60

Sixty days feels like a milestone and I am grateful for all of it, even though it’s been just a touch on the messy side. Recently, I wrote about the importance of asking for what we want. Faith, even in the early stages, can give us a little bit of security and stability to find out who we are, and what we want and need, and we do most of that exploring through prayer, meditation, and waiting to see how the Universe responds.

And it turns out, you can’t really get what you want or need without asking. Often, we think other people should just know what we want and need. If they were thoughtful and paying attention, Gall darn it, they should just know. I think that sentiment might actually come from a place of not actually knowing ourselves or being unwilling to ask for it, because somewhere, deep down, we don’t believe we are worthy of even makign the request.

I can’t tell you how useful prayer and meditation has been for me as I explore my relationship with faith. I pray my little BLEEP off on regular occasion and ask for all kinds of stuff. I definitely do not get everything I want, not by a long shot, but I sure do get variations on it and regularly get way more than I bargained for.

After sixty days of praying constantly throughout the day, I can affirm that it works. I don’t really care if it works because God is actually getting involved or if it’s just a useful exercise in some kind of slapdash Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Constant prayer throughout the day is an active way to get to know ourselves better, elaborate on our true desire and aspirations, and seek the best life has to offer as if we deserve it.

I pray for some crazy BLEEP sometimes, stuff I am scared I won’t get or scared that I will, but it’s the act of asking that firms up what I’m really seeking in life and helps shape my faith moving forward. I think it’s also a very important step on the path to becoming an actualized human being (whatever that may mean to you). Once we get comfortable with asking Good or God for what we really want, then we might just have the gall to start asking for what we want from other people in the REAL. WORLD. GASP! 

I’ve made some big requests of people in the past few days, back to back, with a big fat BLEEP IT mentality to back them up. I realized I am allowed to ask for what I want. Nay, I have to, if I think I’m ever going to get it. I don’t hide my prayers from God, imagining I shouldn’t ask because they probably won’t work out. I am asking for everything under the sun and I have to say getting all kinds of productive and/or positive feedback, so it’s making me much, much more willing to do the same in real life, too. 

On the plus side, sixty days into this, I am aware that God (or Good) does indeed work in mysterious ways, so patience must be part of any request. That has to be built in. God is not the owner of a convenience store ready and available to satisfy our immediate desires. When making a request of Good, God, or humanity, we have to let them mull over the request, we have to let Good (or God) work in their hearts and minds, and see what happens.

I think, if we have faith in Good and our worthiness of it, the outcome is always in our favor, even if it isn’t what we asked for. There are lessons to be learned in any outcome, so long as we are open, paying attention, and focused on a positive future. I have prayed for things and people in my life that did not serve me, got what I wanted only to have it bite me in the BLEEP, and boy, did I gain some really valuable life experiences that were important in building faith and fine-tuning my self-understanding further. 

So, I highly recommend prayer and meditation. Particularly prayer. Get on your knees or not. Clasp your hands or not. Say your prayers out loud or quietly in your head. Either way God (or Good) is listening, and so are you.