Our Relationships Have the Power to Be a Sacred Refuge

Offering Blessings

We are blessed whenever someone sees who we are and helps us trust our essential goodness and belonging. One friend felt blessed when her aunt understood what she most needed and paid for her first meditation retreat. A man I know, whose young son had died of brain cancer, felt blessed when his rabbi assured him that he could continue to commune with his son's spirit. As a young boy, my father-in-law felt blessed by his older cousin, who recognized his brightness and gave him a word game.

Physician and author Rachel Naomi Remen tells a beautiful story about how her grandfather's blessings nurtured her:

       My grandfather died when I was seven years old. I had never lived in a world without him in it before, and it was hard for me. He had looked at me as no one else had and called me by a special name, "Neshume-le," which means "little beloved soul." There was no one left to call me this anymore. At first I was afraid that without him to see me and tell God who I was, I might disappear. But slowly over time I came to understand that in some mysterious way, I had learned to see myself through his eyes. And that once blessed, we are blessed forever.

     Many years later when, in her extreme old age, my mother surprisingly began to light candles and talk to God herself, I told her about these blessings and what they had meant to me. She had smiled at me sadly. "I have blessed you every day of your life, Rachel," she told me. "I just never had the wisdom to do it out loud."

Most of us need to be reminded that we are good, that we are lovable, that we belong. If we knew just how powerfully our thoughts, words, and actions affected the hearts of those around us, we'd reach out and join hands again and again. Our relationships have the potential to be a sacred refuge, a place of healing and awakening. With each person we meet, we can learn to look behind the mask and see the one who longs to love and be loved. We can remember to say our blessings out loud.

- Tara Brach, Ph.D., from True Refuge:

Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart