad and get things going? And it just it's a way to continue to add magic into my life and feel connection to things other than just myself. And so that is my invitation to you is to open up your eyes and your perspectives on what prayer could mean for you. It doesn't need to look a certain way. We get to throw tradition out the window if we want to. If you're a very traditional person and you really do feel the strongest or the most confident praying to a certain God or a certain spirit or Or to yourself, or you don't even want to call it prayer, you want to call it something else, intentions, desires, whatever it is. I just invite you, though, to take some power back and let yourself feel into how it feels to take more control. You get to pray in a way that feels good for you. No one else can tell you how to pray. No one else can take that power away from you. You are a spiritual being having a human experience. And so allow yourself to have that spiritual experience again while you are human. Speak out to the spirits around you. Speak out to the energies of your home, of your higher self, your inner child, Mother Earth. Put your bare feet into the ground and just say a little prayer of gratitude for. Being here, being grounded in this earth for everything it's brought for you, the fact that you are in this body right now, living this life never to be recreated again. That is a miracle. And that's my invitation for you all today. I hope you all have a beautiful day, and I am excited to continue this conversation. Please always reach out to me. My Instagram is at energy with Alex They're always open to hear your thoughts if it's connected with you, if it's resonated, what else you'd like to hear. I'm here for it all. I love talking about religious things and spiritual aspects of life and just hearing the nuance of it all. So I will talk to you all soon. Thank you again so much for listening. It means the world to me. Bye. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Energy with Alex podcast. If you loved this conversation, it would mean so much if you could share it with your community and like, rate, and subscribe to the podcast so that I can continue having these incredible conversations every single week. I will see you next Thursday.