I used to believe in God and pray often.

When I discovered that I had stopped believing, I stopped praying.

In a month or two, I felt the lack strong enough that I felt I needed to do something about it. So I began to go through the motions and find what parts work.

It turns out that I can perform prayer-like-actions without invoking a higher power and get similar results. A couple years have allowed me to refine the process, somewhat, and now I can feel the rightness, acceptance, and love-like-experience I once called 'being filled with the Holy Spirit' much more easily than I could when I had to first abase myself before God's judgement.

And I call that progress.