I received a question from a supporter about how to set up a domestic altar or a “place apart” and made a quick video about it. In reflection, I realized that it would be both prudent and necessary to create a quick guide on how to start a basic prayer life broken into various parts. This is by no means all-inclusive, nor the omega point on which one should end, but a start in your journey to closeness with God.

I also wish to say that I am not a mystic, I am not a theological authority, I am just a layman like you. I am only attempting to pass on the knowledge that I have gained through missteps and experience.

Each of these posts will be on a different subject from creating a meditative place of prayer, a place apart from the world to basic prayers and avoidance of sin. I wanted to start with a few words of caution and things I have learned in my course of prayer development.
First, it's important to remember that God loves you, he wants to spend time with you and while God is with us always, prayer is a special conduit to him, a deeper intimacy in that communication than daily life. Beginning a prayer life can be daunting as well as exhilarating. Some people are excited to try this prayer or that prayer, this or that new practice while others can be intimidated by it, not knowing the words or cadence, needing to read it vs memorization. There is “bad” prayer, but fumbling words due to lack of knowledge or bad pronunciation of Latin etc is not “bad” prayer. God looks down on our attempts to master worship with love and affection, like a child in their first attempts to say “thank you” after receiving a gift. Don’t be ashamed of not knowing what you don’t know, embrace it, offer up frustrations, or bother in these early attempts to create a prayer life as sacrifices to him.
Like any skill, prayer takes repetition and practice. No one whos never played basketball in their life can walk onto the court and sink shots their first go. They must first learn to dribble and pass, shoot, miss, shoot, miss, shoot, miss, shoot, bounce of the rim, etc. Prayer needs to become part of your routine, part of your habit. Until it does it is something that takes effort and in truth, there is no end to the journey as you will always be needing to put in the work to better perfect your prayer life. It takes from 18-265 days for an action to become a habit, something you just do automatically without thinking. I don’t mean prayer should become as robotic as brushing your teeth, but what we are aiming for is for you to not need to remind yourself to fall to your knees in the morning for prayer but it becomes as obvious a movement as getting out of bed.
Distraction by the demonic:
The Evil one hates nothing more than what you are doing now. You are answering the call by God, responding to his grace and impulse to pray and start your journey of knowledge, intimacy, and worship. The evil one WILL employ tactics to dissuade and distract you from this. I remember when I hadn't prayed the rosary for some time and started to say a full rosary on my knees that at the beginning I found it very difficult. My knees would weaken, I would have problems concentrating, people would stop by, I would become hungry, etc. Basically, any distraction or misdirection you could think of were thrown my way. Within a few weeks I could kneel down and pray and the 15-20 minutes it takes to say a Rosary would go by without an outside thought and would feel like a few minutes.
Despite what even some in the church today might say, Satan is real. He is as real as God, as real as the screen you are viewing and the earth you are standing on. He does inhabit the symbolic world, but the true understanding of the symbolic and not a mere narrative character to help instruct moral teachings. He is real as are his minions, the other fallen. I have as of this writing found myself under repeated periods of Demonic Oppression. Oppression is not possession but more subtle forms of attack such as impulses to overeat, to turn to alcohol again, sleeplessness, anxiety, and anger over past hurts. Materialists will take these statements and chalk them up to mere chemical imbalances, past trauma, etc which isn't untrue. Depression can be caused by chemical imbalances, Anger over past hurts can be triggered by stimuli to bring back past trauma. But what is it that triggers that imbalance, what causes that stimuli to be brought forward to you vs not paid attention to? There are prime movers that push these influences upon you in the hopes of distracting you away from God. My point is that the demonic will do what they can to try and dissuade you from walking this path and cause you to give in to thoughts of “its ok if I just skip this one morning” “I already did half a rosary that’s good enough anyways”. Don’t give in, The demonic is trying to create a new habit for you. A habit of acceptance of mediocre prayer turns into the influence of acceptance of less prayer and from there into giving up on it altogether.
Excitement and Zeal:
Many of us, especially at the beginning when embracing God's grace will feel a fire within us and get excited about all the different possibilities of meditative prayer, mysticism, and becoming closer to the most high. For some of us, this early zeal is a gift from God, a subtle bump to push us in the right direction, the early initial zeal is like an incentive from God to start. For some lucky souls this lasts for a lifetime, for others it comes and goes, and for others called to great holiness, they must put in the work at all times to maintain their prayer life.
If you are experiencing this zeal, on fire to worship him, I offer some words of caution. You shouldn’t reject the zeal or try and throw water on the fire, that’s not what I'm saying at all. What you do need to do is to recognize your position, conduct self-examination, and have self-awareness. This zeal MAY not last so you can't start to create an unsustainable prayer life for yourself. I have heard stories of people as they began to read more about Christian mysticism and the penitential mortifications start to try and practice everything they were reading in the lives of the saints and desert fathers. They would sleep on the floor, wake up extremely early to pray the liturgy of the hours, and meditate on aspects of God only to find themselves weeks or months later completely exhausted, bothered, and unable to fulfill the duties of their vocation (often this is with nonreligious family men). If you are a husband/father, wife/mother your first duty is to your vocation as that and yes a prayer life is important to that, both for your soul as well as an example to your family. However, if these more extreme forms of mortifications and prayer life are inhibiting your ability to fulfill your primary duties it's no longer growing you, but hurting you.
In short start simple, work your way up to deeper and more intensive levels of prayer over time when you have mastered the fundamentals and are ready to do so. You are going to fail at a prayer life if you think within a few weeks you can attain the levels of contemplation and experience the mystical at the level of those who spent years, decades, and entire lives stripping their souls of the chaff necessary to approach God in this way. Practice moderation in your practices and have the wisdom to know when practice is either hurting you overall and/or you just aren't ready for it. Again you won't become a mystic overnight or possibly ever. If you approach prayer not in the spirit of purity to worship God, but to get something out of it, mystical experience, you will likely either NOT get that or a demonic influence will use this lust of yours to give you an evil version of the experience under the guise of light.

PART 2: A PLACE APART
https://ozymandias.locals.com/upost/587085/starting-a-prayer-life-part-2-a-place-apart