Losing my religion

Can we grant ourselves permission to just be ? Do we have to....well, is anything a 'have-to'? From the cradle, we have been told a resounding 'YES!' But is that true? When I talk about permission with others, even spiritual people have considerable trouble grasping this.  It's assumed we have permission from ourselves to be ourselves. But is that true? Almost everything is what we 'have to' or 'should do', isn't it? Go to school, get married, buy a house, have 2.5 children, work 40 hours a week,  go to church, run around being 'busy'........ Such pressure is often invisible to the naked eye. But it's there. You can feel it. And I can feel it, too. These energies manifest as disapproval or rejection. As marginalization or exclusion from a group, an opportunity or a relationship. Truthfully, we are so indoctrinated with external values and ideas that it has become a part of us. We are running a program and we don

I have a new perspective on prayer these days. Here's what I think is a powerful quote on the reality of prayer: "... when we pray to God, it's not the entity "God" that answers prayers, it's that we are harnessing the inherent power/frequency of that word which has the ultimate power to transform, transcend, heal and create. This accounts for the reason so many people in so many different religions experience a profound transformation when they pray or practice faith. They are all tapping into the same frequency that can transcend the perceived limits of this physical world. This is what we call "God Frequency ." Many times people don't think of God like that. To many, God is a guy on the throne in the sky looking down- sort of like a genie who is deciding to grant our wishes-or not. We think if we're a good-enough court jester, God will crack a smile and wave his magic wand on our behalf. Others will say that they don't think o