How to Pray to God

"Most psychiatric drugs can cause withdrawal reactions, sometimes including life-threatening emotional and physical withdrawal problems. In short, it is not only dangerous to start taking psychiatric drugs, it can also be dangerous to stop them. Withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done carefully under experienced clinical supervision." Warning posted by Dr. Peter Breggin

Despite all the emphasis of giving drugs to depressed people, many recover from depression with time on their own, while others receive help from a variety of sources, including therapy, family, and religion. Depression is a loss of hope. . . . The restoration of hope is key to overcoming depression and hope can come from many sources. The alternative to antidepressants is all of life: romantic love, family, friends, community, nature, and religion all help people overcome depression. Scientific studies show that everything from a new pet to an exercise program, as well as the passage of time, can relieve depression." Dr. Peter Breggin

Update Here is a two minute video by Dr. Peter Breggin MD that talks about adverse effects and the treatment of depression. Dr. Breggin has been called the conscience of psychiatry. He makes several excellent observations in this short talk.


Hello, my name is Roland. Above are two of my favorite quotes from Dr. Peter Breggin. This may seem like an unusual way to begin an article on how to pray to God. But it is actually a very good place to start.

 People are out of control emotionally, lost in worry, and possibly taking psychiatric meds. They are lost in a mental fog, and it is hard to find God in this state. So I'm addressing the condition that most people are in,  a condition that makes it very hard to reach God because they are in the wrong state of mind.

An analogous state is when you are sick with a fever. Lost in delirium, you can hardly focus, pray or do anything.

The mental fog and emotional states people are in--whether drug induced, from anger and upset, from worry and fears, or from being excited and yelling at a sports event--are a state of mind where it is hard to commune with God. In fact, lost in emotions, distractions or daydreams, we are hypnotized; and in this state we are closer to negative influence that we are to the Good Lord.

People also hide in the imagination to escape from the reality of their life. But you won't find God in the imagination either. Thoughts intrude, especially doubts and fears, placing themselves between you and God. You may sincerely want to communicate with God, and deep down your soul yearns for the Father you have never known, but something stands in the way and opposes your coming to God. It operates through the imagination and speaks to you with words through your emotions. You think it is your very own thinking, but it is not.

Look. If you were having a nightmare with weird people chasing you around, all you would have to do is wake up. When you wake up you see that the dream is just a dream. Likewise, if you could just wake up from your daydreaming distracted state in which you currently wandering around, lost in thought, most of the day--you would be able to see that the negative thoughts and strange notions that tempt you down there are just empty useless thoughts and not reality.

Who was it who said that most of the things we worry about never happen anyway.

Down there in your imagination and walking around in your mental fog, it's like being under the water. But if you could come up to the surface of the water and break through, you would see the beautiful blue sky and experience the warm sunny day. In order to pray to God, you have to come out of your daydreams, emotional thinking and mental fog.

This you can do by getting mental distance - standing back and seeing clearly. Your soul, now free from the taint of lower thinking, would be free to quietly commune with God.

How do we get into this sorry state where we are lost in thought and subject to negative emotions?

 Most people are out of control emotionally.

This loss of self sovereignty results in anger and a sense of loss of dignity. Usually their life is also out of control, which then is made worse when a host of outside forces and events begin to be dominate them, increasing the sense of being controlled or out of control.I do not buy into the chemical imbalance in the brain theory.

As a pastor, I see that there is a spiritual component as well as a relational one to our life issues--often beginning with childhood traumas; poor communication with a father; then school, peer and other pressures, exacerbated by a variety of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and generally the lack of the right kind of love and understanding.

Then to make matters worse, most people become resentful toward others who caused their issues or failed to help them, and this resentment destabilizes them and renders them exquisitely sensitive to those very pressures.

Resentment and the traumas to which we have over-reacted cause us to lose the center--lose touch with our center of dignity and innocence, and fall away from our Creator (to Whom we were once close when we were very little children).

Thus I see that learning to let go of resentment is an important component in repairing one's life and restoring emotional balance and control.

A complementary Christian meditation has been found by some people to be helpful in facilitating the restoration of balance, control and a sense of dignity. It helps them calm down without feeling numbed, disconnected or dazed.

Some also say that it seems to assist in them in re-finding their spiritual roots, and once a connection is re-established, there appears to be a power that comes into play that assists in holding back the pressures from overwhelming them.

Many were Christians, but just not quite Christian enough. Somehow this meditation permits them to become unblocked and to get in touch with their Christian roots in a wholesome way, so that now they can better appreciate what their good pastor or the Bible is saying.

Reason returns, calmness enters, and now reality becomes a friend. Real positive options can be explored, and now the door opens to a chain of good things happening, and the door closes to the negative thoughts, emotions, and to the negative behaviors they were once compelled to exhibit.

Click here to read more about meditation.

Here you are reading some excerpts from a longer article. In that article, after introducing the meditation and why it can help, I then talk about Mike's Story.  

Mike's Story is a success story of someone who overcame depression, OCD, bipolar, anxiety and substance abuse without drugs. Mike's Story is now available in paperback and Kindle.  Preview at Amazon.com

Finally additional resources are listed, both library resources and online free resources to read and watch.

Click here to read the whole article and a list of online resources.

We offer an outstanding array of free educational resources: articles, free audio, eBooks, and the meditation.

The most important resource that we have is the meditation, perhaps the only one a person may need to regain self control and become centered.

The second most important resource we have are my radio lectures and sermons. There is nothing like the spoken voice to convey meaning. I highly recommend you listen to some of the 30 minute recordings first. You can listen while you are looking over the written resources, or you can download them to listen to while you are driving, working around home or whatever.


Celebrate life! Leave behind the baggage of the past, consisting of unforgiveness, hurt feelings and anger. Start anew and find joy and a life of purpose. Perhaps our meditation and some insights can help. .