process. Because, like, what’s the point of doing all that work then? The only thing you need to do is do the very best you can. Onceyou’ve done that, the only other thing that matters is that you enjoy yourself.
4. LOVE YOURSELF
And the bluebirds of happiness will be your permanent backup singers.
CHAPTER 13:
GIVE AND LET GIVE
It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
—RalphWaldo Emerson; American poet, essayist, visionary, giver
One day while driving somewhere with my family, we stopped off at a store along the way and told my niece, then five years old, that she could get herself a little sumthin’. She came up to the register with a six-pack of orange Tic Tacs and charmed her way into getting the whole thing, instead of being told to put it back and just buy one.
So we get back in the car and I ask her if I can have a pack, my only intent to teach the greedy little piglet a thing or two about sharing. “Of course,” she says and hands it over. She then asks, in heritty-bitty five-year-old voice, if my brother and my mom want one too, and hands them over. My niece then takes her remaining three packs and places them on the seat next to her in a pile saying, “And when we get home, this one’s for my brother, this one’s for my sister, this one’s for my mom.” Then she sits there, with none left for herself, and smiles, more excited to give them away than she was when she was told she could buy them for herself.
I shot a confused look at my brother, Stephen, her father, and he mouthed back “freak.” When Stephen and I were her age, we cherished nothing more than the tortured cries of the other. He set my gerbils free in the backyard. I stole his Halloween candy and ate it, piece by piece, sitting on his chest while he screamed. Who was this saintly creature in the backseat and where did she learn that?
As my niece so clearly understood, giving is one of our greatest joys. It’s also one of the most fearless and powerful gestures there is. When we trust that we live in an abundant universe and allow ourselves to give freely, we raise our frequency, strengthen our faith, and feel awesome, thereby putting ourselves in flow and the position to receive abundant amounts in return.
When we’re in fear, we hold on to what we’ve got because we don’t trust that there’s more. We pinch off the energy, we’re scared to share, and we focus on, and create more of, the very thing we’re hoping to avoid, which is lack.
We live in a universe of give and receive, breathe and exhale, live and die, suck and awesome. Each side depends on the other, and each is relative to the other—every action has an equal and opposite reaction—so the more you give, the more you receive. And vice versa.
You may be thinking, that’s so not true, I know some bitches who do nothing but take and haven’t given a damn thing to anybody, ever , but receiving has a different energy than selfishly taking, just as smothering has a different energy than giving. Smothering and taking are fear-basedand needy, giving and receiving are full of gratitude and surrendering to the flow.
I know someone who has multiple sclerosis who was told by a mentor to give away twenty-nine things for twenty-nine days as part of her cure. She blew it off for a while, but as her condition worsened, she finally decided to give it a try. First, she gave a phone call to a sick friend to see how she was doing. Then she steadily gave away something every day and she almost instantly found herself more joyful and excited. By the fourteenth day she was significantly better physically, her business started booming, and she went on to create a blog that started a movement with tens of thousands of followers who were also giving things away daily. Her blog ultimately led to a New York Times best-selling book called 29 Gifts.
If you want to attract good things and feelings into
4. LOVE YOURSELF
And the bluebirds of happiness will be your permanent backup singers.
CHAPTER 13:
GIVE AND LET GIVE
It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
—RalphWaldo Emerson; American poet, essayist, visionary, giver
One day while driving somewhere with my family, we stopped off at a store along the way and told my niece, then five years old, that she could get herself a little sumthin’. She came up to the register with a six-pack of orange Tic Tacs and charmed her way into getting the whole thing, instead of being told to put it back and just buy one.
So we get back in the car and I ask her if I can have a pack, my only intent to teach the greedy little piglet a thing or two about sharing. “Of course,” she says and hands it over. She then asks, in heritty-bitty five-year-old voice, if my brother and my mom want one too, and hands them over. My niece then takes her remaining three packs and places them on the seat next to her in a pile saying, “And when we get home, this one’s for my brother, this one’s for my sister, this one’s for my mom.” Then she sits there, with none left for herself, and smiles, more excited to give them away than she was when she was told she could buy them for herself.
I shot a confused look at my brother, Stephen, her father, and he mouthed back “freak.” When Stephen and I were her age, we cherished nothing more than the tortured cries of the other. He set my gerbils free in the backyard. I stole his Halloween candy and ate it, piece by piece, sitting on his chest while he screamed. Who was this saintly creature in the backseat and where did she learn that?
As my niece so clearly understood, giving is one of our greatest joys. It’s also one of the most fearless and powerful gestures there is. When we trust that we live in an abundant universe and allow ourselves to give freely, we raise our frequency, strengthen our faith, and feel awesome, thereby putting ourselves in flow and the position to receive abundant amounts in return.
When we’re in fear, we hold on to what we’ve got because we don’t trust that there’s more. We pinch off the energy, we’re scared to share, and we focus on, and create more of, the very thing we’re hoping to avoid, which is lack.
We live in a universe of give and receive, breathe and exhale, live and die, suck and awesome. Each side depends on the other, and each is relative to the other—every action has an equal and opposite reaction—so the more you give, the more you receive. And vice versa.
You may be thinking, that’s so not true, I know some bitches who do nothing but take and haven’t given a damn thing to anybody, ever , but receiving has a different energy than selfishly taking, just as smothering has a different energy than giving. Smothering and taking are fear-basedand needy, giving and receiving are full of gratitude and surrendering to the flow.
I know someone who has multiple sclerosis who was told by a mentor to give away twenty-nine things for twenty-nine days as part of her cure. She blew it off for a while, but as her condition worsened, she finally decided to give it a try. First, she gave a phone call to a sick friend to see how she was doing. Then she steadily gave away something every day and she almost instantly found herself more joyful and excited. By the fourteenth day she was significantly better physically, her business started booming, and she went on to create a blog that started a movement with tens of thousands of followers who were also giving things away daily. Her blog ultimately led to a New York Times best-selling book called 29 Gifts.
If you want to attract good things and feelings into
Similar Books
