Hey loves,
Recently, I’d been feeling this need to breathe freshness into my prayer life. Life started to become really busy and most of my interactions with the Lord were becoming “on the go” chats. My mind felt so cluttered and addicted to new distractions, and every time I would try to sit still to pray, I’d feel the effects of my 21st century, social-media-affected brain. It was so hard to quiet myself. And what compounded my challenges was that, having dealt with some depression, anxiety and traumas in my life, my short-term memory felt badly affected. I would forget what I was praying for while I was speaking, I would say the same words over and over because I was just trying my best to relax or focus, but it just wasn’t working. Over time, I’ve had to realize that the goal of prayer was never to sit perfectly still or to live literally on my knees. The goal is communion with God, being able to both share with God and hear from God. And so, rather than beating myself up about some of my challenges, I decided to ask God for strategies to thrive in the midst of the challenges. I had to figure out how to commune with Him in a way that works best for me. I thought I’d share a few of the things that help me with my own prayer life as someone who navigates anxiety and challenges with focus. I hope they inspire you on your own journey.
Dealing With Racing Thoughts
To combat the struggles with focus when praying out loud, I restarted my practice of writing my prayers. This is something I actually first saw my brother do when he was a teenager. For years, I’ve found journaling my prayers to be much more effective for me than trying to pray out loud. I notice that when I journal, it feels more like a calming and meditative practice. But sometimes, when I pray out loud, especially in moments of high emotion or high anxiety, I notice that it has the opposite effect of actually escalating the intensity of my emotions. As I write, I slow my mind down and my thoughts slow to the pace of my pen. I am able to write one thing at a time and it trains my mind to pause at each thought, to take notice and to quiet down in wait for God’s voice with each prayer point.
Dealing With an Anxious Body
There are some times, however, when sitting just isn’t helping me, especially in moments when anxiety may be surging through my body, causing headaches or a tight chest, etc. In those moments, I find prayer walks to be a God-sent. The sun really helps my body, especially if it may be feeling like it is preparing to bring on an anxiety attack. So, sometimes I bring my sneakers to work and I take a lunchtime walk around the city, soaking up the sun. While I’m walking, I aim to move as briskly as possible to release some of the anxious energy from my body. Sometimes, I may just stand still in the blazing sun, allowing the heat on my skin to help my body calm down. As my body begins to settle, then I begin to pray out loud as I’m walking. I do prioritize quieting my body down first through a little exercise and through being outdoors, and this creates room for my soul and spirit to direct its energy toward prayer.
Dealing With Forgetfulness and Worry Dumping
Another challenge I had to overcome was remembering what I wanted to pray for, and also remembering to pray for things outside of my personal list of worries. To help with this, I actually created my own little prayer journal template. I realized that I had gotten into a routine of only praying my anxieties to God. This in itself is a super helpful practice for those who regularly deal with anxious thoughts. And God’s Word actually encourages us to cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. But I realized that, over time, if ALL I was praying for were the things I was worried about, then I was creating a prayer life that was very insular, focused only my own problems. In a way, that hyper-focus was perpetuating my rumination on those worries. Practicing looking outward and praying for the needs of others, community and the wider world was deeply healing.
So, what I decided to do was design my own little prayer journal template. I created it very excitedly in Canva (because I’m a bit of a nerd like that), and I decided to give each day a prayer theme. This encouraged me to train my mind to meditate on things outside of my usual suspects of worries. I’ve included the template below as a free download for anyone interested in using it. The template includes space for me to write prayer lists, praise reports, answered prayers and verses that mean a lot to me. But, what I love most about this template is that each day’s prayer is sectioned off into Praise, Confession, Thanksgiving, Requests/Intercession, Submission and Praying Scripture. Having specific sections to fill out, and a specific space to fill in my prayers has been so helpful for me, because it has been training me to trust that anything I can’t fit on the page today would be safe with God until tomorrow or the following week. It has protected my soul from overloading my prayer time with worry dumping, and it has built my practice of trusting that if I didn’t get to every worry on my mind today, I would be okay and my unspoken prayer would be safe with God until another time. This prayer journal also actually helped expose some of the parts of me that actually was dealing with anxiety around not praying enough, or not ‘doing enough’ to make God proud of me. It reminded me that my prayer times are not about acing some spiritual performance, but it is about building an authentic connection with God over time, and partnering with Him in bringing His will into the world.
Well, these are just a few things, out of many, that have been helpful to me in cultivating a thriving prayer life, despite challenges with anxiety. Did you discover any new ideas to integrate into your prayer times? Let me know in the comments below. I’m also curious about your own journeys with prayer! Comment down below what has helped you and let us continue to build each other up and spur each other on toward abundant life, together <3
Download the Free Prayer Journal Template here. Feel free to print as many of any of these pages as you need for your personal time with the Lord.