Let Go of Worries Using a Homemade Prayer Jar

I wanted to share with you one of the ways that I have been changing my habitual tendency to choose fear and instead reprogram my thoughts towards love.

Recently, I started keeping a prayer jar on my altar.

Every time that I have feelings of peace and love for another I write their name on a small slip of paper and place it in the jar.

Any time I feel worried about another person, I write their name on a piece of paper and I place it in the jar,

If I have anger or irritation, or an expectation of someone, judgments…if I feel a wanting or neediness from someone, I place the name of that person on a slip of paper and I place it in the jar.

Each time I write down the name, I bless this person. I thank this person. I send them love. I send them light.

Or I may imagine them being surrounded by light.

Sometimes I put the same person’s name in there multiple times in a day. Sometimes I will put my own name in the jar.

Then in my meditation, I bless the entire jar, seeing it with light. I say a prayer for everyone I have placed in there. I hold the jar in my hands sometimes and really infuse it with love and light.

And can I tell you, it feels really good!

This is one practice that really helps me experientially feel the inner truth of giving and receiving being one and the same.

It feels wonderful to shift any feelings of fear that I have and turn them into love in this way. Quite honestly, completely natural, and it’s so simple.

Most of the time…

Sometimes I feel such a strong pull of fear and am being hijacked by feelings of separation. In those moments it feels more natural to choose fear. I feel myself resisting sending out light and love.

 Why would we resist doing something like this?

Old tapes. Learned ideas about the world that feel like they are serving a purpose but they are actually just limiting now. They feel real. And can sometimes feel like an insurmountable hurdle to get over. We have so many fears that we have accepted as true, that we don’t even realize how deeply we’ve bought in at times. And when we actually realize we are on this groove of fear and we attempt to switch up our thinking, the fear will lash out stronger at first which can make it feel even more difficult to switch off of it because its message gets so loud.

In behavioral psychology this is called a behavioral burst. When we try to switch up a behavior that is ingrained, i.e. in this case a thought pattern, the behavior and all of it’s emotions will peak, sending out a signal more intensely because it assumes that a louder signal will get the results that it “wants”.

Think of a dog who normally comes to the table for food and you give it some periodically, and then one day you stop. What will it do initially? Bark louder, try harder!

What we have to do is realize what it is that we TRULY WANT. In the moment it may feel that we WANT what pain and misery are telling us, but if we really look into the feeling we see that pain and misery are actually reminders that we are in need of what we REALLY WANT.

It’s kind of mind blowing when you really look at anxiety, anger, fear.

For instance, when it comes to this exercise and I am feeling fearful, anxious, or angry about someone or for someone, and I look closely at this emotion,  I realize I am actually experiencing LACK of love.

I am actually focusing on the lack of love that I have for someone in this moment, am believing at some level that they need to give me the love that I want, and I am BLAMING them for not giving it to me.

How can this be helpful to anyone?

My ego would like to convince me that expressing these forms of LACK will benefit someone. I have trained myself continuously for a very long time to “care” this way. To “protect” this way.

Yet this “way” causes me pain. It keeps me miserable. It leads to behaviors that can cause pain to others. And I feel separate from others.

 When I am anxious about someone..I am worried about their well being.

When I am anxious about myself..I am worried about my own well being, my peace, and my love being taken away. Or maybe I am worried that I won’t get any peace and love in the first place.

When I am angry, I am feeling like someone or something has done something to take away my peace and love. I judge myself as missing something and I judge and attack the other person for “doing” this to me. How does remaining in anger do anything to help this situation? How does attacking another person and myself further give me what I want?

Even if someone does something that really justifies this anger, how does my sending anger their way help them or me?

So I’m doing something different. When I am feeling LACK of love..instead I SEND love. I recognize that I cannot GET love from the outside. That there is NOTHING anyone can do on the outside to GIVE me that love anyways.

 I recognize that anyone else who is pain, anyone else who is experiencing anger, fear, anxiety, is operating from a LACK of love in that moment too.

I recognize that when we are all experiencing LACK of love it just means that we need MORE LOVE.

 I recognize that the LACK I am feeling is actually SPACE for LOVE to seep in from

 I then ALLOW it to come in.

I visualize the LOVE filling my body, like a beautiful light filled rain shower.

I feel it filling up my body, every cell and expanding outward.

I experience my heart expanding and my body softening.

There.

I am now filled with LOVE and the beautiful thing is once I AM filled there is PLENTY to SHARE.

I am FREE NOW to GIVE this LOVE.

And the other funny thing that happens next is, I start to RECEIVE MORE LOVE to myself just by GIVING.

Try it out and let me know how it goes for you;

Here are some of the new "rules" I live by:

The freedom to get things dirty.

The willingness to listen to what my body is telling me.

The acknowledgement that my true self knows best.

The radical idea that the answers I need are within me.

The magical perspective that everything happens in the right timing.

The surrendering practice of expressing, trusting and feeling as the gateway to connection and meaning.

The life-changing phenomenon that whatever is in me can be expressed creatively in front of me.

And so many more . . .

Slow Down in Forward Fold

I remember when I started yoga, I was still living from my perfectionist, do gooder, all or nothing protective parts. I wasn't even aware of these parts (which I have to say, was quite nice at the time for as most of us know on this journey, ignorance in the short term is bliss).

My first yoga class was at 18 and through my 20's I would practice off and on. Gentle, hatha, ashtanga, yin, flow. I'd take two classes in a row. Feel blissed out afterwards, then check out at home..because that was what I did.

I'd take a yin class, love the way my muscles felt, but the chatter in my brain was so loud and critical and judgmental I eventually stopped going because I couldn't stand the teacher any more.

At the time, I felt like he chatted so much, I couldn't find stillness, I felt overstimulated. I didn't realize at the time his chattiness was competing with my own minds commentary. 

So where does a forward fold come in? I have to smile when I think about how much I get out of ONE POSE now.

My previous self would have called me lazy, weak, unmotivated. Luckily, I don't listen to that voice nearly as much anymore. Doing ONE POSE is so completely nourishing, such a great way to listen to the conversation within our bodies between the muscles, emotions, and thoughts. And does it help release!

If you can do an entire sun salutation and stay connected and release, that is wonderful. Keep doing that which feels good. But many of us are on a different stage of the process and we have to start slow to stay connected.

Over time, the nerve connections will start to gel and the mind body will be more integrated and you can "do more" (to satisfy that achieving brain:).

That is if you want to. No presh.  But remember, less is more as my Restorative Yoga Teacher always would repeat. There is so much MORE in this moment. So savor it and listen to it for all it's worth.

Feel into the pose completely.

Feel every breath, texture, fiber, and sway of energy and let yourself be immersed in it. This is how we heal. Through releasing as we are connected to the compassionate witness within. This is the true surrender.

Which is why I chose Forward Fold. What's more surrendering than a pose that can be done almost anywhere, by almost anyone, at any given time. What's more releasing than letting whatever you don't want anymore roll off your back, giving it up and sending it off into the earth?

To Forward Fold this Way or To Forward Fold that Way- That is the Only Question :)

Some places to practice!

In a Chair:

At a Desk

Sitting on the floor or on a bolster or blanket

Standing

Enjoy!!