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"Turn to christ for prayer"

I thought this was going to be a joke at first. Just remove that part and swap it with "meditation" because that's all it is.

Meditating (prayer to jesus) is completely worthless, spoken from someone who did it for 10 years straight daily. It doesn't change anything, and makes you CONSTANTLY second guess your decisions as though a higher power didn't intend for something you wanted to go your way.

Regardless of your experience, praying to Christ is what I did, and it worked wonders for me. I realise this point might get some negative reactions on a forum like this, but I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't mention it when talking about how I turned my life around.

A church can also be a great place to meet easy-going people looking to make friends, if you can leave your intellectual ego at the door. Not to mention meet potential dates who aren't deeply into modern hookup culture.

I think this depends on the country. In mine, young people who go to church tend to be a bit intense. But readers will know the scene in their own area.

Thank you for honestly sharing your experiences.

I think you would have got a better reaction if you had kept it vague / respectful of other creeds. Stated like that, it is effectively proselytism - which I understand is something your creed might encourage, but most people are wont to react badly to people telling them what to believe in.

Next time, if you replace that sentence with “I concentrated on my faith rituals”, you will likely not get any bad reaction.

>Next time, if you replace that sentence with “I concentrated on my faith rituals”, you will likely not get any bad reaction.

Why should he have to deny or mask his own faith when speaking with himself?

After all it is a list he created to give to his younger self....Could you just imagine yourself going back in time and masking your own faith to your younger self, on account suggesting to yourself what faith to practice may result in a bad reaction..from yourself.

> when speaking with himself?

He is not - he is speaking to the HN crowd about what he'd say to himself. Big difference.

It's like sitting in a pub telling the crowd about having wet dreams - you're not going to be literal.

>He is not - he is speaking to the HN crowd about what he'd say to himself. Big difference.

Clearly there was nothing in his comment pushing his religion on others or telling people what religion they should practice.

At the end of the day you are suggesting someone mask and deny their own faith.

He was talking about advice he would give to his younger self.

Yeah, the Christian faith as it is popularly practiced, has a bad reputation for being pushy about their creed ... but I don't think this guy is doing that.

I'll flip it the other way. People in the West don't feel as defensive about Buddhism, or even mindfulness meditation. Almost everyone who has some initial success with mindfulness meditation methods (like vipassana) will go around trying to tell everyone how awesome life-changing it is. I went through such a period as well, wrote a bunch about it on Quora, before settling down.

Do you attribute the benefit to a meditative process which has been studied, or peace of mind (I suppose this overlaps), or God choosing to grant you relief by virtue of worship

When I think back on how bad it got for me at my worst points, it does seem miraculous how far I've come. When I first started praying, I was so far down I'd wound up in a mental hospital, and I made a promise to God/myself that if I ever got out of the situation I was in, that I'd become a believer (was a firm atheist growing up). 10 years later, I have a successful career and a loving family, and my difficult past seems like a different lifetime. I fully intend to stick to the promise I made back then.

That said, I also believe that it wouldn't have been possible without me taking a lot of actions and working to better my situation. In my mind, it's like God held the door open, but I had to push myself to actually step through it.

So to answer your question directly, I don't believe it would've been possible without some form of divine assistance, like if I was just talking to myself (as in meditation).

> I made a promise to God/myself that if I ever got out of the situation I was in, that I'd become a believer

I don't think Christian belief is meant to be contingent on perceived debt over wordly affairs. That said, the relationship of faith, worship and salvation arguably has debt woven into it, unless you're a Calvinist or the like, in which case, nothing you do can guarantee salvation. It seems afterlife is a pretty popular motivation to believe, but then some religions have no afterlife yet still have followers.

> I don't believe it would've been possible without some form of divine assistance

Then effectively you have a faith that it would have been impossible to pull through without divine intervention? Since you couldn't really know. Some can claim to have pulled through breakdowns without.

I feel there's a kind of vanity in the God-found-my-car-keys convictions of miraculous intervention while people, including children, can suffer in excess until their demise, prayer notwithstanding. It says: God's plan is for others to suffer, and for me to get special treatment, because I'm a meaningful cog in his plan which cannot be comprehended. That's how he prioritizes. Or alternatively: I believe those people don't suffer as much as is perceived, if they have faith (that's a popular one). Or another alternative: their mortal suffering doesn't matter, salvation is the only thing that does (which would undermine the rationale in praying for mortal relief)

I mean I totally agree with your second paragraph, however I've found that protestant "mega churches" are typically the better ones for that simply because they are FAR more open minded to different interpretations, and have a broader age group. I was catholic so it was just 50-80 year old women and men and the militant families.

For your first paragraph, you're attributing something you can't explain to another thing you can't explain. The events that occur in your life are through sheer coincidence, not by divine providence. I know this is a pointless argument because you'll never agree, but you should come to terms with the fact that at best, god is a deist god. He doesn't influence the outcome of anything. It is you who does everything.

I think it's great that you made your point very clear. It's your experience, your decision, and you shouldn't self-censor just so that intolerant people on the Internet won't get offended.

When you say "meditation" do you include something like vipassana? Although prayer is recognized as a form of meditation, it's not the only one, and not usually what people are referring to in common usage when they use the word.

Are you saying meditation doesn't work? Or just prayer?

Remember that both prayer and meditation mean very different things to different people. I used to be quick to dismiss prayer until I talked to more people about it and found that what they were doing was quite similar to my meditation habits.

Not just similar, functionally nearly identical to TM which relies on 'mantra'.

Well define "work"? It essentially is just self reflection which honestly holds no value unless you do something about it. I honestly believe there are just way too many people who associate meditation with making your life better when you could just as easily fill that space with a more meaningful hobby that relaxes you while achieving something else.

The reason I dislike christian prayer tied with self reflection is you gauge your behavior to such an outdated code of morals with contemporary values. Ultimately it causes you to criticize yourself in unhealthy ways. Especially when it leads down the rabbit hole of ultra-conservativism where you think since you aren't practicing it perfectly, you need to double down and do it more and more according to scripture. This is why radicalism occurs and causes nut jobs to shoot an abortion clinic or blow themselves up.

Tangent:

Prayer can work, if it is done like Bhakti yoga. You cannot just use your intellectual mind to speak to the face of the Beloved. Your heart must move, and it will spontaneously move on its own, and not because social expectations requires it. It comes from the an understanding that the divine and the ordinary are not so fundamentally separated [1]. That the Beloved whom one is beseeching without, also dwells within as well.

Ironically, yeah, it is best paired with mindfulness meditation. The Buddhist equivalent to bhakti is are the metta practices -- adopting the attitude of loving-kindness in thoughts, words, and deeds. Not so much different from the teaching of the Christ.

Prayer can work -- but there are many methods, and many different kinds of people.

Footnotes:

[1] Orthodox religions, including orthodox dualist Shaiva Tantra from which all the modern yogas descend from, all have this fundamental separation of the divine and the oridinary. Christianity, as popularly taught, has this view.

I've had similar experiences in my past and just like you, isolation turned me quite asocial. Also my schedule drifted to its natural cycle and spent a lot of time staying up and was quite productive and enjoyed my own company but the cost was too much to bear. I noticed that I was becoming savage around people in the sense that I didn't know how to connect anymore. Fast forward 10 years and am married, have a child and fit into a normal schedule; am feeling quite healthy mentally, though I feel I don't get enough time just being by myself. If I had the chance to change anything in the past though, I would leave things as they are. I that feel I grew in some respects while being alone/lonely. I did not pray but I did my type of meditation which is painting.

I've been watching a foreign documentary about isolated people, people who live in abandoned villages and have few or no neighbors or people who live in very inaccessible places and every single one of them were talking about god and praying and their painful loneliness.

What's the documentary?

The documentary was Romanian and unfortunately doesn't have English subs. The name escapes me right now...

> Fast forward 10 years and am married, have a child and fit into a normal schedule; am feeling quite healthy mentally, though I feel I don't get enough time just being by myself. If I had the chance to change anything in the past though, I would leave things as they are. I that feel I grew in some respects while being alone/lonely. I did not pray but I did my type of meditation which is painting.

What was your approach for becoming more social?

I am not much more social, but I don't strive to be a social butterfly anyway; I have my family, a few friends, work and a few hobbies. I am not suffering of loneliness these days and am content with my introverted type. What I was pointing out earlier is that absolute isolation is not good even for introverts, we need some social exchange.

I personally cannot give up myself for a relationship. Meeting with friends sure, but marriage and kids? I'd rather have a hobby. I know there is the whole mindset that "it's different when they're your kids" however I only see having kids as the purpose of having an heir...which I recognize is absurdly outdated of a view.

For myself though, that is honestly the sole reason I'd want a kid. Financially I'm not in a place where I could honestly bring a kid into this world better off than myself. I like pets, but they take up a large portion of my day. I can't imagine what a kid does.

Honestly, things and views change over time and especially when you approach your late 30's. I never thought about having kids before,but things just fell into place just right and am much happier now with my life. But once again, I would have never thought about this, say, 5 years ago. Be open minded and don't be afraid (but do find someone who you absolutely trust though).

Tell me more about how you use painting as meditation

"Turn to Christ in prayer" like what? If you do that and 'Christ' is your mental anchor point, you will never be mentally free.

You will get stuck.

You can easily find social interactions without blocking your thinking like that.

Also 'Quit porn'? How much porn did you consume on a daily basis that you really think this is in any way relevant?

My short list would be more like: work on yourself; put yourself out there -> rinse and repeat.

The advantage of OPs list, whether you agree with the particulars or not, is that they are concrete, whereas your list contains vague and unquantifiable things ("work on yourself", "put yourself out there").

In the public discourse the possibility of there being an unhealthy level of porn consumption is fairly recent, despite it being pretty accessible for many years. Some consumers are more prone to addiction than others, not just consuming daily but binging at that. Simply recognizing the potential for addiction and aiming to avoid overconsumption is more helpful than recognizing no problem at all, even if we don't choose to eschew porn altogether.

Terry Crews has spoken about his trouble with it at length, and posted videos about it. Though I'm not sure to what extent his issue could be attributed to his wife having zero tolerance for his consumption.

I think you make many good points, but I think you must also be focused on keeping the drive to maintain things even in your married and child-filled state of life now; if you find yourself in a moment of calm you may find your feelings slumping once more.

"Turn to Christ in prayer"

I don't know that talking to someone who doesn't answer back is a very good help for loneliness.

> as a married

How long have you been married?

We just had our 5 year anniversary. Started dating about one year before marriage.