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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 her itty-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-based and 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 your life, send
awesomeness out to everyone around you. Here are some good ways to get in
the give-and-take flow, yo:
1. If you haven’t already, pick one or two causes that have real meaning
to you and give to them every month. Give however much time or money
you can, but do it consistently so it becomes a habit, so it becomes part of
who you are. Even five dollars a month counts.
2. Give one of your favorite things in the world away to someone who
would totally love it. And if you can, do it without them knowing where it
came from.
3. Leave a dollar more than you normally would every time you tip. Or
ten.
4. If someone is being snarky, instead of sinking to their level and being
snarky back, raise them up by giving them the love.
5. Smile, compliment, and crack people up as often as possible.
6. Say yes to invitations that you wouldn’t normally say yes to because
you hate to inconvenience the person offering. Take them up on it. Give
them the opportunity to give to you.
7. Stop and feel in your body how great it feels when you give and
receive; raise your frequency and expect more good things to come your
way.
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