Giving is so powerful! When you give, you receive back 100 times, I used to hear that without realizing its meaning until now. When I started religiously and regularly giving away tangible or intangible things or my service, I suddenly understood the meaning of that!
To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
– Johannes Gaertner
Giving things
A couple of months back, I joined the Buy Nothing group in our area. The mission of https://buynothingproject.org/ is to encourage sharing and build a sense of community.
I could give away lots of things that I had been holding for years. The things which were valuable to me, I just could not donate to random charity in the hope that it would reach the real human, I was afraid of that being recycled.
As I started listing my items, I met a sweet family who came from Afghanistan. I learned their story and not only did I gift what I did not want, but I gifted what I rarely used and was luxury to me like my iPad, old iPhone, Smart TV, etc. Before I donated lots of stuff to Afghan refugee funds but it is different when you meet someone and get to know their story.
I also started learning about people when they come to pick up stuff, like a lady who is getting married soon, I gave her an unused and new cake dome sitting in the attic for years.
Another lady, who is a hard-working mom, doing her overnight shift, I started offering her some of my rarely used clothes that otherwise would just sit in the closet for years.
Not only that, but I could also give some of the new Indian dresses that were rarely worn by me, that otherwise I would only give to family or donate when I would go to India. I got the sense that the same lady appreciated art and I gifted her an art piece from Egypt that I received as a gift many years ago.
I realized and learned giving is not only powerful, giving is healing. It is the process of letting go. You can let go of many material things by wishing the best for the person receiving and of course the thing. When you meet a real person, who is happily going to use something valuable to you, you are more than happy to give it away. So, now I regularly have a quick check and look for things that could be useful to someone else.
I so much enjoy happy faces in gratitude. Honestly, gratitude is mutual, I thank them from my heart as well.
Giving your service
When I started volunteering for helping with the trauma of domestic violence in the process of listening and mentoring, I could let go of my trauma as well.
When I started organizing events for 100+ people regularly for InterNations, I learned about how successful I was in gathering people to bring them closer as a community.
I started offering my services to people who were looking for a career transition and needed help with resume writing, tips on job search, etc. I learned how natural I was at this and now I have created my side hustle out of this.
When you give, you get happiness, connect the community, heal yourself, and can discover side hustle. The power of giving is boundless.
