All Your Prayers are Answered

by Sam Menahem, PhD

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iUniverse.com Inc. www.iuniverse.com 2000
181pp 8 pp refs

Have you ever been upset when you prayed fervently over a problem and received no apparent response? This book suggests a variety of ways we can introduce prayers in our lives, with a full belief that they are heard and that the responses we receive (no response is also a response!) are helpful. In the author's own words:

This book is a synthesis of developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, self psychology, transpersonal psychology, metaphysics, mysticism, kabbalistic Judaism, esoteric Christianity, New Thought philosophy, Buddhism, Vedantic Hinduism and more. I will be explaining, in plain language, why all prayers are answered and what to do to get your life to be more of a meaningful growth process and less of a pointless suffering process. Life is a struggle. It is supposed to be this way, until we wake up to basic spiritual truth, all minds are joined in Godf and the nature of God is love. This insight will change our lives.

As grandiose as this might sound, Menahem delivers on his promises, and adds self-hypnotic healing suggestions as well.

Menahem's has a gift for presenting psychological issues and spiritual truths is easily readable and readily understandable language, brought to life with many examples from his own and others' clinical experiences. For example, from Chapter 7, How to Forgive Your Enemies::

Forgiveness is a way of life. It is an attitude that conflicts violently with what is taught in our society. Although we may pay lip service to the idea of forgiving others, when it comes right down to it, we frequently want revenge and justice when we are hurt. The issue of revenge vs. forgiveness comes up in virtually every patient's psychotherapy. All of us have been hurt in one way or another in life. Thus, we must decide how to deal with it. Frequently, we try to avoid the issue by repressing our anger or not thinking about it. Then, it comes out in some back-handed way like panic attacks or physical illness. . . To most of my patients, the idea of forgiving others seems to have no connection to their symptoms. Forgiveness is not seen as a path to peace, but it is.

Some people are aware of their anger and resentment at others, but are completely unwilling to forgive them. Their attitude is, "Why should I let him get away with it?" they want the other person to suffer as they have suffered, preferably even more than they suffered. At the very least, they want the other person to acknowledge their hurtful actions and apologize. The object of revenge isn't to get even, it is to win.

Still other times, people come in all to willing to forgive. At the first session they state that they know their parents did the best they could. So, they have forgiven them. This is premature confession. They are avoiding the real pain of their childhood traumas by pretending to forgive. True forgiveness involves several steps; admitting the hurts, feeling the pain, understanding where the other people were coming from, then gaining strength and self confidence, seeing the problem from another perspective (re-framing), finally forgiving the other and forgiving yourself.

Menahem's books are warmly recommended, for anyone wanting to bring more prayer and spirituality into their life in general, and in clinical practice in particular.

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