Reframing Prayer

A friend recently asked if I ever prayed. My response was yes, but not in the conventional way. I don’t pray for intervention in the world but for intervention in my mind, for that’s where I most need help.

We usually think of prayer as an appeal to some higher power. We might pray for someone’s healing, for success in some venture, for a better life, or for guidance on some challenging issue. Behind such prayers is the belief that we don’t have the power to change things ourselves—if we did, we’d simply get on with the task. So, we beseech a higher power to intervene on our behalf.

But what is it, really, that needs to change? We want circumstances that we think will bring us greater happiness—or conversely, avoid those that will make us suffer. We believe that if things were different we’d feel better. So, we try to change the world to make it fit our desires.

When we look more closely at why we aren’t happy, we find that the root of our discontent lies not so much in the situation at hand but more in how we interpret it.

For example, if I’m stuck in a traffic jam, I can see it either as something that will inconvenience me—make me late for an appointment, miss out on some opportunity, or upset someone—and then feel anxious, impatient or frustrated. Alternatively, I can see it as an opportunity to relax, and take it easy for a few minutes—the kind of thing I’ve probably been wishing for all day. The same situation; two very opposite reactions. Yet the difference is purely in how I am seeing it.

So, when I catch myself feeling upset in some way, I find it helpful to remember that my reaction might be coming, not from my circumstances, but from how I am interpreting them. If so, it makes more sense to ask, not for a change in the world, but for a change in my perception.

That is what I pray for. I settle into a quiet state, then ask, with an attitude of innocent curiosity: “Could there, perhaps, be another way of seeing this?” I don’t try to answer the question myself, for that would doubtless activate the thinking mind, which loves to try and work things out for me. I simply pose the question. Let it go. And wait.

Often a new way of seeing then dawns on me. It doesn’t come as a verbal answer, but as an actual shift in perception. I find myself seeing things in a new way.

One memorable shift happened a while ago when I was having some challenges with my then partner. She was not behaving the way I thought she should. (How many of us have not felt that at times?) After a couple of days of strained relationship, I decided to pray in this way, just gently inquiring if there might possibly be another way of seeing this. Not trying to come up with an answer; just posing the question and seeing what happened.

Almost immediately, I found myself seeing her in a very different light. Here was another human being, with her own history and her own needs, struggling to navigate a difficult situation. Suddenly everything changed. I felt compassion for her rather than grievance, understanding rather than judgment. I realized that for the last two days I had been out of love; but now the love returned. My jaw relaxed, my belly softened, and I felt at ease again.

The results of praying like this never cease to impress me. I find my fears and grievances dropping away. In their place is a sense of ease. Whoever or whatever was troubling me, I now see through more loving and compassionate eyes.

Moreover, the new perspective often seems so obvious: Why hadn’t I seen this before? The answer, of course, is I couldn’t from the perspective I was caught in.

The answer doesn’t always come as rapidly as it did in this example. Sometimes the shift happens later—when relaxing doing nothing, or in a dream perhaps. The prayer sows the seed, which takes its own time to germinate. Nor do I always get answers to such prayers. But still, there’s no harm in asking.

The beauty of this approach is that I am not praying for intervention in the world, but for intervention in my mind, for that’s where I most need help.

Nor am I praying to some external power. I am praying to myself for guidance—to the authentic self that sees things as they are without the overlay of various hopes and fears. It recognizes when I have become caught in a fixed point of view, and is ever-willing to set me free.

by Peter Russell at scienceandnonduality.com in November 2025