What is Prayerful Meditation and Why Should We Bother?

I often hear prayer described as a form of worship. This can be a very restrictive way to look at it though.

Prayer is one form of worship, but there are countless other ways to engage in prayer and it can be practiced in many beautiful, and perhaps unusual ways.

Praying and meditating on our thoughts creates a pathway of trust in both ourselves and our higher power.

While church and fellowship are very important, time spent alone with the god of our understanding is an extremely positive way to become more grounded and connected.

It is a blessing to have the words that exist in formal and traditional prayers as well.

This is comforting and can also join us as a community.

However, the internal dialog that meditation brings us in regards to our agenda, behavior, attitude and intentions is a very empowering addition to our spiritual lives.

By examining these things in the presence of god alone, we are honest.

Guess what?

I am aware that I am imperfectly human.

I do wrong things.

I have bad thoughts.

I am sometimes selfish, deceitful, spiteful, jealous, in despair and can cling to resentments.

These things are humbling, but with this practice of making myself accountable to my higher power, I can look forward to each day as an opportunity to do better.

With a clean slate.

My personal favorite form of prayer is what I call 'meditative prayer'.

In fact, I never fail to bless all of my personal meditations by first invoking the god of my understanding.

The method I use is to first allow myself to acknowledge the blessings that are in my life today. I also ask that my eyes be opened to see the blessings that I may not even be aware of, but they are there nonethless.

I ask for protection and guidance and express my thankfulness in advance.

At this point there is a limitless number of directions I can choose.

Here are some of my favorites:

It may come as no surprise that my personal view on both prayer and meditation are that they not separate, they are one and the same to me.

There is another reason why this is so important though.

When we carve out a space and a time to focus on a prayerful meditation, we are also using tools and techniques that have a very powerful effect on our minds, our bodies and our spirits!

First of all, we are generally in a private and quiet space. Some gentle background music can be used to add a soothing atmosphere and provide additional focus. Lighting a scented candle or applying a bit of essential oil is yet another method of using our senses to be present for this practice.

By always beginning with a few deep, cleansing breaths we add yet another healthful way of initiating a state of relaxation.

These results are something that we come to look forward to with regular practice.

This means that when I am feeling stressed, anxious, fearful or having any negative reaction to life there is always something I can do to relieve the unpleasantness and uplift myself.

While the reason for my distress does not disappear, this can empower me to see it differently or to discover ways to deal with it more effectively.

One more thing I do periodically when I pray is to take a mental and physical inventory at the start. I call it a body scan.

I begin with my mind and simply observe where I may be obsessing or worrying.

Then I start with my head and move downward through my body and notice, without trying to fix anything where tension, pain, inflamation or any other noticable problem exists.

It is generally a short process to go back and beginning with my mind, intentionally relax each area.

If there is time I will do the relaxation exercise upon completion of the prayerful meditation session as I bring my focus back to the present.

Do you practice prayer and or meditations that bring you a positive experience? Feel free to share in the comments section.