Epiphany to Easter Sculpting Project 6: Prayer Flash: Week 2

I’ve been flashing short prayers on and off all week. On my walks, doing chores, sitting in church. I notice that it has given me a positive outward focus. This is exactly one of the benefits that psychology studies predict for an activity like flash prayer.

This week’s spectacular walk and chores.

 

So what do flash prayers have to do with well-being and psychology?

Flash prayers are ½ meditation and ½ compassionate action.

Meditation: Using our mind to focus briefly on extending blessings.

Compassionate action: Petitioning God to act on behalf of a person/issue.

Though no lab experiments I know of have been done on Flash Prayers plenty have been done on meditation and compassionate action. And I’ll give you the results upfront.

Meditation and compassionate action are powerful promoters of well-being. They will help our mind and body thrive and therefore they also increase the well-being of our friends and our friend’ friends.

Meditation and compassionate action have so many studies extolling their wonders It is hard to narrow to a blog sized list.

Meditation

Some meditations use sentences that are not far from my flash prayer “Lord, pour your blessing on ____.” These meditations wish happiness for our friends, enemies, and the whole world.

Other meditations are more like our Stop Here project where we focus on experiencing the present moment.

Both types of meditation increase our health and happiness and both types even increase our acts of compassion.

A few meditation benefits:

• Increases our ability to control thoughtsIncluding disengaging from ruminative thought patterns that relate to depression.
• Increases emotional intelligence and rational skillsParts of the brain that relate to each actually increase in size.
• Strengthens our immune system Meditators create more antibodies to fight off introduced viruses.
• Changes gene expressionThe structure of our brain changes according to how we choose to focus attention.
• Lowers inflammatory gene expressionValuable because inflammation is related to many diseases.
• Decreases the thinning of the brain in the pre-frontal cortexUsed for decision-making, flexible thinking, self-awareness, compassion . . .

Our brains naturally thin as we age. The brains of long-term meditators do not have this same degree of thinning.

Compassionate Action:

Because we believe that prayer has a power beyond wishing or hoping, the act of a flash prayer is a way we participate in acts of compassion.

A few benefits of compassionate action:

• Brings positive emotion
• Increases life satisfaction
• Lowers depression
• Benefits immune system
• Benefits cardio-vascular system
• Increases social connection and its host of health benefits
• Decreases negative effects of stress

Interesting 800 person study out of U of Buffalo discovered that:

1. Negative stress predicts mortality in people who are not active ‘helpers’ (compassionate action).
2. But the negative stress does not predict mortality in people who are ‘helpers’.

Compassionate action promotes longevity.

Compassionate acts are socially contagious.

Watching acts of compassion boosts our mood.

Thinking about compassionate action promotes brain health.

Epiphany to Easter Sculpting Project 6: Prayer Flash ½ meditation and ½ compassionate action Week 2

1. Flash short simple prayers (silent or aloud) for anyone you see or who comes to mind.
2. Post us what you discover.

In our Epiphany to Easter Projects we have developed a tool box to help us thrive.

1. Tools to notice what we love and install the good in our brains.
2. Tools to be present with God and this moment.
3. Tools to relate well to food.
4. Tools to use our breath and muscles in helpful ways.
5. Tools to connect with God.
6. Tools to love our friends and neighbors.

These are all tools provided to us by our creator to help us thrive.

Jesus, give us the skill to use these tools to promote your kingdom in ourselves, in our friends, in our friends’ friends, and in our friend’s friend’s friends.

 

 

When we put together enough simple, quick, persistent drops of transformation we get a stream.

Thank-you for joining me.

Cheri Howard