Blessing Heart

Last year, I watched this happening to Britte, a student of mine, during a classic bad breakup. For some time, her boyfriend had been pulling away, telling her he loved her and wanted to marry her, then disappearing for weeks on end. Every time a friend suggested that it might be time for her to give up on the relationship, Britta would respond by saying that she knew they were meant to be together, and that she couldn't bear to think that he wouldn't be with her.

At one point, I suggested that every time she found herself falling into longing, anger, and grief, she try consciously blessing him. Perhaps she could begin by making a ceremony of it, and that after that, whenever she thought of him, she could send the blessing.

Britte made up a little prayer, "May your life be beautiful, may you find everything you're looking for, may you always feel love." As she practiced it, the prayer became more and more elaborate: "May you be protected by the universe! May you be free of suffering! May you be happy! May everything you do be blessed!" Unconsciously (or perhaps consciously), she was beginning to echo the words of the Buddhist metta, or loving kindness prayers, always a powerful formula for blessing. After some time, she began to extend the blessing to herself as well.

Almost immediately, Britta's practice of blessing her ex-boyfriend subtly affected her own heart. She began to feel less angry, less grief-stricken, and above all, less powerless. In the end, Britta was able to accept the fact that the relationship was ending. Her practice of blessing had actually helped her become emotionally free enough to truly let him go.

Being willing to bless our own past, our lost friends and opportunities, the jobs that give us up, the people who hurt us, is paradoxically, the best way to free ourselves from being haunted by them. It's a fact of life that whatever we try to push away seems to stick to us harder, while when we're willing to bless a person, or a situation, or even one of our own less-than-appealing qualities, the very act of blessing seems to create space for change.

There's a telling passage in the Old Testament, when the patriarch Jacob grabs hold of an angel, and says to him, "I will not let thee go until thou bless me." In the story, Jacob could stand for our difficult relationships, our intense karmas, the people who've failed us or let us down, the boss who fired us, the betraying friend, the situations with which we're currently struggling. The painful situations in our lives don't stop affecting us just because we want to be free of them. But if we can genuinely bless the people involved, honor them, wish them well, it's astonishing how often things resolve themselves, how quickly they shift. All this is living, experiential proof of Jung's principle of synchronicity, of the findings of chaos theory, and, of course, of yoga's core recognition that a change in the inner world is always reflected in the world outside.