Making Time for Prayer and Meditation

This has been one of the most stressful weeks of my life.  I travel every week and get reimbursed by company for the travel dollars.  Usually the turnaround is less than two weeks, but due to a variety of complications it’s been over four weeks since I’ve gotten reimbursed.  With no reimbursements coming in and needing to travel in order to keep my job, I’ve been spending bill money to pay for travel.  Every day I check my funds and try to figure out when those reimbursements will be coming in.  They were supposed to have arrived this week, but no such luck.

I’ve been living in a swirly state where I’ve forgotten to breathe, obsessed about money, and let myself become disconnected from the God and Goddess.  Instead of doing what I know works and turning it over to them because there is nothing I could actually do about it, I’ve let anxiety eat me up.  I’ve created zillions of scenarios of how I will pay my bills, but mostly I’ve just let myself be eaten up by stress.

My guides had been whispering all week that it would be fine, I wasn’t going to starve, my bills would be paid, etc, but I chose to live in chaos and drama instead of making time for peace.  I finally broke down last night when nothing else was working and actually prayed and asked for help.  I lit a candle and laid it all out to my gods and thanked them for all the help they’ve given me and prayed for guidance and support.

There was still no direct deposit this morning, but I decided that in the interest of my sanity I would take out a high interest loan to bridge the time until my reimbursements come in.  It is not a perfect solution and I’m not happy about paying the interest, but I will make sure to get reimbursed for the interest as it is not my fault that I had to take out these loans.

When I got home from running, I made time to sit in sacred space and just breathe.  I let it all out and as I rhythmically breathed in and out, I felt reconnected and I felt the stress drain out of my body.  I realized that if I had just taken the time to pray and to breathe earlier in the week, I could have saved myself a whole lot of stress.

They say that you should mediate for 30 minutes a day, except when you are busy (or stressed) and then it should be an hour.  From personal experience, I know that when I get busy or stressed, prayer and meditation are often the things that get left by the wayside, even though they are the things that can help us gracefully navigate the stress.

Next time I’m feeling eaten up with stress, I’m going to remind myself to take time to pray and mediate and reconnect, because when I’m connected to spirit, life truly does flow much easier.