What are your motives for giving?
“No one has ever become poor by giving.” – Anne Frank, Diary of Anne Frank
There are many types of giving, and many motives for it too. One can give:
- Material things
- Experiences
- Space, geographic and mental
- Time
- Expertise, knowledge and skills
- Energy
- Healing (giving guidance to find one’s own source of healing), mental, physical and energetic
Many studies have been conducted as to the benefits of giving, and the results all point towards some major benefits to our mental wellbeing. In my experience, however, in order to amplify the benefits, we tap into the motivation for giving and how we connect between the giver and the recipient.
There is no giving act that does not have some self-gratification in it. It feels good to give. Giving without any expectation of the outcome helps the giver to give without conditions and without putting value on the receiver’s gratitude. The more expectations and conditions are placed on the gift, the further the giving slides over to being a transaction. For example, when one donates money to a school to build a new library with an expectation, or even stipulation, that the new library is named after the giver, is it really a gift or just someone buying the rights to name a library. The benefits to the end user is there, but the emotional benefits are lost.
Gratitude is a big factor in giving, both on the side of the receiver as well as the giver. It is an opportunity turbo charge your manifestation practice. Bringing the motivation of the giving and the level or gratitude in combination with the connection between the giver and receiver creates a energetic cocktail that can only be experienced.
Giving and receiving are skills that one can develop. Ken Honda talks about a “money container”, I prefer the term “abundance” instead of money as it gives you the choice to what you want to focus on, but our abundance containers are all of different sizes. The better we become at giving and receiving the more abundance we can hold, i.e. the bigger our container becomes. Energetically speaking, when you give you create a space in your container that must be filled, unless you diminish your container, because the container must be filled with energy without any empty space. Hence, if you give and you do so with gratitude and charity, you will receive as well. This is how giving is an integral aspect of manifestation, it enables you to create flow and to increase your ability to hold more and more abundance.
In these holiday times, practice giving without any expectations or conditions; give with gratitude and receive with grace. Bring these experiences with you into the new year to help you with your manifestation practice. So, as they say in Spanish “Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo”, Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. Enjoy the season of charity (which could be the rest of your life)!