Prayer, Blessings, Good Intentions and the Power of Positive Thinking are all topics we are magnetised to here at UPLIFT. Every religion or spiritual philosophy has this in common. We are a social species. We gravitate far more to socialising in shared religious or spiritual practices and, of course, in celebration. Think about it — when do you mostly get together with friends and family? There’s so much more meaning and energy created when sharing our joy and commonality. More and more, socialising or congregating with purpose is recognised as a very common human desire and need. We feel like we belong. It reminds us that we are not alone. And it’s those messages that take root in our subconscious and help develop our sense of self-worth and purpose.
And there is another need too, where the rituals of Prayer, Blessings and sending Good Intentions are private and earnest. And that is the ritual of rising each day and taking the time to bless the day … to start the day with contemplation and gratitude.
Here are a few examples, by Pierre Pradervand, of how to start and move through your day. This helps amplify your Light and raise your vibration towards Love in action.
The Gentle Art of Blessings
On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth; for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all.
On passing people in the street, on the bus, in places of work and play, bless them. The peace of your blessing will accompany them on their way and the aura of its gentle fragrance will be a light to their path.
To bless means to wish, unconditionally, total, unrestricted good for others. Image: Paulo EvangelistaOn meeting and talking to people, bless them in their health, their work, their joy, their relationships to God, themselves, and others. Bless them in their abundance, their finances … bless them in every conceivable way, for such blessings not only sow seeds of healing but one day will spring forth as flowers of joy in the waste places of your own life.
As you walk, bless the city in which you live, its government and teachers, its nurses and street sweepers, its children and bankers, its priests and prostitutes. The minute anyone expresses the least aggression or unkindness to you, respond with a blessing: bless them totally, sincerely, joyfully, for such blessings are a shield which protects them from the ignorance of their misdeed, and deflects the arrow that was aimed at you.
To bless means to wish, unconditionally, total, unrestricted good for others and events from the deepest wellspring in the innermost chamber of your heart: it means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with utter awe that which is always a gift from the Universe.
To bless all without discrimination of any sort is the ultimate form of giving, because those you bless will never know from whence came the sudden ray of sun that burst through the clouds of their skies, and you will rarely be a witness to the sunlight in their lives.
When something goes completely askew in your day, some unexpected event knocks down your plans and you too also, burst into blessing: for life is teaching you a lesson, and the very event you believe to be unwanted, you yourself called forth, so as to learn the lesson you might balk against were you not to bless it. Trials are blessings in disguise, and hosts of angels follow in their path.
To bless is to acknowledge the omnipresent, universal beauty hidden to material eyes; it is to activate that law of attraction which, from the furthest reaches of the universe, will bring into your life exactly what you need to experience and enjoy.
When you pass a prison, mentally bless its inmates in their innocence and freedom, their gentleness, pure essence, and unconditional forgiveness; for one can only be prisoner of one’s self-image, and a free man can walk unshackled in the courtyard of a jail, just as citizens of countries where freedom reigns can be prisoners when fear lurks in their thoughts.
When you pass a hospital, bless its patients in their present wholeness, for even in their suffering, this wholeness awaits in them to be discovered. When your eyes behold a man in tears, or seemingly broken by life, bless him in his vitality and joy: for the material senses present but the inverted image of the ultimate splendor and perfection which only the inner eye beholds.
It is impossible to bless and to judge at the same time. So hold constantly as a deep, hallowed, intoned thought that desire to bless, for truly then shall you become a peacemaker, and one day you shall, everywhere, behold the very face of God.
And of course, above all, don’t forget to bless the utterly beautiful person YOU are!
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We’d love to hear your experience with this in the comments below. We love the idea of blessing and sending good intentions without getting ‘involved’ in other people’s journeys. Not trying to fix them, pity them, want something different for them etc. Just the simple act of Love expressing Love – “I bless who you are, and where you are at in your life, I bless your path with Light so you may see the truth of who you truly are and where you need to go.”
Many Blessings,
Team Uplift
I think this is a beautifully written article, and I wish everyone could embrace this philosophy. However, the sense of peace I encountered reading it evaporated when I came to the word “God.” As I look at the dictionary definition of the word, and especially the religious connotations that accompany that word, I feel that it would be more meaningful and inclusive to leave out that word (or perhaps use the term “higher power” if you want to convey something “greater than” ourselves?). I don’t have to believe in a “God” in a religious sense to acknowledge the existence of a “higher power.” I don’t have to worship a “God” in any sense to acknowledge and be grateful for a “higher power” or to see beauty outside myself. That higher power or force or being may be Nature or Energy or even the Unknown.
A long time ago I was doing volunteer work, and someone said to me “You must be a Christian…” That simple interaction changed my thinking with respect to the limits of “religion” and all terms associated with it. No, I am not a Christian. No, I do not believe in a “God.” But, I strive to be a good, kind, caring, and loving person. That is how I identify myself…Not as the follower of any one religion or as a believer in a “God.”
Just food for thought…
Wonderful inspiration for daily living. Thank you!
I always felt that I was weird because I work at a Children’s Hospital and pray as I walk through the halls and pass patients. I pray for them and their families. I pray for the doctors that have to care for them. This article made me feel so much better. I will continue to pray not only at work but I’m my daily experiences and passings. Thank you for posting this!!
Thank you for the article, it has taken many years for me to recognize this practice in my own life and believe it was the first time I understood the true meaning of joy. 🙂
Thank you for sharing these lovely words. Blessing situations, others and ourselves is powerful and something to be done often. Blessings….
Thank you very much.
It’s worth reading your.
Than you, thank you, thank you
Wonderful article, and in true Uplift spirit!
The very act of blessing an angry, awkward or ‘unwelcome’ person or situation often starts a healing process that takes the edge off the situation right away. The results can be quite startling.
The reason we don’t practice it often enough comes from a strong ‘scarcity’ mindset – as though blessing others will somehow diminish the stock of blessings available for us!
In fact the reverse is true. The Universal Mirror principle not just reflects the blessings back to us, it often magnifies them too.
There really is no conceivable reason why we wouldn’t weave this practice into our daily lives.
Thank you. So inspiring. I love this practice & do this almost daily. Feels wonderful & little miracles happen once in a while.
This is so beautiful. Thank you! Both articles have reached me at such a perfect time and have brought me back to Love we all are and the Love within, for which I am so very grateful.
Bless you all for this, and for all you are and do.
thank you for sharing this wonderfully effective practice. It has impacted many lives all over the world and has such an important impact on raising world consciousness. Bless you for spreading the word!
I have a “blessing list” I do almost daily. Then a gratitude list. I send them blessings of love and light, good health, prosperity and peace
I have no idea if they are sensed or actually affect those I send blessings to but it doesn’t matter really. I do it because of my love for these people even though none of them are in my life anymore. They can go away and no longer care about me but they can’t stop me from loving them..
The gift of a blessing is hard for even the most angry and argumentative person to resist. I recently had an extraordinary experience. I recently went to a sports bar with my wife and young adult daughter to watch a game that was not available on our home television contract. The bouncer was a burly man who had coached and recruited our son to play football at the next level. While I am not either a Republican or a Democratic, he knew that I admired President Obama and he was a very aggressive and confrontative pro-Trump supporter. When he recognized us, he came over and quickly escalated into a very uncomfortable attack on what he thought I was after I acknowledged that President Trump was hard for me to admire. I let him vent and then, remembering the title of a wonderful book of poetry/blessings by the Celtic spiritual poet John O’Donahue, “To Bless the Space Between Us” , I waited for him to pause. Then I said, “I feel some distance between us, and that makes me sad. At least I would like to bless the space between us”. Suddenly everything between us changed, and for the next 20 – 30 minutes he could not let me go. He told me how much my family and I meant to him and that we were an inspiration to him that helped him in his attempt to sustain his attempts to leave behind a life filled with chaos and despair. He said, “No matter what differences we have in politics, I know we have a bond that is greater than those differences.”
When we bless others, especially those who are most difficult and challenging to us, the blessing comes back to us in spades.
I bless by sending imagery of transformation out to others. Nonsectarian, trans-spiritual meditations of the hands.
Wonderful! Bless you for sharing all of this with us!
So inspiring! Thank you. I have practiced a version of this for years where in silence I wish for another (usually a stranger) specific aspects of goodness in their life and their day. Is a blessing the same as a wish for someone?
This is such a beautiful article – as most Uplift are – thank you.