Every now and then, somebody adds a comment to one of my Blessing Lists which, to me, suggests that this person would also love to bless others – but doesn’t think they can do it. They might think that this is only for “pros”. Or they might think they wouldn’t be competent. Or they simply don’t know how to even start.
Either way, there’s a whistful quality to some of the comments, an “I’d love to do that, too, but I can’t or don’t know how” vibe.
Each time I get such a comment, I’m tempted to reply “Hey, why don’t you just do it?!
But then I remember that not too long ago, I was very firmly in the same camp. Blessing was something that professionals like priests do. “Normal” people like me were the ones to be blessed.
I don’t know if the commenters even question that role allocation consciously. Although, to be honest, I know I didn’t, and I suspect they don’t either. It’s just one of those things which are a certain way, especially for people growing up with a Christian background (and I suppose that it might be the same in other big religions, especially the monotheistic ones).
Thus, in a lot of people’s subconscious assumptions, spiritual roles need to be observed – and access to certain divine energies and gifts requires a trained mediator.
That’s why I always go “huh??” when I encounter such a comment. ’cause, folks, I’m very much not a pro. I’m not a trained priest or blesser. I’m also not a saint or a mystic or anything the like. And I don’t feel more divinely elevated or chosen than the next guy.
I’m simply a middle-aged woman who one day realized that she should bless people, and then turned around and actually started doing it.
Or, in other words: If I can bless people, then so can everybody else!
And given the current state of our world, having more blessings in it definitely won’t hurt. 🙂
So that’s why I decided to write this essay. It’s a practical, hands-on (or rather: hands-up 😉 ) text to help you get started with blessing other people and the (living and non-living) things around you – in nine simple, practical steps.
As you can see from the number of my latest weekly Blessing Post, I haven’t been at this for ages yet, only for a few measly months. There is certainly stuff I don’t know, or things which I might not be able to put into words. I also only have my own perspective to share, as I’ve never worked with other people in this.
But on the positive side, I still remember very well how it feels to start out (yep, I’ve felt fairly stupid doing my first blessings, too! 😉 ).
Anyway, I hope this essay will get some of you to start blessing, as each blessing makes a difference in the world.
Before we start, though, a quick word about what I mean by “blessing” in the first place. What we’re talking about are conscious acts of bringing beneficial divine energies into the world, directed at certain people, places, animals, plants, beings, or things. (That’s the cliff notes version – you can read the more in-depth explanation here.)
I.e. this isn’t the same as saying a random everyday phrase like “Blessings to you”, with no real intention. It also isn’t you just thinking about blessing something or somebody, but actually doing it.
Since I well remember how weird it can feel when one starts out blessing, I’ve broken the rest of this essay up into nine simple steps. However, there might still be some moments where you feel a bit out of your depth. If that should happen, I recommend you to focus on the fact that lil’ ol’ me has been able to do this, and so will you. 🙂
And keep in mind: None of the following steps will do you any good if you don’t do them!
I thus strongly suggest that you follow along as you read – i.e. get started right away by jumping into the kiddie pool with me. I promise you the water is fine, clear, and well-tempered. 🙂
Step 1: Dare to start
Are you somewhere reasonably private where you won’t be disturbed for the next few minutes? Good. (If not, I suggest you go someplace like that right now. And if no other suitable location should be available to you at the moment, the nearest bathroom will do just fine.)
Seriously – I mean it. Make sure you have a couple of minutes of privacy, and then get started with me right away.
Ready? Good. Then lift your hands into a blessing position (if you don’t know what I mean, search your memory for some images of the pope blessing a crowd, and aim for roughly that position).
Look around you and pick the nearest object, whatever it is that catches your eye first: a plant, insect, pet, your car, a household item, the door you’ve been able to close behind you for privacy, or whatever else. Just pick something – what it is doesn’t matter much at this first stage.
(If you happen to be in your office, I suggest picking your printer. Printers are fickly divas who like to give out at the most inconvenient moments, and blessing them certainly won’t hurt. And if you ended up in a bathroom, consider blessing the toilet – if you’ve ever had to deal with a clogged toilet, you know how much we owe to functioning toilets. Give them a little love back by blessing one!)
Keep your eyes on the object. Focus your thoughts on it, as much as you can, and say “May you be blessed.”. Say that out loud, or as loud as you reasonably can if there are privacy concerns. (Yep, I know it feels weird. Just do it.)
Remain in that position for another couple of seconds, and keep your thoughts focused on the object of your blessing as much as possible during that time. (Don’t fret if you lose focus, just bring it back. We don’t have to be perfect for our blessings to work.) That’s all there is to Step 1.
Done? Good. I hope you’re feeling good about your first blessing, and not too silly overall. 😉
And I promise you that this was the hardest step – the going will get easier from here on!
Step 2: Make it real
Congrats! You have mastered the hardest part of blessing others, and that is getting started and overcoming any feelings of weirdness, insufficiency, incompetency and whatnot else which might be attached to it.
Well done! 🙂
In Step 2, we’ll add a bit of oomph to your blessing. Whereas in the first step, you simply tried to keep your mind focused on the object of your blessing, we’ll now engage your feelings as well.
Focus on the object of your blessing again (if it happened to be an animal which has since flown or hopped away, pick the next first thing which comes to mind). But this time, don’t just try to focus your thoughts on it. Instead, do your best to get into a loving mood – or if you can’t do loving right now, a friendly or caring mood. Either one of these will do.
Look at the object of your blessing for a few seconds, and try to care about it and about its well-being. Maybe you find ways to be grateful to your toilet or your printer. Or you wish good things on it, e.g. safety on your car, or health on a plant. Or you can see that it looks nice, or cute, or maybe even beautiful. Or you feel responsible for it in some way, and instead of feeling guilty or annoyed or …, you can manage to get into a mood where you simply care that it is well taken care of.
Again, either of these will do, and you don’t have to be perfect. Just do your best! The point is to get you into a positive and relaxed connection with the thing you’re going to bless, as that will make it easier for beneficial divine energies to flow through you into the object of your blessing.
(If you’re all riled up, distressed, full of shame or guilt, or don’t care about the thing in front of you at all, this will make the flow of energy a lot harder.)
Then do the same things as before: Raise your hands, focus to the best of your current ability (this time including the caring intention), and say “May you be blessed.”. Remain in that position and focus for another few seconds, and then ease out of it.
There you have it – a fully functioning blessing. Not as hard as you thought, huh? 😉
Step 3: Issues of Consent
Since this essay is already getting somewhat longish and we’re only two steps into the nine I promised you in the headline, I’m going to split things up and publish Steps 4 to 9 in follow-up essays. But before we wrap things up for today, there is one important next step which we need to tackle right now, and that is about consent.
Since you’ve now learned to perform a fully functioning blessing, you can actually go around and bless to your heart’s content (and I hope you will actually do that, since practice makes perfect!). But before you do that, I want to edge in a few words about consent:
In your first two blessings, you might have felt some energy flowing, maybe as tingling or warmth or other sensations, or you might not have felt anything at all. But whether you feel it or not, in Step 2 at the latest, you have performed a functioning blessing – an act of inviting divine energies into an object, or into the life of a person or other being.
While you might feel that blessings are always positive and should always be welcome, that is not the case. Sometimes people don’t want to be blessed, and they have every right to do so.
Also, sometimes a blessing might simply be too much: There are cases where people are already dealing with a lot of energy, and even a little bit more, no matter how beneficial it might be, can be too much. Worst case, somebody might end up with serious health issues because of such an energy overload.
You cannot know from the outside if a blessing will be good for another person or not, or if it will be welcome – and it’s not up to you to decide for them.
I.e. when you go about your week now, I hope you will practice blessing as often as you can, ideally several times a day. If nothing else, this will get you over the weird or negative feelings you might have about blessing others.
But I also hope you remember that consent is paramount. Do not bless others without their explicit consent!
Of course, thre are lots of other beings, objects, places etc which you can’t necessarily ask for consent before you bless them (well, you can ask, but you won’t necessarily get an answer, or at least not one you can easily understand):
Ultimately, you’ll need to come up with your own ethical guidelines around blessings. My position is that as long as something is in my reasonable care (objects I own or co-own or am responsible for or use frequently, our garden, plants in it, pets, …), blessing it is fair game.
As for other animals and plants which are not in my immediate care, e.g. wild animals or trees outside our garden: I have found that they usually react very well to blessings. I thus bless them when I feel called to do so – but if I get any whiff of negative, hostile or dismissive vibes, I’ll leave it be.
All of this is mostly a matter of common sense and some simple ethics.
For your “homework” until the next post, I suggest you stick to the easy targets we’ve practiced with in Step 1 and 2, i.e. bless things which don’t ask questions. That way you’ll not just avoid issues of consent, but you also won’t have to tell others what you do while you’re still driving with kiddie wheels… 😉
Pick any amount of inanimate objects, and of animals and plants, and go bless them, as often as you feel called to do so. Don’t always pick the same thing, but try to vary a bit. Do as many of these blessings as you can manage, and as often as possible. Several times a day would be good (if you keep forgetting about it, set yourself some form of inconspicious reminder).
I’ll put up the next essay in this series on Monday, July 22nd. That leaves you a full week to practice, and I hope you’ll make good use of this time!
In the meantime, if you have any questions, experiences to share, comments, or anything else, please make copious use of the comment box below. 🙂
See you next week for Steps 4 and 5 of “Blessing – How to Get Started in 9 Simple Steps”!
P.S.: This should go without saying, but please feel free to share this essay with other people who are interested in developing a blessing practice, or simply in trying it out.
Image: Diego PH on Unsplash
Jeff Russell says
Thank you for posting this! I was certainly in the same hesitant camp before I started working with the Modern Order of Essenes materials.
One small addition I would add to steps 1 and 2 is that I think there is some benefit in doing it “only in your head” if you struggle with the “bringing in your heart” part of things, at least there was for me. I found that turning my thoughts to blessings helped to interrupt more negative ones and put me in a more open and positive frame of mind, and that after a few weeks/months of that, it was much easier to start engaging my heart. It was also easier to bring my heart into it with things that I was predisposed to feel warmly toward – lovely trees, cute animals, our houseplants, and so forth. Since then, I’ve found some value in offering blessings to less “obvious” recipients, like turkey vultures, gas stations, and storage rental places, but it was easier to start where the warmth was closer.
Anyhow, looking forward to the rest of the steps!
Jeff
Regine says
Jeff,
Thanks a lot for these additions! That‘s very valuable, as I can only speak from my own experience, and quite obviously, people are different and sometimes need different approaches. So it‘s good to have the input from others as well. 🙂
Regine
Justin Patrick Moore says
Hi Jeff and Regine…
I agree with you here Jeff. It is nice to offer mental blessings. I do it to the less obvious things too, like telephone poles, traffic lights and intersections. Turkey vultures deserve blessings too. They have a role to play in our ecology.
Regine says
Jeff,
After some consideration and a night’s sleep, I’ve decided to change the text slightly, based on your comment.
I had been using the term “heart” deliberately, to set a clear counterpoint to Step 1 (which is basically going through the motions to overcome any potential hesitation, and to get used to the procedure). My aim was to be just a tad over-the-top and thus to get people’s attention. Looks like I succeeded, but not in the intended way. 😉
Based on your feedback (which is very valuable, btw, and might be of great help to some people reading this!), I’ve concluded that “heart” might scare some people off, and that’s not what I want.
I also think that one doesn’t necessarily need to “open one’s heart” or work with the heart energy center etc, in order to make these formal blessings work. I suppose this might be another difference between them and the MOE (or maybe not, and I’m up the garden path here 😀 ).
In any case, the point of the exercise was to establish some positive rapport between the blesser and the blessee, as I feel this will help the energies to flow properly. If you’re indifferent to whatever you’re blessing, the divine energies will have a harder time to flow through you – at least that’s how I perceive things.
So… if anybody else is reading this and should be wondering what the fuss is all about: The original phrase Jeff was referring to was “Whereas in the first step, you simply tried to keep your mind focused on the object of your blessing, we’ll now engage the heart as well.” – and as you can see from the text above, I’ve exchanged “the heart” with “your feelings”. It might not be as poignant, but probably gets the point across more clearly. 😉
Regine
Valerie says
Thanks for launching into this project! I’m definitely in the “I’d like to, but how…” camp. I attempt the Blessing Walk whenever I’m out and about. I totally get what you say about sometimes the intended mental “May you be blessed” is rejected. That’s just fine; just move on. It’s unwise to push it. What you present here is definitely an upgrade, and I’m on it.
Our printer has never been so happy. :-). Our car will be delighted. And the weather here in southwest Idaho USA is week after week of temperatures over 100 degrees F, plus intermittent forest fire smoke from the mountains that blankets our valley making it even nastier. Lots and lots of plants, animals, and overheated garden hoses to bless…
Valerie
Regine says
Well, thanks for participating! Given the current status of the world, every little blessing can make a small difference.
Yes, that will be one happy printer. Who knows, maybe you‘ll end up with the un-fussiest and most reliable printer there has ever been. 😉 The temps at your place… ouch! I hope things will cool down for you in due time, and that you won‘t be affected by the fires.
It’s interesting that you should be the second person to mention the Blessing Walk (or the third, counting another comment on MM). To me, both the blessing walk and these formal blessings are, well, blessings, but they have a very different quality to them. The Blessing Walk is more joyful, exuberant, warmth and loving, while the formal blessings are more serious. That doesn‘t make them less loving or so, it‘s just a different quality, and the energies behind them also feel somewhat different to me.
Of course, your mileage may very much vary! I‘d be interested to hear about other people‘s perceptions as we go along. Thus if you notice any differences or similarities, or have any other observations or experiences, and don‘t mind sharing… 🙂
Regine
Valerie says
Hi Regine (and Jeff),
I want to share that swapping out “heart” for “feelings” made a difference for me. For example, I tried blessing my target shooting pistol with “heart” and all it generated was confusion. A sense of “What are you doing? I’m about protection. Love has nothing to do with this.” “Feeling” is a much broader brush, which can include respect, appreciation, etc. I don’t “love” my gun, but I do respect and appreciate what it can do. Things went much better with the “feelings” approach.
Valerie
Regine says
Hi Valerie,
That‘s very interesting, thank you!
Seems I overdid it there with „love“ in my attempt to get people‘s attention… 😉
I‘m glad Jeff raised the issue, and you are chiming in, too. This series here is a learning experience for me as well, btw. I do have my (mostly self-developed) „methods“, but I don‘t really have a clue if any of this works for others, or how to best „teach“ this.
I‘m thus very grateful for any feedback. Who knows what this series might become the basis for in the future… 🙂
Regine
Justin Patrick Moore says
I have found that it is easy to obtain consent when talking with friends and family by saying something like, “Oh I’m sorry you’re going through a hard time, I can send you some good vibes if you want” in a casual way and they respond in the affirmative. If they are open to religion or religious or even to just the subtle side of things, I’ll be more direct and say I will pray for them if it is okay. It almost always is, and I can include MOE work in the prayer. Those two seem to work great together.
In the same way that we use the words “offer” a blessing in the blessing walk as a way of framing it towards the strangers we are encountering, I think it is okay to “offer” a blessing to a co-worker or some other acquaintance without seeking their explicit consent, just as we would when passing a person on the street during a blessing walk. In fact, I have done blessing walks around the workplace inside, especially when it is 95 degrees out as it has been, and I skip the humidity of my normal break walks around the building. If it is just an offering than they are free to not accept it. At the same time, I wouldn’t do a more formal MOE blessing on them with healing hands without some kind of verbal permission.
It was fun to bless the office printer though!
Thanks for sharing this guide. It’s nice to revisit these themes and helps deepen our practices. And thanks for all the blessings you are giving.
Regine says
Justin,
Thanks a lot for the detailed account. I think that’s very helpful to other people!
Doing the blessing walk inside your office building is a great idea, and not just because of the heat! If you do that often enough, it might become a habit – and a habit like this might have a profound effect on the energies in your workplace.
Thanks for sharing the idea!
Btw, as I already replied to Valerie, it’s interesting that so far, all commenters seem to have connected these blessings here with the MOE right away. But with this guide, I’m working towards more formal blessings, as might have become clear from the first few steps already. To me, the energy and general vibes of my formal blessings is quite distinct from the energy and vibes of the blessing walk. The formal blessings tie in very well with the MOE work, granted, but they feel like two different things to me.
Of course, that might just be me. 🙂 I’m curious to hear if any of you experience the same as me, or something different, especially in comparison between the formal blessings and the blessing walk!
(And to anybody else who might be reading this: You don’t have to practice the Modern Order or Essenes in order to bless things or people! It’s perfectly fine to do just the formal blessings according to this guide, and will also bear fruit. 😉 )
Regine