A Way To NOT Improve Prayers

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

The other day after praying I said, in what must have been a discouraged voice, "and everything I forgot".  Dan said, "Mom, it was a good prayer". 
I have tried to get rid of the non-helpful method of criticizing myself to spark improvement.  This method not only doesn't work, it sends me into fits of depression. 

I have been studying, and working on improving my prayers, but Dan's comment helped me realize that I had fallen into the old pattern. I was looking for what I did "wrong" somehow thinking that would help me to improve.  It didn't.  In fact, it was starting to make me dread praying!

I realized that day that it would be better if I noticed every good thing about my prayers. Everything that worked.  Everything I did remember.  I could hold on to those things, and maybe, slowly, the things that I forget would be remembered, and the inspiration I want would come.  In fact, a day after this realization, I went to say my morning prayer, and was prompted to changed something I usually say to something similar that felt more grateful, and worshipful, and to ask for something more useful.  This gave me hope for the improvement that I had been hoping for.

Looking for what I was doing wrong, instead of improving what I was doing right, was NOT a way to improve my prayers!