I want to share a personal note with you, as I often do. I want you to know one of my secrets, a rare useful one.

See, sometimes my mind feels like a cage. I become paralyzed in a storm of my own thoughts. It happens when I begin to measure what is against what should be. I think I am not enough, do not have enough, am not recognized enough, am not doing enough. I am small and my ambition says I should be tall. When what should be feels too far away, my thoughts take action to devise lists: this set of habits will build me into this person and over time I’ll be there if I just keep going. Then the creature that I am responds: but I won’t and can’t and even if I try this time, I will fail again to move forward any further when it’s forced, when I plan it.

It’s a dueling match between dreaming and surviving. Each are strong, competent opponents with a long history in the ring.

I hope I am painting a picture that you can see yourself in.

So what do I do about it? Here’s my secret. I have this affirmation or prayer that I repeat. It came to my mind like someone else put it there, and this someone else is who it is addressed to.

“Thank you for giving me ambition” is the first part. Now, I believe this someone else is God the creator. I think giving God acknowledgement is the first reason why this secret is useful. I acknowledge that there is more than me at work. I acknowledge that I am created. I give thanks for the fact of my creation, that it is good. I give thanks that I have been instilled with a desire for good, to bring goodness to fruition. I affirm that something good resides in me that wants to be known and expressed.

“Thank you for giving me ambition and making me brave enough to live into it.” The second part is not always true, but saying it engages it, puts it in a different part of my mind outside the wrestling match. To be brave is to acknowledge the route is tricky and difficult, this I know and must accept. To repeat this prayer is to take my request for strength and state it as if I already possess it. That’s important, I think, and is what makes this more of an affirmation. I state it likes this because it is what I choose to do. I choose my ambition because I know it is good and brings fullfillment. I choose to be brave because I know the way is unclear. I choose to live into it, which is saying I choose this everyday, that because I am faithful, the way will be made clear one day at a time. This prevents my mind from projecting its vague images of the unknown future. Those images mislead me so often. I don’t need them. I have this day, which I am made for.

Repeating this to myself stops the argument in my head. I do feel a little too silly to say out loud, but those who are more practiced with affirmations can maybe point to how to get over that. My own personal affirmation changes the composition of my thoughts, often immediately. I find rest from the worry of action/inaction.

That’s my secret prayer, which is a rather sacred thing. I hope it can mean something to you. But you will have to write your own, or go spelunking in your own thought caverns for it.