A BLESSING A DAY

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a saying whose roots go back into the mid 1800s. Apples may be good for us but it wasn’t their precise medicinal properties that were being exalted when this phrase was coined. In Old English the word apple was used to describe any round fruit that grew on a tree. The meaning was that if you do something good for yourself, good things come of it.

I have adapted the same rhyme to a slightly different wording. I substitute the word “blessing” for “apple”. If there is one thing that I have learned in my work, we do not give enough blessings to people each and every day. Learning to do give blessings came late in life for me. I grew up learning that it was more helpful to point out what we did wrong, so we would not do that again…….made sense to me at the time. What I didn’t count on was that I was training myself to become a better and more observant critic. My inner critic became quite developed and quite accurate. What was not developed in the process was the nurturing part of me that blessed or honored myself for what I did well.

I have found that there are blessing in everything we do. When we raise our children, we have constant opportunities to either critique them or to bless them……both in the name of loving them. What I have found as an adult is that if I bless myself and receive other blessings and honorings, my internal critic quiets and I grow stronger and more willing to be vulnerable and to live in my brilliance. We all have brilliance and beauty that needs to be nurtured and blessings are one really good way to do that.

There is one thing for sure…..no one can critique me to the level that I can critique myself…..what I need is to bless and to be blessed. To nurture my spirit and my soul is very important to me and as I tell all them men in my groups……when you bless someone, you are truly blessing yourself, because we cannot see in others what we don’t have in ourselves.

So I bless and honor each of you for taking a few minutes during your busy day to create some joy by connecting with the parts of me I share with you.

(Bonus blessing – I am honoring myself for my persistence, creativity, and passion…… this is my 100thblog!!)