The Prayer in the Lights

There is a moment, the very first one, when the lights begin. Everything that follows depends on what happens inside you in that moment. I used to meet it with an inner voice that sounded like an alarm. Now it sounds like a prayer. The lights are the same. The hour is a different hour.

This book is a practice for that first moment: what to say, how to breathe, and how to rest in the knowledge that you are not in charge of this alone. The lights begin. Maybe a small spot, maybe a shimmer at the edge of a word on a page. In that instant the mind has a choice it rarely knows it has: it can reach for fear, or it can reach for something steadier.

Fear is faster. Steady is learnable. My inner voice used to say: no, not again, what is happening, make it stop. I did not decide to change it. I practiced, on calm days, saying something else, until the something else arrived first. Now, when the lights begin, my voice says: Thank you.

I am here. You are in charge. The voice inside me was always going to speak. I only chose what it would say. A prayer without a breath is just words. A breath without a prayer is just air. Together, they are one of the oldest ways a human being has ever calmed a frightened body.

Stop what you are doing. Sit or lean back somewhere safe. Breathe in slowly through the nose for four counts, thinking: ‘You are with me.’ Breathe out slowly for six counts, thinking: ‘I am not afraid.’ Let the lights do what they do. You are not watching them. You are breathing.

Continue for as many breaths as the lights remain. Here is the part that surprised me most. When I stopped trying to control the lights, I did not feel weaker. I felt carried. I do not have to decide how long they last, or whether they fade. That was never my job. My job is to breathe, to trust, and to rest.

✦ The prayer I say when the lights begin You are in charge of my body, my breath, and this hour. I trust your will, and I trust your timing. Calm my body. Quiet my mind. Fill me with your peace. Thank you for walking me through this, as you always have. Trust does not mean doing nothing.

Once the prayer is said and the breath is steady, I do whatever is actually needed, and then I rest. What I do, in order □Say the prayer. Breathe slowly. □Water, within reach. A small snack if I have not eaten. □Any treatment my doctor has prescribed for early use, taken as instructed.

□Dim the light. Quiet the room. Close my eyes if that helps. □Rest. I know I may feel sensitive afterward, perhaps a little sore. That is okay. My body is asking for a small pause, not a punishment. “Harmless lights” is the name I give my own familiar aura: the pattern a doctor has evaluated, that builds gradually, looks the way it always does, and fades within about an hour.

A first-ever aura, an aura that looks different from yours, or one that lasts much longer than usual deserves a call to your doctor. Sudden loss of vision, a shadow or curtain across your sight, a sudden shower of new floaters or flashes, weakness, numbness, trouble speaking, or confusion are never “just lights.” Seek urgent care.

Faith and medicine are not rivals. I pray, and I keep my doctor’s number. Both are acts of trust. What does my inner voice say, right now, in the first second the lights begin? What would I want it to say instead? The words in this book are mine. They are meant as a starting point, not a script.

Your prayer should sound like you, addressed to whatever or whoever you trust: God, the universe, the quiet center of yourself. Building your prayer, in three lines Thanks: one thing you are grateful for right now. Trust: one sentence handing the hour to something larger than your fear.

Calm: one sentence asking for steadiness in body and mind. The lights will begin again someday. When they do, you will have a few seconds in which you decide what your voice says. Decide in advance. Practice on calm days. Pray. Breathe. Rest. And keep the door open for anything that is not your lights.

Next in the series: Fifteen Minutes of Light — what the hour actually looks like, minute by minute. Rod Gabriel ZR has lived with visual aura migraine for years. For a long time he treated every flicker as a threat. What changed him was not a cure. It was a different way of standing inside the experience: calm breath, a gentler name for what he sees, honest gratitude for every quiet day, and a steady trust that he is held by something greater than his fear.

He writes from his own faith in God, and invites readers of every tradition to address these words to whatever power they trust. He is not a doctor. He keeps his doctor’s number next to his prayers, and he hopes you will too. The Migraine Relief Series — Rod Gabriel ZR Gratitude Journal The Identity Series — Rod Gabriel ZR Person on the Horizon Movement & Parenting — Sarah J.S.

Hormones & Migraine — Sarah J.S. Caregiving & the Sandwich Generation — Steven Albert Healing & Lightness — Jake R. Visual Health Anxiety — Amanda Q.