‘Rote’ is defined as a routine, mechanical way of doing something.
I would wager that a lot of folks who pray regularly have some rote phrases that show up in their prayers, passed down from family to family.
In my family of origin, this was especially true in prayers over the food.
A Matsen family not-so-original meal-time prayer was very likely to include the phrase “Please bless this food that it will nourish and strengthen our bodies and do us the good that we need.”
‘Nourish’, from the Latin word ‘nutrire’, meaning feed and cherish, can be defined as “to provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition.”
Which is why it makes such a logical part of that prayer I mentioned, above.
But, stick with me here. Nourish can also mean “keeping a feeling or belief in one’s mind, typically for a long time.”
Isn’t that interesting?
We nourish our thoughts. We nourish our beliefs. We nourish our feelings.
Typically for a long time!
So long, in fact, that many of them (just like in that prayer above) become rote to us – routine, mechanical, automatic.
Dr. Joe Dispenza says we all have afflictive or limiting emotional states to work on – habits that feel like ourselves and that we want to relinquish.
Most of these are what he calls ‘survival’ feelings: insecurity, worry, anxiety, judgment, frustration, resentment, unworthiness – to name just a few.
He says that for each of us, this feeling is part of who we are – so we would do well to acknowledge it.
“It has been memorized.
It started as a response to a thought about an event in your life,
which lingered into a mood,
which developed into a temperament,
which created a piece of your personality.”
“This emotion has been tied to the memory of yourself. It speaks nothing of your future. Your attachment to it could keep you mentally and/or physically bound by your past.
By embracing the same emotion every day, your body has been fooled into believing that your external world is staying the same.”
Fascinating.
As long as we live in this emotion daily, our past habits of thinking and acting are tougher to let go of.
As long as we sustain it, encourage it, maintain it, feed it, supply it, support it, cherish it, NOURISH it.
My prayers have become different as I’ve become older and more conscious of what I’m really praying for. They are not as rote and mechanical and automatic.
I’m working on the automatic and memorized survival feeling my body goes to, as well.
For me, it’s fear.
I want to let my body know that my external world created by my thoughts and actions can change. I don’t have to respond the same way I always have. I don’t have to nourish and strengthen the fear.
Such good news.
I can’t wait to hear about the memorized feeling you’re trying to let go of. And if you need help with digging into those thoughts causing it and actions resulting from it, I am ready to dig with you.
