Understanding Prayer: A Deep Dive into Its Significance and Impact

Let’s be honest—prayer gets a bad reputation today. If we’ve been around for a while, we’ve likely encountered people with a mouth full of scripture but a heart full of hate. They often look down at everyone from a high stool of piety.

For those of us raised outside of religion or burnt by it, prayer can feel like pleading into the void. It might seem like superstition dressed in piety: “Dear God, make it all better.” For individuals recovering from addiction, trauma, or overachievement, the idea of surrendering control to some invisible force can feel pointless, impractical, laughable—or even dangerous.

What If Prayer Is Different?

But what if prayer isn’t what you think? What if it’s not about asking for something to happen but about becoming the kind of vessel that can receive it when it does? Imagine it as a process less about magic and morality, and more about neurobiology, interdependence, and the hidden intelligence of the body.

The Problem with Asking for Miracles

In 12-step recovery, there’s a quietly radical statement in Step Eleven:

“Praying only for knowledge of [God’s] will for us and the power to carry that out.”

That's it. No “Dear Universe, please fix my friend.” No “Heal them now.” Why? Because asking for outcomes we think are best assumes we know what’s best—for someone else, no less. This presumes that we are God. Recovery teaches us that we aren’t.

Here’s a twist for the secular-minded reader: What if “God” is not an old man in the sky with a clipboard tallying good and bad deeds? Instead, it could refer to the organizing intelligence of life itself. Not supernatural, but supra-personal.

From a neurobiological perspective, “God’s will” might indicate the direction our nervous system chooses when it feels safe. This direction includes connection, regulation, truth-telling, and belonging. It’s what our body picks when fear no longer runs the show.

Prayer, then, becomes not about changing the world through wishful thinking. It’s about getting into a right relationship with the current of life and letting it move through us, rather than against us.

Buddhists Knew This Too

The Gautama Buddha, or "enlightened one," didn’t teach prayer in the traditional sense. In fact, he warned against relying on divine intervention. "Please give me the winning lottery numbers.”

“You yourselves must strive; the Buddhas only point the way.” — Dhammapada 276

However, he did teach aspiration. He encouraged us to align with reality, let go of craving, and cultivate qualities like compassion, truth, and clarity.

In this light, prayer isn’t about asking for the universe to rearrange itself. Instead, it’s preparing the soil of our own body and mind so that when wisdom knocks, we’re home to answer.

What Western Science Says About Prayer

Before dismissing prayer as mystical fluff, let’s examine what the body and brain have to say. Contemplative prayer, especially when practiced regularly, can yield impressive results:

• Deactivate the Default Mode Network: This is the brain system linked to overthinking and self-referential rumination.

• Strengthen the Prefrontal Cortex: This area enhances emotional regulation, attention, and clarity.

• Calm the Amygdala: Lower reactivity to stress and fear is a direct benefit.

• Boost Dopamine and Serotonin: These neurotransmitters help stabilize mood.

• Reduce Cortisol: The stress hormone decreases, contributing to overall wellbeing.

• Stimulate the Vagus Nerve: This enhances our parasympathetic “rest-and-digest” state, fostering calm and connection.

  
  

This state—the one polyvagal theory describes as ventral vagal dominance—is not just relaxation. It’s embodied safety. It's our nervous system signaling, “You’re not under attack anymore. You’re allowed to grow now.”

My Experience with Prayer (and Why I Resisted It)

I didn’t grow up with a positive relationship with prayer. I was even asked to leave Sunday school for asking too many questions and was branded “disruptive.” It was frustrating to be taught to say words I didn’t understand, addressing a being I couldn’t see, especially without any space to explore their meaning. That early disconnect stayed with me.

Later, I attempted to block out the discomfort of being alive through process and substance addictions. Those strategies offered me the illusion that I could manage life on my terms. I didn’t need help. Certainly, I didn’t need prayer.

As I entered recovery, prayer re-emerged in my life, but I resisted it fiercely. Part of that resistance stemmed from grief and trauma. I recall that prayer and God were often used as tools for corporal discipline and repentance in my youth. I have vivid memories of my mother praying with intense fervor near the end of her life. While it brought her some comfort, it didn’t alter the outcome, leaving me to question its purpose.

No wonder I associated prayer with desperation, pain, and futility—why place trust in something that seemed ineffective?

In hindsight, my journey toward acceptance began with asana—yoga movement—back in 2009. It felt grounded and accessible. I wasn’t asked to pray or believe in anything. Slowly, I was learning to let go. Eventually, that openness led me to meditation and, later, to Metta—loving-kindness practice taught by the Buddha. It felt different. I couldn’t articulate why at the time, but looking back, it was more about reconnecting than fixing.

Over time, I’ve experienced unexpected moments of genuine connection through prayer—not asking for solutions, but rather feeling gently returned to a sense of something larger. A rhythm, a presence, an inner alignment that I can lean into when my will isn’t enough. It helps me return to the present and reminds me that I am already enough.

Today, I still don’t follow a traditional prayer script. However, there are a few quiet lines from various sources—both secular and religious—that I return to. (They are famous for a reason.) These lines help me drop back into the now—the part of me that knows how to move toward balance. In that moment, I recognize that today I’m not under attack. If I stop trying to micromanage my journey, I will ultimately feel better for it in the long run.

The Indian Science of Yoga: Move Toward Receiving, Not Controlling

When we relax into a calm and regulated state—breath steady, heart coherent—we often sense something larger than ourselves, something intelligent and moving through us.

In the Indian science of yoga, introspection has observed this very phenomenon. Like western science, it has developed a system and language to articulate its workings. This intelligent life force is called prāṇa: the vital energy behind breath, awareness, and transformation. Shakti, the transformative divine feminine energy, is the essence of becoming, while Kundalinī represents our dormant potential, waiting to rise through the central energy channel as emotional and energetic blocks are released.

In this regulated state, we may feel something larger than ourselves. A current. An intelligence. Something tender yet fierce that murmurs, “Let go. You’re not in charge. But you’re not alone, either.”

Is that “God”? Maybe. Is it prāṇa? Shakti? Grace? Perhaps.

Western science might label this emergent intelligence as the body’s inherent ability to heal, create, and connect once we are free from the states of fight, flight, or freeze. It recognizes how life organizes itself toward healing when the conditions are appropriate.

Think of how wounds close. Consider trees bending toward the light. Reflect on people finding one another after years apart. These processes are beyond our doing, but we can choose to become available to them.

Could This Be What Yogis Called Kundalinī?

There’s an intriguing overlap here. In yogic philosophy, Shakti embodies the force of life itself—creative, intelligent, moving through us. Kundalinī, too, is the coiled potential waiting to awaken at the base of our spine.

When it rises, your experience will include bliss, insight, and spontaneous movement. Sound familiar? It mirrors that ventral vagal state: calm aliveness, safe expansion, and inner clarity.

Like the state itself, this awakening is not something we force. It arises when the system is prepared.

The System Is Trying to Heal Us

Consider this reframe: prayer isn’t a cry for rescue. It’s an embodied practice of readiness and humility. It tunes us into the truth that life seeks to move us toward wholeness—only when we stop gripping the controls.

This isn't magical thinking; it’s a logical approach grounded in how our nervous system operates. Healing does not occur through control but when we allow the system—both inner and outer—to do what it inherently knows how to do.

As the AA saying goes: “Let go, and let God.”

In more secular language, it translates to: Get out of the way, and let life move through you.

A New Prayer

If you feel skeptical about prayer, perhaps start here—not by asking for things but with this mindset:

Let me be open to the current.

Let me trust the unfolding.

Let me do the next right thing—

And not need to understand where it’s all heading.

That’s not woo-woo; that’s wisdom. Perhaps it’s already built into your body.

Next Steps (If Something Stired in You)

If something in this has sparked curiosity—or maybe even a quiet “yes”—you are not alone. Prayer, breath, and the wisdom of the body can feel like a homecoming. All it takes is stepping away from the urge to analyze everything in our minds.

The good news? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Most spiritual traditions offer deep practices of meditation and prayer, often freely. For those drawn towards exploration within a religious or spiritual community, rich libraries of wisdom await in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, and more.

Temples, mosques, churches, and sanghas often provide opportunities for these practices at no cost. But if that approach doesn't resonate, if you're seeking something less tied to a structured belief, perhaps I can help guide you.

• Book a 1:1 Yoga Mentoring Session

  This space is for those desiring spiritual practice without dogma. We’ll explore what prayer, meditation, and breath can be for you—whether recovering from burnout, reconnecting after loss, or seeking calm and meaning.

  Book your 1:1 session here

  
  

• Join a Group Breath & Meditation Class

  These weekly sessions draw from Indian yoga science, Buddhist psychology, and Western nervous system research. Expect breath practices, quiet reflection, and space to simply be—no belief systems required, just curiosity.

  Join a class here

  
  

At the end of the day, it’s not about what you believe—it’s how you feel. The body doesn’t care what labels we assign; it only knows when we’re safe, connected, and ready to return home.

I’d love to hear your experience and thoughts about this article. It has been a joy to write, and I’m eager to know what you think.

After reading your thoughts about prayer...

• There's more to this than I thought
• I wasn't sure but now I want to give it a try
• Prayer has worked for me for years
• I have before but now will try it different

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References

1. Porges, S. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation.

2. Brewer, J. A., et al. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. NeuroReport.

3. Tang, Y.Y., et al. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. PNAS.

4. Lutz, A., et al. (2008). Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: effects of meditative expertise. PLOS ONE.

5. Newberg, A., & Waldman, M. R. (2010). How God Changes Your Brain.

6. Jacobs, T. L., et al. (2010). Intensive meditation training, immune function, and cortisol. Psychoneuroendocrinology.

7. Kox, M., et al. (2014). Voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system and attenuation of the innate immune response in humans. PNAS.