Heal the Insanity with Step Two Meditation: Let Go and Let God

It Starts With Intention

Step Eleven - Part 2
It’s a little before 9:00 PM on Friday the 13th and I am enjoying listening to the wind as I sit typing a few thoughts on Prayer and Meditation. Tonight I am participating in a “lock-in” @ my church with 19 adolescents and 5 other adults as a part of our J2A ( journey to adulthood ) program.Right now there are two groups in other areas of the church and I am really enjoying a little quiet time and feel very close to my higher power a.k.a. - God…Since embarking on this journey called “recovery” or “sobriety” my life has completely changed. One of the greatest blessings I have received is being part of a community. Giving back to others makes me feel li

Step Eleven
“Sought through Prayer and Meditation to improve OUR conscious contact”This is a tall order. I just spent the last fifteen minutes or so sitting quietly in my home office this AM, attempting to meditate. The lights were out and it is 6:15AM…the only light in the room was a single candle. Pretty spiritual huh? This depends. Monday’s can be a little daunting; I have a job ( thank you Father ) and it can be quite stressful.The thoughts that ran through my head during this “meditation” were mainly positive. I struggle with choosing what to focus on. Somehow I have attached my job to who I am. We are so much more than what we do.

The Joy of Praying
As a member of the Jewish faith, I have been doing a lot of praying in the past few weeks. The High Holiday rituals include many prayers, most of them recited in Synagogue with the community. Some of the prayers express our repentance, some our commitments. Some prayers express our relationships, some our yearnings. Some prayers are solemn, some are informal. No matter what prayer I am reciting, no matter what emotion I am expressing, there is always a common thread to all my readings: The privilege of having a relationship with G-d. That privilege fills me up with Joy. Joy can express itself in many channels. There is external joy that is very visual and easy for others to obse

Rewards and gifts of prayer and meditation
Rewards of prayer and meditation. First, let us consider some basic questions and ideas, as they will relate to this blog entry.What is a reward? A gift or compensation for an effort or actionDoes this mean prayer and meditation are difficult or require substantial effort to gain a reward?Yes. No.For some, their personal connotation of these words will cause them to be difficult to achieve. These are folks who have allowed the words (prayer, meditation) to become entangle with and overshadowed by their perception of the word religion. These may be folks who have developed a general aversion to religion and are not aware that religion and spiri