Prayer
Practice
“A
spiritual practice of prayer can remind us that happiness does not come from a
degree, a job, a car. We could call this kind of medicine that acknowledges the
collective influence on our health “collective medicine” or “the medicine of
the one mind.” When something happens, even far away from us in time or space,
it influences the one mind. Being able to see that is essential to
understanding collective medicine,”
Thich
Nhat Hanh (The Energy of Prayer, p.93-94, Parallax Press, 2006)
There’s a lot of emphasis on the body when it comes to health. What we eat, how much sleep we get, how much exercise. All of that is important but it is low-hanging fruit. We also must pay attention to our mind, and the mind of the collective world. We humans send messages to ourselves every day; off-the-cuff messages such as, I am so stupid, or what a klutz I am, or I can’t think straight, and on and on. We think these things without saying them out loud, but our body hears our thoughts, and it responds to those messages.
We also tend not to think much
about the effect that events around the world and the political climate have on
our bodies. It should not surprise us that we feel relieved since our political
leadership changed, that we feel better and somehow lighter, even though the
pandemic is still in full swing. We are not getting fear and hate messages
every single day, and our bodies respond to that, even though there is a Senate
trial looming in our future.
The
reason a practice of prayer influences health is that it is hopeful and
optimistic. We pray for people and events and for good things to happen. Even
when we pray in the middle of a crisis, it is a message of hope and
expectation. Optimism overall improves our immune system and calms our nervous
system. When we don’t entertain negative or fearful thoughts, we send a message
to our bodies to calm down and function properly. On a physiological level, we
activate our parasympathetic nervous system, which takes our fight-or-flight
response to threat off-line, slows the pumping of adrenalin, and brings systems
that had been suppressed back into action. We feel better and we sleep better,
so our bodies heal faster, and we have less pain.
Lest we
think that events outside our personal lives don’t affect us or our health, remember
that the gravity of the moon causes the tides. If the moon can move our oceans,
which cover 71% of the planet, it can also affect us since our bodies are mostly
water—fully 60%. The heart and brain are 73%, the lungs, 83%, skin 64%, muscles
and kidneys 79%--even our bones are 31% water. Events far and near affect our
health because our bodies are like the earth—are part of the earth. And regular prayer
is one way we can help both our planet and our bodies. Entering a meditative
state and speaking or thinking words of faith and hope and expectation is one
small gift we can give to ourselves and to the world. So why wouldn’t we do that? Consider
it our one-a-day, multi-energy, soul vitamin.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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