Blessed meaning: happy and joyful through gratitude
Being blessed means someone else is giving you something, but what exactly does it mean and how do you make yourself feel blessed? In this blog, I take a closer look at blessings and feeling blessed.
What does blessed mean?
Blessed is often translated to happy because you have something. Or that someone is a happy or contented person[1].
An important part of this joyful, happy feeling is gratitude for what you have. For example, blessings are often mentioned in the Bible as a gift from God. If you’re not particularly religious, you can view this as a gift from life, the cosmos, or something similar.
What you have doesn't have to be materialistic, either. It can also be friendships, family or the work you have that you just enjoy doing.
How can you tell if you are blessed?
Initially, you are grateful for what you have. You may even have more than you ever expected to get, and that is certainly a blessed feeling.
Sometimes you can also suddenly be blessed with a mission of sorts. This can cause you to go through a career change. You can receive this blessing when you reflect on experiences from your life and what you learned from them.
You therefore get the feeling that you are working on something that is better for the greater good and that you are doing what you were always meant to do. As if this was predestined. It can also make you feel that this is who you are. Your work is then an important part of your identity[2].
Gratitude is a kind of overarching thing that includes your sense of being blessed. You are then in awe of what you have been given, of what you see or experience[3]. For example, you feel very blessed when you earn a million.
If you are not currently feeling too happy or blessed, fortunately there is much you can do to enhance this feeling anyway.
Exercise:
To feel blessed, you can imagine yourself receiving the blessing of God/life. You do this by taking a moment to reflect on all that you have and you can do this several times a day. For example, you can say:
"I am blessed as a son of God. I am happy, peaceful, loving and fulfilled."
Or:
"I am blessed as a son of God. I am calm, quiet, sure and confident."
Listen to this podcast for more information about the exercise:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5nKsqVYlLc7LOgXLyXSYn3?si=5e0e7c7aa42b400e
What is your expectation?
When you feel blessed you have often received more than you expected. This actually makes feeling blessed in the future very easy. Stop expecting things and then things will only fall apart.
Tadaa, a blessed feeling every time something succeeds[4].
So what do you expect in your life or in the future? Are you not happy now because you are actually incredibly disappointed?
- How logical are your expectations?
- Do you feel you have rights?
- Feeling like someone else should give you some?
- How logical is that?
Those disappointments and expectations you have are based on beliefs about how the world works and how you’re supposed to function within it to receive a certain reward.
You can explore these types of beliefs with hypnotherapy, and if you have limiting beliefs, they can be changed, making it easier to feel blessed.
Music
Music can connect with your mood and even change your mood. For example, music can make you feel blessed[5], then it must be music you really like.
Ultimately, how cool is it that someone has the creativity to create such a beautiful piece of music? Somehow that is not at all a given.
Change appreciation for certain things
If you’re currently dissatisfied with what you have and don’t feel blessed at all, changing your appreciation for what you do have can go a long way toward making you happier.
For example, research shows that people coming out of a difficult situation and being able to use social housing feel blessed[6].
To reinforce that gratitude, for example, you can make a daily list of ten things you have been grateful for that day. That way you can count your blessings, so to speak.
For example:
- I'm thankful the sun was shining today.
- I'm grateful for the supermarket on the corner.
- I am grateful for the hot shower I took.
- I am grateful for the people around me.
- I am grateful for my work.
- I am grateful for the break at work.
- I am grateful for my body.
- I am grateful for my pet.
- I am grateful for coffee/tea.
- I'm grateful for that great movie/book.
By doing this daily, you force yourself to look at the positives in life and feel better, so to speak[7]. Also, try to really feel gratitude for the things you write down.
Looking at it in a different way
Problems can often make it difficult to feel blessed. Hypnotherapy can help you view a problem from a different perspective, so that you don’t see it in such a negative light[8].
After all, you may feel trapped in your problem, but you can also see your problem as an opportunity for self-development. Whatever the problem is. It's an opportunity to learn a skill, whether it's something practical or just the skill of standing up for yourself.
Hypnosis allows you to explore beliefs you have about the world, how it works and how you think you belong or should function in it. Sometimes such an exploration can already provide helpful insights, because you usually don't make such an evaluation of how you think the world works. As a result, you may find that some beliefs do not make sense, and then even just ridiculing such a belief may be enough to put the problem behind you.
Is it a bit more complicated than that? For example, do you feel like you don’t deserve happiness, or that there’s always something that ruins it, preventing you from enjoying it? Then you can use regression therapy to find out where that belief originated.
With regression, you go back in time in your mind to revisit that moment. Usually these are memories from your childhood, but as an adult you know much more. You can empathize with other people who were there or have your adult self talk to your younger self in your mind.
This can do much to change beliefs that are not helping you feel blessed.
Accepting Compliments
In Dutch culture, it’s relatively common to brush off a compliment , but that’s actually a shame. Compliments are a good source of positive feelings, and brushing one off also diminishes those positive feelings[9].
So if you get a compliment on nice shoes, don't say you only got them on sale, but thank the person who compliments and possibly compliment the person yourself.
Volunteer
Another way to feel more blessed is by volunteering. Usually, when you volunteer, you’re helping people who are less fortunate than you. That way, you’ll quickly realize that you actually have a lot to be grateful for.
On the other hand, it's also rewarding work to do. So you can also feel blessed by being able to offer someone a helping hand. How cool is that?
Do you find it hard to accept compliments or think no one is waiting for your help? That, too, is something you can do a lot about with hypnotherapy.
Want to know exactly how it all works? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Or enroll in one of the HIN's training courses. Ideal for helping yourself or just others.
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