Just think of waking up in the morning, feeling the weight of your recovery journey ahead of you, and pausing for a moment to breathe and center yourself.
For many in AA, sobriety can be a challenging process, but beginning each day with a simple prayer can be a positive way to set the tone for positivity and meet whatever struggles may lie ahead.
However, how do you keep prayer an ongoing part of your daily life, especially when lives get busy or other distractions get in the way?
The truth is that big rituals are not necessary to feel prayer working its magic in your sobriety. Tiny, purposeful efforts can sometimes go a long way.
Continue reading to know more!
Here are 5 easy ways to make prayer a part of your day.
1. Start and End the Day with a Prayer
Praying at the beginning and end of each day will motivate you to build a relationship with a higher power and bring focus toward goals and intentions. This can be as motivating as receiving AA chips, which signifies strength and progress in your recovery journey.
A morning prayer can be composed of a few words that would set the pace and remind you of your purpose, which helps to clear your mind. This brief, purposeful act can make a huge difference in offering stability as you make your way through the day.
Further, taking time in the evening for a closing prayer allows you to reflect on the day with its challenges and triumphs. It becomes a point of thankfulness and closure, through which you can let go of nagging thoughts or anxieties you might have before retiring to bed.
Therefore, this is a comforting practice that creates a routine, clarity, and calm that affirms your belief that you are never alone on this journey. In this way, you resort to the higher power and receive an inner strength beyond yourself as a source of guidance and strength.
Thus, with this daily practice, you are tuned to the recovery goals with personal strength, peace, and purpose required for managing your day.
2. Use Serenity Prayer Throughout the Day
The Serenity Prayer is the foundation on which the AA program is founded and is a potent tool that can easily be incorporated into your daily life. It gives you the strength to overcome your internal struggles or dilemmas.
The prayer goes:
“God, give me the serenity to accept the things that I can’t change.
Courage to change the things I can…”
It’s a simple yet profound prayer that could always be used to keep yourself leveled throughout the day or at any moment when stress, frustration, or even temptation seems to be overwhelming.
Also, in beauty, the Serenity Prayer is universal. You can pray it silently, aloud, or just repeat it mentally during moments of uncertainty and challenge.
Therefore, next time you are faced with a tough choice or an emotional trigger, take a minute to remind yourself of the Serenity Prayer to refocus on what you can and cannot control. So, whether in a meeting, on a job, or with family and friends, this prayer can remind you to find peace amidst chaos and to trust the higher power’s guidance.
3. Pray Before and After AA Meetings
Another essential factor in your recovery process is the attendance of AA meetings themselves, and adding a prayer element to this would better align you with the higher power and your fellow members of AA.
Also, praying before and after a meeting does not have to be any form of formal exercise. It can be a small and conscious effort to prepare your heart and mind for the meeting and reflect upon the lessons learned.
Further, you can also take a minute at the end of the meeting to thank your higher power for giving you the wisdom and insight.
These short prayers put your recovery into a spiritual context, making this meeting experience social and a deeply changing moment in your sobriety.
4. Incorporate Prayers into Daily Routine
One of the surest ways of having prayer flow into your life daily is making it part of your routine, say while you are getting ready in the morning, preparing meals, walking the dog, or even driving to work.
The addition of this time in these daily rituals of praying does not cut a fraction of your extra time but instead brings sobriety with each passing day.
For instance, you can pray silently while brushing your teeth: “Thank you, Higher Power, for enabling me to take care of myself today.” Or at dinner preparation: “Thank you for this food and the strength to nourish this body of mine. Please help me stay focused on my recovery.”
These prayers needn’t be long in nature or time-consuming. But more than anything, these little times of mindfulness keep you strong on your spiritual path.
This becomes a driving force in integrating prayer into most aspects of life, instilling further peace, purpose, and appreciation of life. Consequently, it reminds you that being sober is about building deeper relations with yourself, your community, and a Higher Power.
5. Journal Your Reflections and Prayers
Recording your prayers or spiritual reflections may become a more powerful means to incorporate prayer into the day. Writing often provides clarity and purpose along with the recordings, which will contain your thoughts, struggles, and growth over time.
Take a few moments of your day, either at the start or end and write a prayer or message to your Higher Power. You should include ideas about your recovery process, questions, and things for which you are sincerely thankful.
This writing deepens your connectedness, making your prayers more personal and present. It also lets you find certain patterns in the way you think or behave, serving as insight into both areas of improvement and those aspects that you find challenging.
In this way, seeing your progress over time can give you a sense of peace and help you refocus on what really matters.
Conclusion
Adding prayer to your journey of sobriety doesn’t have to be complicated. You can tap into strength in clarity and comfort by starting and ending every day in prayer, repeating the Serenity Prayer throughout the day, praying before and after AA meetings, incorporating prayer into your daily routine, and journaling prayers and thoughts.
Such methods will help you build that meaningful relationship with the higher power, assist you in sobriety, and further develop resiliency.
All in all, spiritual growth is a process, and through making prayer a daily practice, you develop a foundation for peace, purpose, and gratitude, which you carry forward every day.
