Heartfelt Blessings is a free, daily email service designed to send a little goodness out without any kind of agenda or cost attached. Created by Kate Nowak, Heartfelt Blessings is part of the World
Wide Blessing Project she created in early 2006 as a way of reaching out to bless the world. To learn more about the project and how you can be involved, please visit the project's interactive site
at www.BettertoBless.com
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
— Helen Keller
Suffering comes to all of us. Bad things happen. Life does crazy roller-coaster loop-de-loops that can knock us off kilter and out of balance. It doesn't mean we've done something wrong, or failed in some way or missed the mark. It simply means that life, with all its wild turns and curves, is a glorious learning process, a way to teach us balance and strength and persistance. When we begin to accept this truth, then we realize, too, that with every bit of pain life throws at us, it also gives us the ability to heal. And while no one gains from our suffering, the entire world gains from our overcoming, so in a way, when we choose to heal, we heal the world.
May you always be both unafraid of suffering for the lesson it teaches and willing to overcome it for the gift it gives.
And may you also be aware that you are loved beyond measure and a cherished blessing to me.
Until tomorrow, may your day be filled with all things good,
Kate
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1/21/2008 2:18 PM
Donna Swenson wrote:
This message today comes at a particularly bad time for me. Not always can we CHOOSE to heal. I've recently found out that I have 3 ribs that are broken and have been for over 1 1/2 years or longer, which means they are not healing. My doctor has no explanation. I've been to 15 doctors who can't explain what's happening to me or why. I truly believed with prayer and faith in the ultimate healer, God, I would get over this. I guess if I take what you wrote to heart, I'm choosing to stay broken. I'm not! Sometimes God's answer to our prayers is simply 'No'. Believe me, it will be one question I ask when I reach the pearly gates. Reply to this
Let me begin by saying that I am very sorry you're experiencing such difficulty. As I read your words, I could feel your pain and your frustration and please know that I fully understand how aggravated you must have felt when you read today's message.
Healing can be many things. In the context of today's message, healing refers to overcoming, or taking dominion over our suffering. The Blessing Way to take dominion over anything, however, is not to by fighting it but through love and acceptance.
When we try to fight anything we immediately set up resistance to it. And what we resist persists. When, however, we choose to accept and cooperate with what is going on in our bodies instead of resisting it, a miraculous thing happens. We stop thinking of our pain as the adversary and accept it as the teacher it has come to be. We can even start having conversations with our affliction. "Why are you here?" we can ask it. "What did you come to teach me?" And because we are no longer resisting it, we can now be still and wait for the answer.
I do not know you and I have no idea why this difficulty has come upon you. But I can tell you as long as you believe God is withholding healing from you, you will remain unhealed. God doesn't have to withhold healing. We humans are perfectly capable of putting up our own barriers to good. But even then, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, we can still benefit if we will only take the time to listen to what our bodies are trying to teach us. We begin to benefit the moment we retake control of our bodies by saying to the affliction, "I do not want you here, but if you are going to insist on remaining, then you and I are going to coexist in cooperation and harmony and I am going to benefit from you and you are going to be a wonderful blessing to me. I will accept nothing less." We always have the Divine Right to set the terms with which we will deal with life. Always.
I would suggest as a way of easing your difficulty that you begin at once blessing the affliction and expressing gratitude for it. While not bringing any more pain than necessary upon yourself, you might want to try this very simple breathing exercise. As you breathe in, -- even a very shallow breath will do -- say to yourself, "My wish is that no one in the world ever need to endure such pain ever again." Let the breath out as slowly and as evenly as possible, and as you do, say simply "Even in this, I can be thankful." Now, just imagine a world where no one ever again hurts. Try to let the thought sink into our heart. A pain-free world. A world where no one hurts. A world where there is no suffering.
In this way, Donna, you are choosing not to suffer. You are choosing healing, love and blessing not only for yourself but for the entire world.
I send love and healing blessings with this message, Donna.
1/21/2008 5:05 PM
Stephanie wrote:
Hi Kate - I accepted your Blessings Challenge because I've been living out of fear and knew I needed a constant, daily reminder to stop that. So many wonderful things have happened just by my focusing on the good and by spending time praying again. Thank you for the challenge. One thing I read bothered me a bit. Someone didn't think we had the authority to bless others. I once asked a priest if it was OK to bless others when I felt the impulse. He said yes. You see, God is not a distant, threatening being. To me, God is in me and works through me. SO when I feel the impulse to bless, it is the same as the impulse to pray. It is letting God's love flow through me and hopefully touch others with the love He intended for them. I think blessing should be as instinctive as when we say "bless you!" after someone sneezes. Every day, as often as we can, we should bless our world and those in it. ONe great change for me is that I am less afraid. I smile more and can approach people I avoided in the past. It truly has been amazing so far and I hope to continue doing this every day even after the experiment is over.
1/22/2008 1:52 PM
Ellen wrote:
Thank you for your daily inspirations. Many days they are the only uplifting words I hear. I am in a very harsh marriage with an active alcoholic and I am handicapped and retired but have faith and believe that God never gives us more than we can handle. Thanks again for the uplift to many of my days. I too reside in Texas as you do Kate. Blessings upon you Always...Ellen Reply to this
1/22/2008 3:09 PM
Bridget wrote:
Hi Kate, Thank you for such wonderful reading and audio you have left a lasting impression and I am grateful and appreciate your challenge and blessings. You knocked on my soul and my heart heard. Amazing blessings to you. Happy Tears and Smiles Bridget Reply to this
2/1/2008 5:17 PM
VeronicaPeralta wrote:
Hello Kate.I had the pleasure of speaking to you once.I was glad to be able to tell you how I love your movies & admire you & your work.Ive felt so uplifted and closer to God after experiencing your movies.I shared them with my family on new years so they could feel the love and beauty of those messages.I am reaching out to you now because you have touched my heart and I somehow think you will know what to say.I am sad, afraid and sometimes feel all alone.The brief version is. I am a single mom of 2 boys.I love and cherish them they are miracles given to me by God.I thank him for them everyday and ask him to make me worthy of being their mother; my heart is breaking.My 17 year old son started his senior year of high school last aug.two weeks later he left home without warning.a month later he dropped out of school.He has now enlisted in the Army. He signed to serve 5 years and will leave on Feb.12. This from a boy who attended Catholic school for the last 8 years. Made honor roll every semester of high school, excelled in academics and sports.He was applying to colleges and his advisors said with his grades and intelligence he could get into just about any school he chose.He'd already begun taking classes at community college to earn dual credits.Hes never been in trouble.He has a loving generous heart. Every teacher, coach, or other adults who meet him are impressed by his intelligence, manners & personality. I am afraid he will go to war and be injured or killed. Im afraid he will never get to grow up and he will miss out on the many wonderful joys & milestones he has yet to reach. I'm praying and crying a lot. Thank you for reading this note. I know you are very busy with tons of mail. Bless you. Reply to this
As I write in the book version of May You Be Blessed, one of my first experiences with showering blessings on those around me arose out of all the fear and concerns I felt after my first child was born. Here I was this young mother with this precious new life in my hands and I felt so terribly inadequate to the task of raising her. I was constantly in fear that something would go wrong and I would lose her. An older, much wiser friend advised me to "bless her and let her go," and it was, without a doubt, some of the best advise I have ever had. I began blessing her every day, seeing angels around her, guarding her every step. When my sons were born I did the same for them as well. I've been doing it ever since. In a few days, my daughter will turn 40, so that means for the past 40 years, I've been wrapping those people I love in blessing on a daily basis.
Nothing is certain in this life, Veronica. We don't know from one moment to the next if those we love will come back to us. Countless sons who have never seen a war zone have said goodbye to mothers in the morning and never returned at night. We have no way of knowing how our children will fare in any circumstance. We can, however, bless them. We can see them as safe and whole and happy. We can imagine them being victorious on any and all of life's battlefields, those at home and those abroad. Will our blessing infallibly protect our children? I do not know. But I do know that blessing those we love does far more good than worry and fear ever could.
Whenever I find myself beginning to worry about any of my children or grandchildren, I remember the biblical story of Job and how he bemoaned the fact that every one of his fears had materialized. You remember Job, don't you? He lost all his children and his wife, as all of his deepest fears were realized. As Job's story attests, we really do get what we think about most in this life, Veronica, because that which we think about most is usually the most emotionally invested. When we're afraid, our fear-based emotions attach themselves to our worrisome thoughts and kind of supercharge them, greatly increasing the chance that the thing we fear the most will come into being. When we relax, however, and trust that the Divine is at work in our lives and in the lives of those around us, then the peace, and love and joy that accompanies such thinking emotionally charges each of those thoughts and significantly increases their potential to become reality.
The question you must ask yourself is whether or not your fear and worry is doing anyone any good at all. Other than perhaps filling some misguided feeling that mothers are supposed to worry, it is not. Your worry won't get you anywhere and it certainly won't help your son. Nor will it help those around him. Worry never does anything other than to help solidify fearful thinking into a fear-based reality.
So in response to your posting, I really think I can offer you no better advise than that which was offered me all those years ago. Therefore, with much love, and blessing and understanding, I echo the words of the dear woman who spoke to me as I held my newborn child in my arms: "Honey, you're just going to have to bless that child and let him go."
And with that, I wrap you and your entire family in thoughts of love and joy and light.
May all of you be truly blessed with all things good,
Listen to Today's Heartfelt Blessing
This message today comes at a particularly bad time for me. Not always can we CHOOSE to heal. I've recently found out that I have 3 ribs that are broken and have been for over 1 1/2 years or longer, which means they are not healing. My doctor has no explanation. I've been to 15 doctors who can't explain what's happening to me or why. I truly believed with prayer and faith in the ultimate healer, God, I would get over this. I guess if I take what you wrote to heart, I'm choosing to stay broken. I'm not! Sometimes God's answer to our prayers is simply 'No'. Believe me, it will be one question I ask when I reach the pearly gates.
Reply to this
Dear Donna,
Let me begin by saying that I am very sorry you're experiencing such difficulty. As I read your words, I could feel your pain and your frustration and please know that I fully understand how aggravated you must have felt when you read today's message.
Healing can be many things. In the context of today's message, healing refers to overcoming, or taking dominion over our suffering. The Blessing Way to take dominion over anything, however, is not to by fighting it but through love and acceptance.
When we try to fight anything we immediately set up resistance to it. And what we resist persists. When, however, we choose to accept and cooperate with what is going on in our bodies instead of resisting it, a miraculous thing happens. We stop thinking of our pain as the adversary and accept it as the teacher it has come to be. We can even start having conversations with our affliction. "Why are you here?" we can ask it. "What did you come to teach me?" And because we are no longer resisting it, we can now be still and wait for the answer.
I do not know you and I have no idea why this difficulty has come upon you. But I can tell you as long as you believe God is withholding healing from you, you will remain unhealed. God doesn't have to withhold healing. We humans are perfectly capable of putting up our own barriers to good. But even then, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, we can still benefit if we will only take the time to listen to what our bodies are trying to teach us. We begin to benefit the moment we retake control of our bodies by saying to the affliction, "I do not want you here, but if you are going to insist on remaining, then you and I are going to coexist in cooperation and harmony and I am going to benefit from you and you are going to be a wonderful blessing to me. I will accept nothing less." We always have the Divine Right to set the terms with which we will deal with life. Always.
I would suggest as a way of easing your difficulty that you begin at once blessing the affliction and expressing gratitude for it. While not bringing any more pain than necessary upon yourself, you might want to try this very simple breathing exercise. As you breathe in, -- even a very shallow breath will do -- say to yourself, "My wish is that no one in the world ever need to endure such pain ever again." Let the breath out as slowly and as evenly as possible, and as you do, say simply "Even in this, I can be thankful." Now, just imagine a world where no one ever again hurts. Try to let the thought sink into our heart. A pain-free world. A world where no one hurts. A world where there is no suffering.
In this way, Donna, you are choosing not to suffer. You are choosing healing, love and blessing not only for yourself but for the entire world.
I send love and healing blessings with this message, Donna.
May you truly be blessed with all things good,
Kate
Reply to this
Hi Kate - I accepted your Blessings Challenge because I've been living out of fear and knew I needed a constant, daily reminder to stop that. So many wonderful things have happened just by my focusing on the good and by spending time praying again. Thank you for the challenge.
One thing I read bothered me a bit. Someone didn't think we had the authority to bless others. I once asked a priest if it was OK to bless others when I felt the impulse. He said yes. You see, God is not a distant, threatening being. To me, God is in me and works through me. SO when I feel the impulse to bless, it is the same as the impulse to pray. It is letting God's love flow through me and hopefully touch others with the love He intended for them. I think blessing should be as instinctive as when we say "bless you!" after someone sneezes. Every day, as often as we can, we should bless our world and those in it.
ONe great change for me is that I am less afraid. I smile more and can approach people I avoided in the past. It truly has been amazing so far and I hope to continue doing this every day even after the experiment is over.
Thanks again for inspiring me.
Stephanie
Reply to this
Thank you for your daily inspirations. Many days they are the only uplifting words I hear. I am in a very harsh marriage with an active alcoholic and I am handicapped and retired but have faith and believe that God never gives us more than we can handle. Thanks again for the uplift to many of my days. I too reside in Texas as you do Kate. Blessings upon you Always...Ellen
Reply to this
Hi Kate,
Thank you for such wonderful reading and audio you have left a lasting impression and I am grateful and appreciate your challenge and blessings.
You knocked on my soul and my heart heard. Amazing blessings to you.
Happy Tears and Smiles
Bridget
Reply to this
Hello Kate.I had the pleasure of speaking to you once.I was glad to be able to tell you how I love your movies & admire you & your work.Ive felt so uplifted and closer to God after experiencing your movies.I shared them with my family on new years so they could feel the love and beauty of those messages.I am reaching out to you now because you have touched my heart and I somehow think you will know what to say.I am sad, afraid and sometimes feel all alone.The brief version is. I am a single mom of 2 boys.I love and cherish them they are miracles given to me by God.I thank him for them everyday and ask him to make me worthy of being their mother; my heart is breaking.My 17 year old son started his senior year of high school last aug.two weeks later he left home without warning.a month later he dropped out of school.He has now enlisted in the Army. He signed to serve 5 years and will leave on Feb.12. This from a boy who attended Catholic school for the last 8 years. Made honor roll every semester of high school, excelled in academics and sports.He was applying to colleges and his advisors said with his grades and intelligence he could get into just about any school he chose.He'd already begun taking classes at community college to earn dual credits.Hes never been in trouble.He has a loving generous heart. Every teacher, coach, or other adults who meet him are impressed by his intelligence, manners & personality. I am afraid he will go to war and be injured or killed. Im afraid he will never get to grow up and he will miss out on the many wonderful joys & milestones he has yet to reach. I'm praying and crying a lot. Thank you for reading this note. I know you are very busy with tons of mail. Bless you.
Reply to this
Dear Veronica,
As I write in the book version of May You Be Blessed, one of my first experiences with showering blessings on those around me arose out of all the fear and concerns I felt after my first child was born. Here I was this young mother with this precious new life in my hands and I felt so terribly inadequate to the task of raising her. I was constantly in fear that something would go wrong and I would lose her. An older, much wiser friend advised me to "bless her and let her go," and it was, without a doubt, some of the best advise I have ever had. I began blessing her every day, seeing angels around her, guarding her every step. When my sons were born I did the same for them as well. I've been doing it ever since. In a few days, my daughter will turn 40, so that means for the past 40 years, I've been wrapping those people I love in blessing on a daily basis.
Nothing is certain in this life, Veronica. We don't know from one moment to the next if those we love will come back to us. Countless sons who have never seen a war zone have said goodbye to mothers in the morning and never returned at night. We have no way of knowing how our children will fare in any circumstance. We can, however, bless them. We can see them as safe and whole and happy. We can imagine them being victorious on any and all of life's battlefields, those at home and those abroad. Will our blessing infallibly protect our children? I do not know. But I do know that blessing those we love does far more good than worry and fear ever could.
Whenever I find myself beginning to worry about any of my children or grandchildren, I remember the biblical story of Job and how he bemoaned the fact that every one of his fears had materialized. You remember Job, don't you? He lost all his children and his wife, as all of his deepest fears were realized. As Job's story attests, we really do get what we think about most in this life, Veronica, because that which we think about most is usually the most emotionally invested. When we're afraid, our fear-based emotions attach themselves to our worrisome thoughts and kind of supercharge them, greatly increasing the chance that the thing we fear the most will come into being. When we relax, however, and trust that the Divine is at work in our lives and in the lives of those around us, then the peace, and love and joy that accompanies such thinking emotionally charges each of those thoughts and significantly increases their potential to become reality.
The question you must ask yourself is whether or not your fear and worry is doing anyone any good at all. Other than perhaps filling some misguided feeling that mothers are supposed to worry, it is not. Your worry won't get you anywhere and it certainly won't help your son. Nor will it help those around him. Worry never does anything other than to help solidify fearful thinking into a fear-based reality.
So in response to your posting, I really think I can offer you no better advise than that which was offered me all those years ago. Therefore, with much love, and blessing and understanding, I echo the words of the dear woman who spoke to me as I held my newborn child in my arms: "Honey, you're just going to have to bless that child and let him go."
And with that, I wrap you and your entire family in thoughts of love and joy and light.
May all of you be truly blessed with all things good,
Kate
Reply to this