Sending your blessings a few times a day to a person you are in conflict with is helpful in reducing misunderstanding and hostility. It doesn’t change the other person; it changes you. It softens your heart; it helps how you treat and respond to that person. When you resent or resist someone, that negativity is felt by them just as your openheartedness is.
-- Susan Taylor

The boss is on your back just because it’s Monday morning and you look better than he does. Your honey’s love is not so sweet today and she on your last nerve. You are two seconds short of calling your kids “the spawn of the devil” for sending you clear over the edge. Bless them anyway.

The lady in the blue ’72 hooptie cut you off in traffic then proceeded to drive 35 miles per hour all the way into the city. Two of your most difficult clients gave you hell in a handbasket today; another cancelled your services and another just didn’t show. Entering the breakroom, you overheard the tail end of one of your coworker’s very racy and racist joke, and when he saw you, he and the other eager listeners burst out laughing. Bless them all anyway.

Your newspaper was thrown in and soaked by your sprinklers this morning. The kids on the block yesterday who were eating chips, cookies, and candy discarded the trash at the edge of your lawn and the wind blew it to your front door. The trash collectors didn’t get your trash today; they’re on strike because they want more benefits (you thought I was going to say pay, huh?). Bless each of them anyway.

Send them all love and words of understanding and reprieve. Even if the injurious, inappropriate, and inexcusable stuff was done on purpose, send out the energy of forgiveness and compassion. It’s certainly not easy to back away from resentment and anger, and it may take some time to calm down and remove the reeling thoughts of wanting heads to roll. But even if it makes no difference in the attitude or behaviors of the perpetrators, ask God to bless their hearts anyway and watch how your heart and sense of peace will be salvaged and blessed.

Sadiqqa © 2007