Even This — Blessing the hard things together. Learning to meet sorrow, resistance, and fear with Love. Trusting the deeper order of things. Letting things be as they are.
Module Three: The One Who Blesses
This is Module Three of The One Who Blesses, a six-part series inside The Reflection Work. Each module is accompanied by written reflections and guided by audio, inviting you into the deeper questions arising in our world today.
Another kind of teacher
In Module One, I spoke of the bodhisattvas—those luminous human souls who return to Earth again and again until all beings are free of suffering. I named a few familiar teachers: Thich Nhat Hanh, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa. People whose presence in the world created a field of blessing around them. A living resonance.
This week, I want to turn our attention to another kind of teacher—less lofty perhaps, less well known, but no less radiant. These are the teachers whose words meet us where we are. Whose stories and practices uplift the spirit, touch the heart, and offer powerful, timely wisdom in the here and now.
Tosha Silver came immediately to mind. A spiritual teacher with a light touch and a fierce clarity, her books—Outrageous Openness, Change Me Prayers, and It’s Not Your Money—gently dismantle the idea that we have to control or fix everything on our own. With irreverent reverence, she invites us into the holy practice of surrender.
Tosha reminds us: When we cannot hold something in blessing, we can offer it. We can hand it over. We can let Love do what Love does.
And that is where we begin this week.
What if I just (really) can’t bring myself to bless this?
In Module Two, we explored The Grace Field—the field that holds everything. Not just the beautiful, the peaceful, or the easy-to-bless, but the ragged, the rejected, the real. We explored the difference between condemnation (which exiles) and blessing (which includes).
This week, we ask the harder questions:
How do I bless a job that is draining my life force?
How do I live in a world like this—and still walk the path of love?
Is it even possible to bless someone who is actively harming me? In fact, I refuse to!
These are the questions that stop many people cold. “Are you saying I’m supposed to bless evil?” People sometimes call this “The Hitler Question.”
Am I supposed to bless the politician who threatens my freedom, my safety, my child’s future? What about climate collapse? What about genocide? What about the madness on social media, the violence in the streets?
Blessing? Really? Um… no.
So, let’s pause here. If these questions stop you, you are right: we cannot bless what harms until we understand what blessing is and what it’s for.
Blessing is the restoration of innocence.
It clears the mind of burdens it was never meant to carry: the heavy systems of measurement we learned from a world obsessed with sorting life into worthy and unworthy, right and wrong.
Blessing returns our eyes to Love. It returns our hearts to Love. It teaches us to see the world as it is—not as wrong, or tainted, or fallen into error, but as something still shining with its original light.
So let's take a breath, and gently, clearly, remember what blessing truly is—and what it is not.
But first, a story.
To continue reading, and to join us for this week’s reflection practice...
In this week's audio, I'll read the full module aloud to you, pausing to expand on the ideas, share more stories, and guide you gently through the exercises.
We'll journal, reflect, and come together in the comments to share what we’re discovering.
The Reflection Work is a living conversation—and I’d love for you to be part of it.
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Here is your audio recording of this week’s module. As I was speaking the work, new understanding and an extra practice flowed to me. Don’t miss this one.
A Story: The Day That Everything Hurt
Last Friday, I found myself weeping—a lot. This was not the kind of crying that comes with one specific grief and, at first, I didn’t know why I was crying. I only knew I couldn’t stop. All day.
Nothing hurt—but weirdly, everything hurt.
This world. Sigh. My body. Sigh. My tummy hurt. Sigh. I looked in the mirror and... more tears. I’d just cleaned the house but, sigh, it still looked cluttered. I looked at my desk and... a pile of unfinished books. Big heavy sigh.
When I say this went on all day. . .
It was early afternoon and I was wiping my face (again) and thinking, Maybe a nap would help, when my sister texted: Want to talk today?
I sighed, responding: I feel weird and sad today. I’m gonna lie down.
A moment later, my phone rang. She called anyway.
“You don’t have to talk. I just want you to hear my voice. I love you.”
Sigh - but this time, a good one. That simple gesture. That voice.
It was just what I needed.
We talked for an hour. About all the things: the aching, the aging, the dreams and deadlines that we thought, surely by now, we would have met. We talked about how suddenly, time feels not just precious but real. Like, “I’m noticing time exists,” I told her. And I could hear her nodding, responding. Inside all of it, there was love. Honoring. The kind of love that says, I get it. I get you - as you are. I’m here for that. for you. With you.
That is blessing. Not denial or trying to make me feel better. Not changing the subject to something lighter. Not stuffing down the hurt when we feel sad.
Blessing is saying, “I’m sad.”
Blessing is my sister saying, “I’m here for that.”
This kind of presence brings what hurts back inside the circle. Not to excuse it, not to pretend it doesn’t hurt, but to say: you belong. This too belongs. And when that happens—when what we have exiled is gathered back into Love—we ourselves are gathered back too.
This is the heart of blessing.
We could call this practice by many names. Spiritual teachers call it inclusion, acceptance, compassionate awareness. Others just call it sitting together in the real.
Glennon Doyle, another teacher, models this beautifully in her podcast We Can Do Hard Things. Together with her partner Abby Wambach and her sister Amanda, she talks through everything—cancer diagnoses, eating disorders, the realities of parenting, today’s fractious political climate. They begin not from expertise, but from their honest, lived response to the day’s topic. They begin, always, by naming: This is a hard thing. We can face it. We can talk about it. We can do it—together.
This is the movement we are entering now, together: facing the hard things without running, fixing, or denying. Blessing them by bringing them back inside the circle.
So, now, in that spirit, hearts open, side by side, let’s talk about what blessing really is—and what it is not.
Blessing is Not Approval
Blessing is not slapping a smile over heartbreak and pretending everything is fine. It’s not sighing with resignation and pushing through. It’s not spiritual bypass, floating above the mess and saying “it’s all good” when it isn’t. Blessing is not blind optimism, squeezing our eyes shut against what hurts or harms.
Blessing is quieter and more true. It’s harder but infinitely more healing. And when we start to study true blessing, we find always the same four steps. Simple steps that lead naturally, organically, one into the other.
The Four Steps of Blessing
I see this. (I don't ignore it. I don’t try to wish it away.)
I see why I struggle to accept it. (Because it hurts. Because it scares me. Because it doesn’t match my picture of how things should be.)
I let it belong to reality. (This is the hard part. To accept that this, just as it is, is real - that it is here in the world where I am.)
I give it to Love. (I stop trying to change it or erase it—an exhausting task that was never mine to carry. I hand it over. And without exception, Love takes it.)
There’s a fifth step, which naturally flows from the fourth. Gratitude.
Gratitude is the natural response to blessing.
At its foundation:
Blessing is Inclusion. It’s a sacred act. It sounds like this:
I see you. I feel the resistance rising in me. I know I cannot make you disappear. So, I give you to Love, and I breathe in the relief that follows.
Blessing something moves it from outside the circle, outside the community, back inside. Blessing let’s everything that exists be seen and included by Love. (And here we encounter the sacred paradox: Love has already included it. Love blesses everything exactly as it is. No exceptions.)
But you and I—we have exceptions. Places we withhold. Things we cannot accept. And so, for our first exercise this week, we’re going to make a list.
The List:
Gather up your exceptions:
The rude, the loud, the insensitive.
The neighbor who picks fights.
The people on TV. The BS from talk radio.
The opinionated uncle (cousin, in-law).
The ex still crowding your daily thoughts.
In my list, I’m including $%&! leaf blowers. And the kid who vrooms his motorcycle every Saturday evening just as I’m falling asleep.
Pile it all in there. Include everything.
And then. . .
Give it all back to Love. Or the angels. Or the God of your choice.
Speak, pray, or write:
I don’t know how to bless this. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. But I know that it’s not mine. Not mine to fix. Not mine to change. Not mine to judge.
Hand it over. Address Love directly: “Here. You take this.”
That’s all you have to do.
That’s the blessing.
As Tosha Silver writes in Outrageous Openness: “Offer it. Hand it over. Let Divine Order sort it out.”
Here’s the foundational principle:
When we stop trying to control, change, or condemn something, we return it to the only one who actually knows what to do with it. That one is not you. It’s not your parent or your partner or the wise teacher at the front of the congregation. It’s Love.
Which brings us to the deeper truth:
You Are Not the One Who Decides What Belongs.
And truly, thank Heaven! What a relief to give up managing the world.
We have so much more interesting, more important things to do.
Here, on the recording, there is a second list - which came to me as I was speaking. An improvisational offering that changes the trajectory of this week’s module to include those much more interesting and more important things might be for you.:)
The sacred relief of not having to carry the world on our oh-so-responsible shoulders is such a gift. To say, simply: I am not the boss of everything.”
Sigh. Released from the exhausting task of managing what is not mine.
We are not here to sort things (or people) into "good" and "bad." We are not here to micromanage every detail. We are not trying to craft a perfect world. The world is already perfect—just as it is. We are here to witness that. We are here to love what we can, bless what we can. And to give everything else back to Love, to Divine Order.
Take a breath
Bring to mind something you’ve been pushing away. Something that feels like too much. A place of fatigue, sorrow, resentment, fear.
Now try saying to that part of your life:
I bless you. I include you. I may not understand you or even like you, but I accept that you belong in the wholeness of this world. I accept this because, well, here you are—and I am not the one who decides what belongs here.
Come to Your Journal
Settle in with your tea and a fresh bright page. Sit with these questions—let them guide you toward discovery. Let them open a door in your heart.
What if you stopped trying to fix it—and blessed it instead?
Write from your deep truth. Do not judge yourself for feeling how you feel. Let it pour onto the page. And when you feel complete... no matter what you’ve written or what you think of it—offer that simple blessing: I accept you.
Notice what comes up.
Make a note of that.
Let yourself be surprised - even intrigued by what appears on the page.
Give all of it to Love.
Let the Grace Field hold it all.
Let it hold you.
As Tosha Silver says: “You are always being carried, always held, always known. Even in the chaos, Love is orchestrating everything.”
This week, play with this practice. When you catch yourself fixated on something that feels wrong, before you leap to fix it, take a breath and bless it: I accept you. No matter what rises - outrage, refusal - bless that, too. And come to the comments and let us know.
I’d love to hear what you’re experiencing this week. Whether it seems related to the module or not. The Reflection Work moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes, we can’t quite see it until we (or someone else) shares it.
And remember: your sharing is a blessing to all of us. Sharing what you’re feeling or noticing makes an opening for others. You are not traveling this path alone.
Pope Francis came to mind as I read this, "Who am I to judge?" He walked through life sweetly, softly, not condemning but blessing. I want to be like that too.