In the current month’s issue of Yoga Journal, at the beginning of the magazine, several of the contributors were asked “What is the most loving gift you’ve ever received?” I will quote a couple here.
“A friend who knows me well gave me a book of art by a contemporary artist I absolutely love... When someone is in tune with you like that and takes notice of the details of who you are, it can make the gift very special.”
“There have been moments when a friend has taken the time to share their presence with me, to really slow down, make eye contact, and listen to what I needed to talk about. That kind of presence is the most precious thing you can give.”
I find when I give gifts, I am actually paying it forward. I have been blessed and enriched by someone else so significantly that I am guided to affect someone else’s life in the same way. Several different thoughts come to mind. One is, do your work, and then let it go (the Gita). The ‘work’ here is not perhaps the definition of work we have been conditioned to accept. The ‘work’ here is perhaps ‘purpose’, or ‘passion’, and the ‘letting go’ applies to the tyranny of expectation from the assumption the author states as to the reason for giving… to “raise good feelings about me in the receiver’s heart and mind.”
Creating something from my heart is the only focus I have when I feel the urge to give. Whether it is in a lesson I offer my high school students, or how I interact with my family members and friends, how I address the needs of the homeless or others who cross my path who may have personal ‘wounds’, or how I acknowledge the generosity of community shared with me by my adult yoga students.
My floral design students receive an assignment around Mother’s Day, which I refer to as Significant Female in My Life Day. The assignment is to choose five flowers whose meanings send a message of how each student views their significant female, just as flowers of a bouquet were chosen in previous centuries to carry actual messages. Then, they design a hand drawn colored picture of their bouquet to cut out and place on the front of a card. Inside the cover they list the name of each flower and its meaning. Then they place a personal message on the opposite page, and on the back they stamp ‘Hand Made By ______________’ and their name. They get to be as creative as they would like, with scrap booking materials, stamps, embossing stamps, card stocks, markers, color pencils, calligraphy pens, typed font selections for messages and meanings, special paper, and on and on. After Significant Female in My Life Day, when they return to class, they are invited to submit a reflection about how the card was received, and how they personally felt giving it. Sometimes students give these to significant males in their lives. Every year these reflections bring me joy and tears. How do I not then turn around with this incredible sense of gratitude and pay it forward?!
At our family gatherings, my mother has made it perfectly and legitimately clear that as she ages she has absolutely no need for gifts, so stop it! However, I usually find something significant to share with her each year her birthday, Mother’s Day, and the holidays come around. The focus and time spent on creating her gift brings me enormous peace that she is still around so I can continue to tell her how I love her in many different ways. I am no longer affected by her mild protests anymore. The gifts range from selecting and planting a large 10 gallon pot of a variety of vegetables and herbs for her to harvest from during the growing season, to a card like the assignment given to my floral students, to a handmade crocheted scarf of alpaca yarn, to an audio book I have found especially inspirational, to a CD mix of favorite songs or inspirational TED talks and KarmaTube selections. I can’t remember the last time I bought a Hallmark card. I love to take pictures and create my own.
With available technology, I enjoy texting my grown single sons and husband early in the morning with a quote or saying and to connect with them before they wake up. It's checking in, thinking of them, and it's also being fully present and focused with the power of words. It can change my mood immediately.
The gift I find the most touching is time spent with a homeless person/s. Depending on their needs that day, I may take their clothes home to wash them and bring them back, I may drive them somewhere for services, put them up in a local hotel for a night of complete rest and order food service for them, or listen to them share their story and sit with them at the local co op while eating a sandwich and drinking coconut water with them. There are many moments when I wonder who really is getting the most out of this interaction!
We each have people in our lives whose sweet attention and care help mold who we are and how we find our purpose. I am lifted up to continue to pay it forward. I am blessed by a community of adult yoga students who are so supportive and emit such significant vibrational light I get to then share this with others in my life. Sometimes the best way to thank someone else is to share the gift of love they offer you with someone else. This is the world I prefer to live in.
On Nov 23, 2012 Ricky wrote :
“A friend who knows me well gave me a book of art by a contemporary artist I absolutely love... When someone is in tune with you like that and takes notice of the details of who you are, it can make the gift very special.”
“There have been moments when a friend has taken the time to share their presence with me, to really slow down, make eye contact, and listen to what I needed to talk about. That kind of presence is the most precious thing you can give.”
I find when I give gifts, I am actually paying it forward. I have been blessed and enriched by someone else so significantly that I am guided to affect someone else’s life in the same way. Several different thoughts come to mind. One is, do your work, and then let it go (the Gita). The ‘work’ here is not perhaps the definition of work we have been conditioned to accept. The ‘work’ here is perhaps ‘purpose’, or ‘passion’, and the ‘letting go’ applies to the tyranny of expectation from the assumption the author states as to the reason for giving… to “raise good feelings about me in the receiver’s heart and mind.”
Creating something from my heart is the only focus I have when I feel the urge to give. Whether it is in a lesson I offer my high school students, or how I interact with my family members and friends, how I address the needs of the homeless or others who cross my path who may have personal ‘wounds’, or how I acknowledge the generosity of community shared with me by my adult yoga students.
My floral design students receive an assignment around Mother’s Day, which I refer to as Significant Female in My Life Day. The assignment is to choose five flowers whose meanings send a message of how each student views their significant female, just as flowers of a bouquet were chosen in previous centuries to carry actual messages. Then, they design a hand drawn colored picture of their bouquet to cut out and place on the front of a card. Inside the cover they list the name of each flower and its meaning. Then they place a personal message on the opposite page, and on the back they stamp ‘Hand Made By ______________’ and their name. They get to be as creative as they would like, with scrap booking materials, stamps, embossing stamps, card stocks, markers, color pencils, calligraphy pens, typed font selections for messages and meanings, special paper, and on and on. After Significant Female in My Life Day, when they return to class, they are invited to submit a reflection about how the card was received, and how they personally felt giving it. Sometimes students give these to significant males in their lives. Every year these reflections bring me joy and tears. How do I not then turn around with this incredible sense of gratitude and pay it forward?!
At our family gatherings, my mother has made it perfectly and legitimately clear that as she ages she has absolutely no need for gifts, so stop it! However, I usually find something significant to share with her each year her birthday, Mother’s Day, and the holidays come around. The focus and time spent on creating her gift brings me enormous peace that she is still around so I can continue to tell her how I love her in many different ways. I am no longer affected by her mild protests anymore. The gifts range from selecting and planting a large 10 gallon pot of a variety of vegetables and herbs for her to harvest from during the growing season, to a card like the assignment given to my floral students, to a handmade crocheted scarf of alpaca yarn, to an audio book I have found especially inspirational, to a CD mix of favorite songs or inspirational TED talks and KarmaTube selections. I can’t remember the last time I bought a Hallmark card. I love to take pictures and create my own.
With available technology, I enjoy texting my grown single sons and husband early in the morning with a quote or saying and to connect with them before they wake up. It's checking in, thinking of them, and it's also being fully present and focused with the power of words. It can change my mood immediately.
The gift I find the most touching is time spent with a homeless person/s. Depending on their needs that day, I may take their clothes home to wash them and bring them back, I may drive them somewhere for services, put them up in a local hotel for a night of complete rest and order food service for them, or listen to them share their story and sit with them at the local co op while eating a sandwich and drinking coconut water with them. There are many moments when I wonder who really is getting the most out of this interaction!
We each have people in our lives whose sweet attention and care help mold who we are and how we find our purpose. I am lifted up to continue to pay it forward. I am blessed by a community of adult yoga students who are so supportive and emit such significant vibrational light I get to then share this with others in my life. Sometimes the best way to thank someone else is to share the gift of love they offer you with someone else. This is the world I prefer to live in.