Two-Way Prayer: A Gateway to Transformation and Addiction Recovery

Question: What is still alive in me that I thought had died?

That’s the question I had brewing within me that flowered out of me and I pondered at the start of the Divine Feminine Two Way Prayer meeting.

What is two way prayer?

It’s the intersection of reflection and revelation. It’s a deep, soulful conversation that transcends the ordinary, turning prayer into a dialogue rather instead of a monologue. In two-way prayer, we not only speak to the Divine by asking a question we want or need answered, but also cultivate the art of listening, opening ourselves to receive guidance, wisdom, or simply a sense of peace. I listen for the question my soul has been longing for, I ask it, and the Divine answers. It’s “be still and know that I am God” personified, and I did it in writing.

Answer, the second part of my prayer:

My Darling Joval,

Nothing exists and lives in you that I don’t know exists. What may be and is a surprise to you isn’t a surprise to me. The “bad” you think lives in you- the doubts and fears- you thought you’d already overcome still exist in you. It’s not “bad”. It is, however, an opportunity to surrender to me.

Cast all your anxieties, all your worries to me. I care about and am concerned about each and every detail in your life. Nothing is too great and nothing is too small.

I love you! I created you in love. I want for you to love yourself more like how I love you. With patience, gentleness, kindness, grace.

Repeated old patterns of behaviors resurface when you stop including me. So fix your gaze on me again. I am home. You are always welcome. There’s nothing you can ever do to stop me from loving you. Let me love you. Love me by surrendering and by returning.

Ask for help. Seek and find. You don’t have to do life alone. I am wherever you are– I am the pinks, blues, and purples painted in the sky, the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze caressing your skin, a smile on a stranger’s face. I am a loving word, a thoughtful question. I am everywhere. There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t be.

So invite me and you’ll find me. Open your eyes to me and you’ll see me. Tune your ears to my frequency and you’ll hear me. I am the sweet fragrance of incense, of your favorite flowers. Breathe me in. I created this for you!

Embrace my love. Embrace my beauty. Embrace your love. Embrace your beauty. You are a reflection of me. Be still and surrender all of yourself to me.

My two way prayer with The Divine Feminine

I wrote my prayer swiftly, easily. In 10 minutes, this prayer erupted and flowed out of me like water out of a geyser.

And then I read it aloud to my small group and tears flowed from my eyes just the same. This is God. I’m a good writer, yes, and I become more of myself when I tap into the marrow and essence of my being, into God. My writing is best when it comes from God, for (obvious?) reason. You may not be able to tell when it does, but I can assure you, you can tell when it does. Most of the posts on my blog do. Most of my writing now does. Not because it must, but because I ask and invite God to meet me in my writing, too. It hits deeper and harder for myself and for others. When I co-write with God, my writing speaks to me as if it were written by someone else. Because, in effect, it was! When I write by myself, it doesn’t always resonate as deeply and profoundly or cause an internal stirring within the reader. But I di-Jo (that’s Joval for digress).

Graceful Recovery: Love And Connection Transforming The Path Out Of Addiction

“The opposite of addiction [isn’t sobriety], it’s connection.”

Johann Hari, me to all my clients, and perhaps addicts everywhere

I did what my prayer directed me to do. I’m still human after all, so it took me a short while to muster up and finally, when I was just about ready to go on my walk, and on the edge of staying home, I received a text from a friend from high school who I recently reconnected with about our regularly scheduled meeting. The very meeting I forgot about. Connection, always so good to visit with you! That was the impetus (catalyst, challenge, push) I needed so while we talked, I walked. A walk n’ talk, as I call it.

“How are you?” my friend asked. Not the kind that commands a nonchalant, flippant, very unthoughtful “Good! You?” but one laced with curiosity and care. I told her all about it, and I’ll tell you about it in my next post, too. But for now, just know that this was the connection I experienced and enjoyed on my walk n’ talk with my high school homie. Kia, I’m so grateful to (still) call you friend.

I connected to myself, to God in nature, to my friend, to strangers on the walking trail, and to my homies holding it down at Trader Joe’s. I stopped to smell the pungent, fragrant flowers. I admired her beauty. Her– God’s– the flowers, the trees, the birds chirping, the crunch of leaves, the setting sun– and mine– I smiled, I laughed, I lit up, I moved my body. My light got brighter all because I pressed on and chose connection.