A first-person reflective YouTube monologue titled "Prayer" describing a personal morning ritual of spoken intentions and hand gestures. The speaker uses the ritual to empty ordinary thoughts and request qualities (purity, presence, trust, courage, tenderness, healing toward the body) so that a deeper, more tender part of themselves can emerge and prepare them for daily encounters.
I would like you to talk more about prayer. How do you pray in the morning? Well, first of all, prayer for me is getting my ordinary thoughts out of the way, emptying out, and just being in a state of asking for greater purity. And I have no idea who I'm asking. I don't know if it's really God or whether it's my higher nature or what it is. But I know that the very act of purifying my intention or asking really helps. So in the morning, I put my hands up like this, and I'm asking for as much purity, trust, peace, courage, faith. And each morning it's a different one of the essential qualities as possible to emerge during the day. And then I put my hands here, and I ask, may I be as present in the moment as much as possible during the day? And then I put my hands here, and I ask, may the tone of voice that comes through my voice carry as much sincerity and heart as possible. And then I put my palms here and I ask may I have a healing relationship to my body and be as kind with the muscular system and send as much loving kindness to my body as much as possible. And the combination of all those really supports being awake during the day. And what I found as a ritual is that it really does prepare me for who I'm going to see during the day. So sometimes in the middle of being here, it might be awareness, might flash of, oh, I'm going to see George. And George usually needs me to be strong because George is someone that just kind of needs more of that element. So strength will come. Or I'll be at my tone of voice, and I'll be thinking, so and so really needs me to be tender. So I'll just flash on a quality of tenderness. And so what happens is it's an internal asking for my ordinary thinking process to kind of vacate and the deeper part of being to emerge as much as possible. And I recognize it's not my will that can do is, however, an opening to something a little bit more delicate and tender and unknown to have a space to exist. That's fascinating. That really is.
