The Only Little Prayer You Need: The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind - Softcover

Engle, Debra Landwehr

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1571747184 ISBN 13: 9781571747181

Verlag: Hampton Roads Publishing Co, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

"We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace." --His Holiness, the Dalai Lama

These six words--please heal my fear-based thoughts--change lives. In this brief and inspiring book, based on Engle's study of A Course in Miracles, she explains how to use the prayer and experience immediate benefits:

• being less irritable, more patient
• laughing more
• feeling like you have more time, more energy
• worrying less
• making decisions more easily
• saying no without guilt

A typical prayer goes something like this: "Please help us find the money to pay our mortgage this month." Saying the prayer may help you feel like the burden of that month's mortgage has been lifted, but the part of you that feeds on fear will simply seek out new financial worries to keep you awake at night. Old patterns remain intact.

In contrast, asking, "Please heal my fear-based thoughts about our mortgage" lifts the burden AND relieves the need to re-create that fear and hold onto it. This prayer heals your very desire for burdens, your addiction to fear-based thoughts, freeing you to live without that fear and with greater peace of mind. As a result, your financial situation is also free to improve. That's what makes it so different.

One Facebook fan told Engle, "The most blessed aspect of this prayer is all the open space it creates for peace--I never knew how many fear-based thoughts were clogging up in me until... this prayer."

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Debra Landwehr Engle is the originator and facilitator of Tending Your Inner Garden workshops and a longtime teacher of A Course in Miracles, as well as a widely traveled inspirational speaker. Her websites include www.goldentreeco.com and www.tendingyourinnergarden.com.

Tenzin Gyatos, His Holines the XIV Dalai Lama, is the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He is widely rrecognized as an advocate of world peace and has received many honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

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The Only Little Prayer You Need

The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind

By Debra Landwehr Engle

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Copyright © 2014 Debra Landwehr Engle
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57174-718-1

Contents

Blessing from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, 
Preface, 
1: The Prayer, 
2: What It Means, 
3: What Is Fear?, 
4: How Does Fear Impact Your Life?, 
5: What Makes This Prayer Different?, 
6: How Do You Say the Prayer?, 
7: Paying Attention to Your Thoughts, 
8: What Can You Expect When You Start?, 
9: What Happens Over Time?, 
10: How Does the Prayer Work in Real Life?, 
11: How the Prayer Can Change the World, 
Q&A, 
And Finally, 

CHAPTER 1

The Prayer

* * *

It was January 11, 2013, and I felt like it had already been a long year. Earlier in the week, I'd made a significant mistake with a major client. And, even though everyone on my project team was gracious and understanding, I had a hard time forgiving myself for it. In fact, at three o'clock the next morning, I woke up panicked that I'd sent the wrong file to the same client. I felt like someone had shoved a lit torch down my throat.

Tired, and clearly not in the best of moods, I drove with my husband, Bob, to pick up our Honda CR-V at the body shop. The driver's door had been damaged in a minor accident at a grocery store parking lot. After renting a series of cars, I was ready to climb into a vehicle that fit me again.

When I did, I was pleased to see that the dent was repaired, as was the gap between the window and the doorframe. Bob opened my driver's door to check it out.

"It looks good," I said. "I'm happy."

But the door didn't close properly. Bob opened it and shut it harder, but he had to slam it before it latched. My mood, which had been momentarily lifted, started again on a downward slope.

Bob talked to the body shop manager and made arrangements for more repair in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, we figured, we could go ahead and return the rental.

I drove the CR-V, following Bob down the highway toward the interstate. Before long, I heard a rattle in the dash, then a vibration. Every time I hit a bump in the road, it seemed like the rattles got worse—and so did my attitude.

It's not really fixed, I thought. It has to go back to the shop, and it'll never be right. From there, my thoughts took a nosedive. I thought about the fact that the accident had been preventable. It wouldn't have happened if I'd been driving instead of Bob. My thoughts headed fast into a cesspool, all blaming Bob, the body shop mechanic, or myself for weeks of inconvenience, expense and frustration. As I drove, I become more miserable.

I don't know about you, but I've spent way too much time in that cesspool during my life. Despite the fact that I've long been a student of spiritual traditions, meditation, and spiritual practices—I've even taught them for many years—I still find my thoughts drifting too much to the negative. I can easily fall into irritation or frustration. When I'm stressed, I'm unkind and snippy, sometimes downright mean.

As we arrived at the car dealership to return the rental, I was exhausted. Not just from the last few minutes of negative thinking, but from years of it. In this case, I was afraid the CR-V would never be right. I was afraid I'd never forgive Bob. I was afraid I'd always be mad that he was driving the day of the accident. I was afraid we wouldn't get reimbursed from the insurance company. I was afraid, as I've been many times before, that I would continue to be unhappy.

I had had all these thoughts, or some facsimile of them, literally hundreds if not thousands of times before. Our issues of money, unexpected events and the future were never resolved. It wasn't because Bob and I never talked about them; we did. But somehow nothing ever really seemed to shift.

As I sat in the CR-V while Bob went inside to handle the paperwork, I genuinely wanted to do something different, but that was just it: I couldn't do it. My mind had created the problem, and I couldn't fix it with that same mind. What I wanted was a breath of fresh air—a whoosh of love, acceptance, and healing. I knew that couldn't come from me. It had to come from another power.

I thought about my options, and the only one that seemed feasible was to ask for help. I sat back in the driver's seat, looked out over the sea of cars at the dealership parking lot, and found myself saying these words to the Holy Spirit:

Please

heal

my

fear-based

THOUGHTS.

I had never said that prayer before. In fact, it just showed up. And at the time, it didn't seem like anything remarkable. After all, when we're in pain, we turn to a higher power for healing with whatever words come from the heart. But what happened next took it to a whole different level.

CHAPTER 2

What It Means

* * *

When Bob got in the CR-V, I was still in a bad mood. The prayer hadn't changed anything—or so I thought.

"Well," I began, with plenty of attitude, "there are big rattles in the dash, and one time I heard wind coming through the driver's window."

Bob jotted down notes for the body shop manager. "Anything else?" he asked, genuinely helpful.

"No," I said glumly as I pulled out into traffic. "You'll hear the rattles when we hit some bumps."

I pulled onto the interstate, and Bob trained his ear toward the dashboard to hear what I was talking about. We hit a couple of bumps and ... nothing. No rattle, no vibration. I figured the vibrations were muffled by the road noise in heavy traffic. But we hit more bumps ... still nothing.

About halfway home, Bob said, "I haven't heard anything yet, have you?"

"No," I said, almost disappointed. How could I make him feel guilty if nothing was wrong? "We'll hear it when we get on the highway," I said, thinking bigger bumps would reveal the rattles.

But there weren't any. Not a single sound all the way home. The problems seemed to have disappeared.

Huh, I thought, still pouting as we pulled in the drive.

When I went inside, part of me was glad, and another part felt cheated. I'd wanted to punish Bob by saying, "See, it's really messed up and it's all your fault."

I hung up my coat, looked through the mail, and then started hearing my inner voice talking. Essentially, this is what it said:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Oh, I thought, in the mundane sort of way that sometimes precedes great change. A change in my internal perception had just shifted my external environment. This, in the teachings of A Course in Miracles, would qualify as a miracle, a return to what the Course calls "right-mindedness."

As long as I was rattled, I needed rattles in my dash to help me heal. But when my thoughts were healed, the rattles were no longer needed.

This "ah-ha" moment spread through me slowly like a warm drink. I realized it was big—something that, despite all my years of spiritual study, I had never understood in quite this way before.

Wayne Dyer has long said: "Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change." In other words, change your perception, and your world looks different.

I get that. If I believe the world is a scary place, I'm going to see dangerous situations everywhere. If I change my perception...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Hampton Roads Publishing Co
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1571747184
• ISBN 13: 9781571747181
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar