If truth doesn’t set you free, generosity of spirit will. ― Katerina Stoykova Klemer
You never have enough, do you? If you are like me, you probably want more of all of these. Try calculating what might actually feel like enough, and your thoughts will probably spin in circles.
Even when you receive a juicy raise and get a full eight hours sleep, you wish you had more.
When you see someone in need, you aren’t stingy with what you have. Oh my goodness, no! Just aware that there are limits. After all, time, energy, money, love: they’re all finite substances, right? So you’re watchful, allowing yourself to give only carefully calibrated rations, fearful of hitting empty.
Maybe you don’t do this deliberately. After all, you do want to give where there is need. You just know you have to take care of yourself in the mix.
Yet it’s there. Those opportunities in your daily life to offer something from yourself…and you hold back.
Do you fear not being enough to fill the need? Or is it not having enough to give?
Maybe it’s what you want, and it’s more than you think you can have.
That all involves a lot of saying no, doesn’t it? Inside, to yourself. Outside, to those around you. Even when you’d like to say yes, you default to holding back, for fear there will not be enough.
It can feel like lining up at a gas station during a blizzard in the middle of an oil embargo. There can’t possibly be enough to go around.
But. That isn’t true.
Here is why I say this so bluntly.
There is one thing that everyone has, yet you take it for granted. Your breath.
You never leave home without it.
Pause for a moment right now and inhale, taking a deliberate breath. Feel it moving through your body as a stream of light. There is no need to direct it—your breath knows exactly what it needs to do.
As you exhale, feel the release of what is no longer needed in your body as the exchange cycle completes. Acknowledge that you are giving, just as you receive.
Here is the interesting part of this circulation process. With each in-breath, there are chemical interactions that take place that nourish you. The out-breath creates another chemical action that feeds the plants and trees.
You don’t need to control the process or to intervene. It just happens, without effort.
This is the essence of life’s exchange. All of it takes place without your judgments, doubts or worries getting in the way.
I call this action taking a conscious breath. Allow enough of these each day and you will surely experience a change in the flow of your life.
As your breath goes, so does your energetic life force. So goes your life.
Stay with me here. There is exchange —a balancing of energy—that happens in each of your daily interactions.
As you acknowledge what you receive, you give value to it. There is no need for you to measure what was received. That’s just expectation. And expectation within any exchange—in any relationship—just blocks the flow of energy.
After all, there is no flow in tit for tat.
Balance comes in the exchange itself, not in an equal weighting of the elements. Gratitude for what you receive opens the gate for your own generosity.
Think on this: Generosity is gratitude in action Your willingness to offer something true from yourself is a gift.
Generosity is gratitude in action. @TheBacaJourney (Click to Tweet!)
Remember that you have something to offer to the world. Offering with a generosity of spirit allows you to extend yourself freely, without fear of loss or lack, without concern about how you will be received.
When your own inner gates are open for you to give and to receive, circulation takes place. It’s your freedom of expression. You get to discover the untapped resources within you. This life force extends from the inside of you to the outer world. Returning, it refills you.
Just like your breath.
You are filled by a constantly replenishing source. Find your way to connect with this. It’s here that your resources are unlimited.
Then, when you are feeling full, don’t think to hold tightly to it, for fear of giving it all away and having nothing.
Give it away, all of it. Make room for life to fill you again and again and again. Have a generous heart that looks outside of you, sees what is needed and offers it freely, without a focus on a return of your investment.
You can allow yourself to feel full from within. Try it. Discover what has been there all along.
What is your experience of generosity? I’d love to hear!
Ah! There you are. You’re beautiful! — Rumi
Laurie Seymour is a mentor/guide, #1 best-selling author, host of the Wisdom Talk Radio podcast and founder of The Baca Journey. She helps women and men who are in the midst of great change to have a direct experience of their inner wisdom, dissolving self-doubt. Then she provides the strategies to sustain their inner connection so that they live the life they know is possible with confidence. Start now with a complimentary exploratory session (virtual tea!). Let’s explore where you’ve been and illuminate where you’re heading.
Image courtesy of Myriams-Fotos.
