The Blessing of a Kingly Man
In our work, we hear the word “blessing” thrown around a lot.
So let’s talk about blessing.
Blessing is love — but love applied in a very specific way.
Blessing is love and unconditional positive regard, given to someone (or part of someone) who hasn’t been experiencing it.
And as small as that might sound, it makes all the difference for a Kingly life of joy and ease. Blessing is a big deal. Blessing is pivotal in how you experience your life.
It might help you understand blessing by understanding what blessing isn’t, because blessing is commonly misunderstood. And sometimes its easier to understand something when you’ve got a clear idea of what it is not.
Blessing is not encouraging someone to do better. It’s not “bucking someone up.” Blessing is not saying, “c’mon, you can do it. You got this! Don’t give up!” That’s fine, but it’s not blessing.
Blessing is not ‘good advice.’ It’s not “you just need to really think through the possibilities and decide which one makes sense!” or “you just need to use the tools you know and you’ll feel much better!” Again, that’s fine, and the advice may be good. But it’s not blessing.
And blessing is not criticism. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s such a common mistake. Blessing is not “if you didn’t spend so much time goofing off on the internet, you wouldn’t have this problem, or “your problem is you’re lazy. If you’d stop being lazy for once, you’d be a lot more successful.”
Those things aren’t blessing.
Blessing is, “No matter how you are, I have love and positive regard for you. Even when you can’t ‘do better.’ Even when you’re too broken to take my ‘good advice.’ Even when being discouraged and stuck is the very best you can do, I love you and have positive regard for you.”
That’s it. That’s blessing.
Blessing is love that comes EVEN WHEN you are at your worst. Blessing doesn’t hold out conditions you have to meet before you’ll be lovable. You’re lovable NOW.
Now, most of us were brought up believing that when we are at our worst, what we really need is a good kick in the pants. As men, we’re straight-up told that our emotional experience of life doesn’t matter, and that we need to shake it off and get back to work.
And you know what? Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes “Shake it off and get moving” can actually be a blessing, if it’s coming from the right person at the right moment.
But usually it’s not. I recall hearing one personal development leader say, “Always kick a man when he’s down. He’ll get up faster.” And that man might get up faster, but this approach to life doesn’t think about, when you kick a man when he’s down, what kind of man gets up? If he gets up hopeless, afraid of more kicking, discouraged and broken — okay, fine, you got him to get up, but he’s not a kingly man, and he’s not going to be living a life of joy and ease.
I’d like you to remember the feeling of a time when you’ve taken your most inspired action, or one of your best moments. When you’ve really been in the flow of things. When exactly what was needed seemed to flow out of you, and you felt great, and it felt very natural.
That moment didn’t happen because you were finally able to kick yourself hard enough to take action. That happened because you were in your blessing. For whatever reason, you had the trust and esteem to truly be who you truly are.
Blessing is transformational, because it’s when we receive love for parts of ourselves that haven’t been experiencing it—exactly the way those parts of us are—we become energized to find new ways forward.
For instance — If you’ve ever had someone whose opinion you highly esteem say something nice about you, and afterwards have felt charged up and inspired, then you’ve experienced blessing.
Early on in my career, I was helping out with workshops run by my mentor. One afternoon, during a staff meeting, he took his sword — he had brought a literal sword to the workshop — he took his sword and put it at my feet.
That simple act of blessing, that regard he had for me, his belief in me that was so great that he would, at least for the moment, put his sword in my service— gave me the energy to step out and lead an entire afternoon of a workshop for the very first time. It wasn’t his advice or his teaching or his encouragement that got me to that place. It was his blessing.
Blessing is what creates hope and inspiration. I like the saying that blessing is the lubricant that allows the circuits of kingship to function.
It’s the first step of living from your Kingship, as a kingly man.
Jungian therapist Robert Moore said that the job of the King is to Bless the realm, and to choose the direction for the realm. Blessing and Choosing. That’s the King’s job.
If you want to be the King in your realm, then blessing is the first thing you need to experience, so that you can choose your future from an inspired place.
Find some blessing today.
By Dimitri Bilgere
Dmitri Bilgere is the leader of “The Inner King Training” and author of “Gateways to God: Remove Your Roadblocks and Live His Love.”
Photo Credit: Don DeBold via Creative Commons