Praying from the Point of Pain

Praying from a place of genuine need draws a response from God.

It is said that the universe bends to where a genuine need exists and where a heartfelt request is made. I certainly do believe that prayer coming from real need is heard, and when prayers are not answered, one reason could be that God or the universe (whatever makes you feel more comfortable) just doesn’t perceive it as a real need, only an ego need on the part of the person praying.

What is Genuine Need?

The question arises then as to what constitutes genuine need, and how is it different from needing something just to soothe a bruised ego? It seems to me that genuine need arises out of significant suffering, the kind of suffering many people tend to actually deny, endure or cover up for a variety of reasons. This could be something horrendous like suffering sexual abuse or it could be something relatively less horrific like putting up with a chronic health condition.

Dreams and Pain

Dreams are very good at indicating where the genuine points of pain are located at the deep psychic level.

How Points of Pain are Symbolized in Dreams

These points of pain may be symbolized in the form of injured animals, a sick, dying or dead person, or some jarring situation such as a car accident. When these uncomfortable scenes are seen in dreams we tend to think of them as representing something outside of ourselves. In some cases, that may be true. However, usually, they represent an aspect of ourselves that is wounded, sick, dying, dead or being put in jeopardy.

When I have dreams like these, I immediately make it a point to pray for this aspect of myself that is suffering in such a way—even though I may not recognize it immediately since it may stand for something I may not yet be cognizant of in my waking life. I feel this is praying from the deepest and most genuine part of myself, surely opening a pathway to God and the universe for healing.

4 Benefits of Using Dreams to Work with Grief

Emerging Dream Insights of Ashlynn Acosta

Dreams of loved ones either shortly or long after they have passed seem to indicate that our ties with them are not cut. Over many years of working with my dreams and helping my students work with theirs, I am of the belief that a relationship with a deceased loved one can actually get resolved or made better through dreams.
Dreams provide the opportunity to meet once again with a person who is irrevocably gone from us on this earth. Through a visitation in a dream, we can say what we need to say and hear what we need to hear from the deceased. For example, while she was alive, I always thought my mother never really understood me even though I knew she loved me. However, the night after she died, I saw her standing before me, looking healthy, happy and radiant. She told me that now she did truly understand who I was and how special I was to her. This dream healed an old heart ache and provided great joy. As it would be for most people, this dream was for me a serendipitous gift given; something not consciously intended but some great and fortuitous “A-hah” experience that just happened out of the blue.

We Can Request a Dream Meeting with a Deceased Person

What most people don’t know is that a dream like this can be requested for a specific purpose. All that is needed is a strong and sincere intention or request made before sleep to have such a dream. Be as specific as possible why such a dream is desired. Write down the request on paper and put it by the bed.
This method is especially good in working with nightmares connected to the loss of a loved one. In Dead Men Do Tell Tales, Ashlynn Acosta learns that by asking for dreams about her mother she can even turn nightmares into dreams of joy and abiding peace—good indicators that the grief associated with her loss is healing as well. So through a visitation in a dream, like Ashlynn, we can say hello again, ask how the person is doing on the other side, seek advice from that person or work through issues that remain unresolved. Through dreams, discovery is made at the gut level that:

1. The deceased person is still alive and in relationship.
2. The deceased is nearby and helping in some capacity.
3. Goodbyes and good wishes can still be given and received.
4. Old issues can still be resolved.

Luke 3: Who are your spiritual mothers and fathers?

Luke lists the genealogy of Jesus to show His connection to the Jewish religious tradition and to all human kind by tracing Jesus’ ancestry back to Adam. Who are your spiritual mothers and fathers?

My spiritual mothers and fathers are those people who taught me how to open doors to intuitive realms of understanding so that I could be receptive to insight from another plane of consciousness other than what is given in the three dimensional “agreed upon” world we live in. This happened in various ways and stages of my life—as I think it does for all people.

Valuing the Imagination

From my father I learned the importance of imagination. Dad was always telling stories and loved things that came from the imagination. With him I learned to play “Let’s Pretend” whereby we would make up scenarios and actions for a story. Appreciating a child’s ability to pretend and imagine is a key step to developing the child’s intuitive powers because so much intuitive information comes through the imagination. If this ability is denigrated, the child will lose all trust in his or her imaginative abilities and tend to see the world in terms of black and white, devoid of life and creativity.

Learning to Pray

From both parents and my older brother I learned to pray. This is nothing less than teaching a child that her requests will be heard by super human powers. Such education empowers a child for life by opening up a very important internal resource for problem solving, healing and creativity. The child learns that he has supernatural help that may come in the form of angels, guides, saints and the divine whenever he needs it.

Learning to be Healed through Dreamwork

In graduate school, a professor of religion was able to teach me how to work with a dream to heal what would today be called a case of PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In a lucid dream I was able to access the source of my fears and resolve those fears to the point where I woke up completely healed of the anxiety and the nightmares. Healing took place at a profoundly deep intuitive level.

From this event, this teacher, Dr. Mitsuo Aoki, showed me that indeed the Kingdom of God was within and that this level of healing was what the stories of religion were all about.

Learning to Be Informed by Higher Consciousness

Over a two-year period of weekly meetings, a Japanese nun, Sr. Sanae, taught me the value of ongoing dreamwork to deal in a methodical and systematic way with painful memories, the problems and the obstacles of life. Through her, I learned that my dreams were always there, healing and guiding me. I consider her my spiritual mother in that she gave me continual access to the power of the Great Mother through my dreams. This dreamwork strengthened my belief in the Christian approach as the way for me personally because the spiritual guides who came through and the symbolism that presented itself in dreams were mostly drawn the Christian story.

Learning to Trust Waking Intuition in Major and Minor Situations

Through my work with Henry Reed, Ph.D., Director of the Edgar Cayce Center for Intuitive Studies, I learned to trust my intuition as it works in our waking life. I found that the information received by the body through the imagination could be relied upon just as I could rely upon my dreams. From his Intuitive Heart Discovery Group I learned methods to work with intuition that were quite effective for problem solving, healing and creativity. Again, I discovered that the spiritual guides that came to me through intuitive methods were from the Christian tradition, again affirming for me that my own healing story was rooted in the story of Jesus.

Related articles

• Detecting the Intuitive Mind (frankramer.wordpress.com)