A prayer before hitbodedut

Master of the World, I am sitting alone now to speak with You. There is no prayer book before me and no fixed text, only me and what is in my heart. And precisely now, when I am allowed to say everything, it is hard for me to begin.

Give me words. Even if they are simple, even if I repeat the same sentence several times, even if I fall silent. Let me speak to You in my own language, the way one speaks with a close friend whom there is no need to impress.

And if there is something I do not dare say even to myself, let me begin to say it here, slowly, sentence by sentence. Here there is no one to laugh at me, no one to remind me of it tomorrow, and no need for the words to be in order.

Guard me from the thoughts that will come to distract me: from the tasks I have not yet done, from the phone in my pocket, from the voice that says it is ridiculous to talk like this into the air. Let me believe that You hear.

Let me be sincere. Not to tell You what seems proper to say, but what I am truly going through: what hurts, what shames me, what I long for.

And if this whole time passes without my saying anything great, let me know that the very sitting here, before You, is not in vain.

And now, let me simply begin.