generosity

for most of my adult life, i've not considered myself a very generous person. somewhat, but not primarily. but these past months, i've been more giving than before. more giving of my time, my attention, my energy, my things...and it's felt really great!

in the past, i think i spent more time worried about being taken advantage of, or being used...or just being fearful in general and became focused on guarding instead of giving. in many ways. being a pack rat, for example. i'm reluctant to throw things away because i might need them. but moving a few times in my adult life has taught me to begin to let things go. but then this past year especially, i've been letting go of more. and perhaps not coincidentally, have been practicing "letting go" of other things. things like regret. grief. fear. resentment.

and now i find myself feeling more and more open-hearted.

perhaps one thing that's changed for me is that i no longer have difficulty saying no. early on i learned to be a people-pleaser. i felt compelled to do whatever anyone needed or wanted always. i think i believed i needed to be this way in order to be loved. yet at the same time, i somehow had the power to not always be compliant, even though i felt compelled to (what an inner conflict that has been!) but i had an inner resistance towards people i used to call "takers" - people who would be more concerned with what they wanted or needed than with your feelings or needs. who might even manipulate or try to make you feel guilty if you resisted. i still wasn't always good about honoring my own feelings, and there were many times i went against my instincts and gave into what others wanted even if i wasn't ok with it. so i have had to learn to set boundaries. how to say no. how to value my own needs and wants equally with others. but now i know i can say no, and know how to, and know that i do not have to agree to anything i'm not comfortable with...somehow knowing all this, makes it easier to start saying yes.

it is feeling so good to be generous. and the nice thing is, i don't think generosity has to be about money. i think there are plenty of other ways to be generous that don't involve money. like volunteering for that organization has felt so good. (and that has just been one evening a month!) and if they needed extra help with an event and asked for helpers, it has felt so good to help out. not to get paid. not to get a reward of any kind. just because someone needed it. and i think a key element here is that this was something i wanted to do and believed in and enjoyed doing! so it wasn't like i was making myself do something i didn't want just to "be nice." and then a local church was collecting coats for kids for winter, so i asked my friends if they had any extra kids coats and i searched through our closets and together we were able to gather a few bags to take over there. and that felt fantastic! and there are other smaller things, like just listening to someone. really listening, not just waiting for them to stop talking so i can have my turn to say what i need to say (which i can now admit i have done, eek :) or offering a compliment. i did these kinds of things before. but lately, i don't know, i feel like i'm doing this more often.

and again, i think a key element here, is that i'm not making myself do things i don't want to do. the origin of what i'm doing comes from within. i want to do these things.

like the other day, in a store, i was waiting for my phone to be fixed and i saw a woman walk in the shop wearing a beautiful long vest that looked homemade and quilty. it was earthy and looked old and very loved, and i just loved it! so i thought, why not tell her? so i just went up and touched her on the shoulder lightly and said, excuse me, but i just love this! did you make it? and her face lit up and she told me some lengthy explanation about where it had come from that involved her daughter and a small town in new york...it made me smile and i was so glad i had said something and she smiled and thanked me and said i made her day :) and she made mine! and that was so easy! and all this was free and only took a few seconds.

so this is what i'm thinking about today. what it means to be giving...

wishing everyone wellness and peace in your heart~

found at this neat site


"Comfortable With Uncertainty" by Pema Chodron

The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves. When we feel unhappy, when we feel inadequate, we get stingy; we hold on tight.

Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.

There are so many ways to practice generosity. The main point isn't so much what we give, but that we unlock our habit of clinging. A traditional practice is simply to offer an object that we cherish from one hand to the other.

A woman I know decided that whatever she was attached to she'd give away. One man gave money to people begging in the streets every day for six months after the death of his father. It was his way of working with grief. Another woman trained in visualizing giving away whatever she most feared losing.

Giving practice shows us where we're holding back, where we're still clinging. We start with our well-laid plans, but life blows them apart. From a gesture of generosity, true letting go will evolve. Our conventional perspective will begin to change.

The causes of aggression and fear begin to dissolve by themselves when we move past the poverty of holding back and holding on.

The journey of generosity is one of connecting with the wealth of bodhicitta so profoundly that we are willing to begin to give away whatever blocks it. We open ourselves and let ourselves be touched. We build confidence in all-pervasive richness. At the everyday level, we experience it as flexibility and warmth.