Blessing: How to Get Started in 9 Simple Steps – Part 3

This is the third installment of a series of essays which show people how to do formal blessings, in simple, doable steps.

If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start there: Part 1 and Part 2.

And for the people who did read them, I hope you actually followed along and are giving my suggestions a try – or are trying out your own version of blessings! 🙂

Today we’ll explore some more areas of the non-swimmers’ section of the pool (but don’t worry, we will reach the deep end before the end of the series!). But before we wade over to one of the short water slides to have some more fun, I’d like to squeeze in another troubleshooting section:

Troubleshooting two of the biggest issues

There are two things which, I believe, are among the biggest issues people face when they start out with blessing – and both of them have been quite neatly summed up in one comment to last week’s essay. (Kudos to Valerie for bringing these things into focus in her comment!)

The first is something I’ve touched upon in last week’s troubleshooting section, but it bears repeating – especially as Valerie has expressed it so nicely: “The biggest problem I seem to have is me.”

Well, I guess that’s true for most of us. 😉

With regards to the blessings, I’d wager that most of the “problems” you might experience are all in your mind. Thus the best way to deal with them is to realize that this is the case, figure out where they are coming from, learn something about yourself, maybe change whatever needs changing, and then simply push through until you get to the other side.

That’s it. You’ll still be your biggest problem, but at least you’ll have dealt with these issues…

But there is a second gem in Valerie’s comment which I wanted to highlight.

By now, some of you might experience or perceive various things during their blessings. This could, for example, be bodily sensations, like warmth or tingling. It could be sensory impressions, e.g. something visual. Or it could be emotional things.

On the other hand, some of you might experience nothing.

If that’s you, you might envy the people who have all sorts of perceptions. Hey, they get an immediate validation, right? Whereas you have no idea if there’s even any energy flowing!

But such perceptions and experiences can be a double-edged sword. They raise expectations – and something in you might be very eager to wait for more experiences, or stronger ones, or to search for ever new modes of confirmation.

There might also be something in you which is getting just a tad haughty – after all, your superior experiences show quite clearly how enlightened you already are… 😉

(I’m just kidding, of course – but the temptation might be there in the background.)

Thus having such sensations or experiences can be helpful, but it can also be a hindrance, in that it gets you (again!) to be your own biggest problem. 😉

On the other hand, if you don’t have any such experiences right now, if you don’t feel a tingling or warmth or a wave of emotions or whatnot else during your blessings… if there is nothing at all… then congrats! You will hardly feel the need to compare your prior experiences and sensations to your current ones, as there haven’t been any. 😉

But this doesn’t mean there will be no issues for you!

If you can’t sense anything during your blessings, you might feel more insecure. Or you might feel that your blessings aren’t working. Or you might constantly be on the lookout for proof that they are working.

And ironically, all these potential disturbances are basically the same as the disturbances experienced by the people who do sense and feel things around their blessings…

Or, in other words: There is a part in all of us which likes to sabotage such new efforts like these blessings, oftentimes by sowing doubt. This part of you will sow doubt, whether you experience anything or not. It might push you to question yourself and your blessings because you don’t feel anything – or it might push you to question yourself and your blessings because you do, or because you don’t feel the right thing, or because your feelings and experiences today aren’t the same as yesterday.

This part can be rather sneaky, alas. And one way it might manifest is through what Valerie in her comment so neatly calls a “tourist attitude” – you’re not there to do the work, but to watch the scenery, and especially yourself, for any “sights” – whether they are new sensations or familiar feelings.

If that happens to you, again, the only way out is through. Whatever you feel or don’t feel, perceive or don’t perceive, makes your blessings neither better nor worse – and the sooner you stop fretting about this and simply get to work blessing, the sooner it will pass… 🙂

So. After this not-so-short-but-important detour, we’re back to the scheduled steps of our blessing course:

Step 6: Bless remotely

So far, we’ve mostly focused on blessing stuff which was right in front of your nose: the printer, your car, a bumblebee, or your potted plant (with the notable exception of divine beings in Step 5, although a case could be made that they are right in front of our noses, too… 😉 )

But of course, the world is a big place, and sometimes you might want to bless something which is a bit further away. Step 6 will take you there – and if you’ve done the work so far, it’s really, simple:

Pick an object to be blessed – something which isn’t right in front of you, but at the very least in the next room. The distance doesn’t really matter, as long as you can’t see it. (You could pick something at the other side of the earth, and things would work fine.)

Then follow the same routine as before: Focus on this object in a positive way (loving, caring, nice thoughts, wishing it well, whatever works for you). Raise your hands, say your blessing, keep being focused for a little while longer, and then come back.

That’s basically it. The only “new” skill is to focus on the object of your blessing without actually seeing it. I told you it’s simple! 😉

Two additional things before we move right on to Step 7, though:

First, make sure to try this with things which are further away and not just in the next room, too. It doesn’t make a difference for the actual blessing, and the “remote focus” you need is the same no matter how far away the blessee is. But for some of you, it might be easier to believe that you can bless things close by. So bless something further away on occasion, too, just to make sure your mind doesn’t get stuck on something like “I can only bless things within an X mile radius”, or any similar nonsense.

The second thing is what I called “remote focus” – you’ll need to focus on something which you can’t see. This doesn’t have to be a visual focus, although it can. Whatever is easiest for you will work. It’s simply important to keep that thing in mind, think about it, feel it, see it in your mind’s eye, know it exists, or whatever else lets you keep your focus on the chosen object. Oh, and you can keep your eyes open or closed, or experiement with both. Whatever works for you is fine.

Note that you don’t need any strong visualisation skills for this step – I’m sure you all know the old joke about telling somebody they shouldn’t think about pink elephants, right? 😉 Well, if you can think about pink elephants, you can focus on an object of your blessing, even if it’s not right in front of your nose.

At this point, we’re ready to tackle Step 7. Again, it’s your choice whether you keep experimenting with and practicing Step 6 until you feel it has settled, or whether you include Step 7 right away, and keep mixing and matching the two of them:

Step 7: Get creative

This is the part where the real fun begins!

So far, I’ve suggested what you should do, and how. That’s not because I think you couldn’t decide this on your own, btw, but because I assume it’ll be easier for a lot of people if they have some clear steps to work through.

But you’ve worked through the basic steps, you’re still fine, and you’re obviously ready to move towards the deeper end of the pool, or you wouldn’t be here.

Now it’s time for you to decide some things on your own, and to get creative with your blessings. Two things in particular would be great at this stage:

a. Get creative with language.

I’ve already introduced a few different phrases for you to choose from in Step 4. But there are many other way to phrase a blessing: Some are a better fit for some occasions than for others. Some are almost universal. Some will work well for you, and some won’t. All these are things which you’ll only find out by trial (and ocassionally by error…).

So go ahead and get creative!

Come up with new ways to phrase your blessings, and then try them out. Or be bold, do a blessing spontaneously, and see what language you come up with!

Either way, you’ve got my official permission to phrase your blessings as you see fit. (Well, not that you needed it! 🙂 )

If you should be totally stuck at this stage and don’t know what to say at all, one idea is to use more specific blessings, e.g. by incorporating an intention: “May your health be blessed.”, “X, I bless you for X.”, “X, may you be blessed with/given/… Y.”, or something the like. I’m sure you’ll have more than enough ideas once you get started!

b. Get creative with hand positions

The second thing I’d encourage you to get creative with at this stage is hand (and body) position. So far, you’ve kept your hands more or less in the same position during each blessing: slightly raised, palms pointing towards the front, or towards the object of your blessing.

But there are other options here, too. You could, e.g. touch the blessee during the blessing, like a laying on of hands. You might also come up with other positions, both when the blessee is right in front of you and when you bless remotely. Oh, and don’t forget that you don’t have to stand during a blessing (or if you’ve been sitting so far, you don’t have to sit either!) – try different body positions, too.

You can also experiment with your eyes (closed or open?), if you haven’t done so in Step 6, or with your voice (normal? whispering? quiet just-in-your-mind voice? booming ritual voice?).

Not all of these things will work for you, and not all of them will feel effective, or right. But if you want to continue blessing others, there’ll be situations where the conditions are less than ideal, and you’ll have to work with what you have. In such cases, it’s good to know what works and what doesn’t, and what you feel comfortable with.

So just go ahead, experiment, and have fun! (And don’t forget to report in the comments if you have things to share – whether they are reports of successes, good ideas to try, or stories of hilarious failures… 🙂 )

This is it for today. These two steps will give you more than enough things to experiment with until the next (and final) installment in this series goes up on Monday, August 5th, which is where we’ll (finally!) dive into the deep end.

Until then, I’m looking forward to any questions, anecdotes, suggestions, or other comments you might have – simply share them with us below.

See you next week – and I hope you’ll have fun experimenting! 🙂

P.S.: This should go without saying, but please feel free to share this essay series with other people who are interested in developing a blessing practice, or just in giving it a try.

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Image: Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash