This awesome picture is by Rob Gonsalves.
It seems to me that putting the pieces together and creating a "whole" life.. something that feels complete and comfortable requires inner work as well as outer help.
....So sorry to do this, but this project has been moved and can be found in its new home Praying For Prosperity at the new and improved Prosperity Project hosted at shirleytwofeathers.com. And can be found in its entirety here: The Prosperity Puzzle
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My wednesday prayer was a nothing. For some reason I felt nothing but annoyed with the person who prayed with me. I just felt lost while she was speaking and kept wondering what does this have to do with me becoming more prosperous. I have also to report no outward signs of increased prosperity. More reasons and needs for prosperity but no manifestiations of it. Since I just noticed when I went to post this that it does have Thursday's date I will add that today also the prayer left me feeling empty. The person who prayed with me was nice, her voice was okay as far as it was not to robotic or distant, but she did sound rather hurried. But again I just felt no connection with what was being said to me. I tried to really let her words echo and resonate with in me but nothing. I feel no hopefulness, no, no anything. And actually I feel quite depressed that I don't feel like these prayers are connecting to me. Wondering if it is me or is it the people who have prayed with me or both? I hope the rest of you are having better inner and outer results.
I have been listening to Byron Katie and have read her books about 'The Work'. She did 'The Work' with a young woman who was feeling financially desperate and the process took her straight out of feeling lack to feeling wonder and gratitude. Katie said something to the effect that abundance IS gratitude or vice versa. She has an official website if you want to read more about her remarkable teaching... Rather than call Unity for prosperity prayers, I decided to get quiet and feel gratitude for everything I have including the things that seem outwardly not so good. I simply can't know that everything in my life right now isn't absolutely perfect for my highest good and suddenly I felt very friendly toward my sense of need and lack. I wish all you Prosperity adventurers the very, very best!
The ‘experiment’ of this project is, does prayer work? To do a proper experiment, there must be variables and there must be a controlled factor. Although doing an experiment with prayer is mostly all conceptual, definitely the variables here are all the people who are doing this project. One of the reasons we chose Unity is because there is SOME consistency, it is not just us praying for ourselves, it is putting prayer to the test in a pointed way. Everyone doing the same thing to see if a result occurs.
As much as I do not have an inner tie to Christ based religions, I believe that prayer is a form of slightly controlling the ripple effect around you. Put a message out there. The God Entity that is all around us, all within us, in everything and everyone….will absorb that message into the infinite energy that it is. Of course I also believe there are many other ways to do this, prayer being the most acceptable in the public mind. Obviously, there is an uncontrolled factor in our study that is not being accounted for….faith. How much faith do we each have in the receiver of our prayers? Does that matter? I think that is part of our experiment.
I believe that there are really only two kinds of energy in the universe- positive and negative. Love and Fear….most of our emotions and reactions, our beliefs or anxiety over the insecurity of what we believe, can really just be divided into those two categories. Gratitude is a very tangible form of Love. The more positive Love energy you put toward something, the more likely you are to draw that very thing toward you. It works the same with Fear energy…if you fear that you will not be prosperous, that fear has the same draw that love does…only the thing you are putting energy into and drawing toward you is the reality of not being prosperous. Being grateful to the master of the universe for the prosperity that is already headed to you even though you can’t see it is a matter of faith. Can you truly be grateful if you are not able to let go of the reins and let Fear take a back seat?
Anyone can pray for themselves at any time. IT SEEMS like an empty voice, raised to an empty sky…but the energy is now put out there. Using Unity’s prayer line for our experiment at least gives us somewhat of a team effort at our own prayers for ourselves.
These are the things I believe. Yet I find it very difficult to NOT be worried about money! To NOT be afraid that I will always be on the wrong side of living hand to mouth. To NOT be disappointed when things don’t happen immediately. Isn’t discouragement just fear of never being successful at what you are working on?
All in all, Fear and Love struggle all the time. We are just human, and are always going to be in the middle of this push and pull. Be easy on yourselves….at least praying for prosperity is unlikely to put us in a worse position financially. In other words…it can’t hurt to just follow the experiment and see what happens. Maybe nothing…who knows? At least we’ll know together.
I'd also like to add something. I found a dollar bill that my boyfriend dropped on the floor...it was right in front of me when I walked in the house. So I put it in his little container of stuff on the sofa table. not that he would care if i kept it, but because that is just how we do things. I didn't even think of counting it in our experiment because it is my boyfriend's and agreed that anything from him didn't count in this. Later, I went to get in my purse under the sofa table and it had somehow fallen down to where it was right in my line of sight. I got to thinking that I would love to do a little prosperity excercise with it, by smudging it, sprinkling it with prosperity oil and cinnamon, putting it on a spindle and saying a prosperity affirmation over it. The idea is then to do the same thing with all of the paper money that comes to you, and take it off the spindle as you need it, always leaving the original dollar bill. But, would this interfere with our experiment/project? I could also assume that the dollar bill could be counted in the project and since it seems very lucky, use it to buy a lottery ticket. I would like to hear your opinions on this. are we allowing ourselves to attempt to lure prosperity in any other conceptual way than the prayer line during our experiment?
Due to your responses, I will do one of the two things with the dollar bill.
In answer to Michelle.. my initial thought is to use the dollar to buy a lottery ticket and postpone the spindle idea..
but then I got to thinking that maybe, since the idea came to you DURING this process that it could be counted as a "divine idea"..
so my feed back on it is this: If you feel that the spindle idea is in fact a "divine idea about ways to give and ways to receive" which is something that has been said during MY Silent Unity prayer experience.. then by all means do it.. If you feel that the spindle idea has been there all along, even before the project started, then maybe it would be good to postpone the use of it..
I am curious to see what everyone else has to say.
And Daniel:
I can't think of anything cheerful or encouraging to say because I am not at all sure that prayer will actually work. And also, I have an idea of how you are feeling - as I have been there many many times - and it is my experience that cheerful encouragement is even more depressing than if nobody said anything at all.. So.. Hey.. I hear you.. and I care about you.. and we are only 5 days into the experiment.. so I really hope that something unexpected and happy will fall on your head.. if not today, then tomorrow.
as for me.. nothing new to report on the "prosperity" front..
One more thing..
I think that in order for me to say unequivocally that "prayer works" .. our results would have to show that the Silent Unity prayers worked even if we do not feel connected, and even if we do not believe in them.. even if we do not feel gratitude.. because it is not WE who are doing the praying.. it is Silent Unity.. and I think that since they continue to pray for 30 days, it is not even contingent on that one prayer person to believe for us.. because we have the whole "system" of prayer solidly behind us..
Does this make any sense? They are the ones doing the praying, not us. So all we have to do is be accepting of the results of the prayers.. which would be our prosperity. We don't have to feel an inner or outer connection to the prayers because we are not the ones doing the praying.
Now I will shut up as I think I am repeating myself over and over.. I really am tired.. Sounds like nap time to me.
Well I haven't had anything else happen today. Nothing really to report. I hope I will have something good to say tomorrow.
prayer really helps if you write it down!
Hi, this is Cindy checking in. Time flies, doesn't it? I must admit that I have had a little trouble navigating this website and I'm confused because the latest thing I could pull up was Day 5, Wednesday, 10/18 and it's Friday, 10/20. I thought I was computer literate, but maybe not so much....
I did read everyone's comments. When I'm at work it's either feast or famine and this week has been busy. I have managed to e-mail a request for prosperity prayers to Unity each day, and called them the first day. I will continue to either call or e-mail on a daily basis.
Regarding Shirley's comment about this being an experiment about Silent Unity's effectiveness in prayer, I'm not sure I subscribe to that idea in its entirety. Yes, they are all praying, but why exclude anybody else, and really, how CAN we exclude anyone else? I certainly pray for myself and my loved ones and have been praying that all the members of this group be prosperous, too. I know that I also have several friends who pray for me on a daily basis and I know prosperity is part of their prayer work, too. So to me, I would look at this experiment more as a question of "does prayer work" universally, since we don't know exactly WHO is praying, the effectiveness of each person doing the praying, etc. I hope that makes sense! And I guess one point I'm trying to make is that although Silent Unity is a great resource for prayer, I believe that each person has to be willing to accept the answers God gives, especially since prosperity often comes to a person as guidance. The old saying, "God helps those who helps themselves" comes to mind. If God gives a person inspiration and the person doesn't follow up on that, is that the fault of the people doing the praying, or the person who doesn't recognize the guidance and act on it.
Okay, I'll get down off the soapbox now. I promise to be more diligent at posting.
One more thing - I feel that everybody has a different definition for prosperity and I guess my question for this project is: Are we just talking about financial prosperity or prosperity in general? The reason I ask is because, while I haven't had any "new or found" money this week, I have been prosperous in the sense that I have been allowed to keep my granddaughter part of this week to go into my "regular" weekend with her and I feel VERY prosperous to be able to spend extra time with her. But if you want to just strictly go with financial prosperity, on still on board. Just thought I would mention it.
okay folks, here's a question....not about our project, but would like some advice. i have a stalker. he will not leave me alone, and is very creepy. he seems to follow me on the internet, he has shown up at my house, i have made several police reports which does not seem to deter him...and now he is posting to our blog. he is been doing this for almost six years...and will not stop. what do you guys think i should do? he freaking scares me, and i cannot seem to get away from him.
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