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A Gift for You: Walk in the Woods Meditation

Walk in the Woods

After decades of practicing meditation, four years of teaching happiness meditation classes and workshops, and now leading weekend retreats, I finally wrote my own guided meditation, “A Walk in the Woods.”  Being in nature makes us happy, but it isn’t always possible to physically be outside drinking up the sights, sounds, and smells of hiking on a wooded trail.  We can, however, savor the forest sensations in a very mindful way by taking the time to mentally create or recreate that experience in as much detail as possible.

I was inspired by the local Calais Trails Committee and by the transformative Helen Keller essay, “Three Days to See.”   With gratitude to them, I offer the following meditation to you.  Please make it your own.  I’ve based the meditation on a summer walk in the Vermont woods, but your walk may be in the fall, spring or winter, on a real or imaginary trail.  Create or recreate the experience that best suits you.  The following is more a series of suggestions than a road map.

A Walk in the Woods

I invite you to start by easing into your meditation practice.  With your eyes closed, let your breath out with an audible sigh.  Do this several times if you like.  Take a moment to notice all the places your body is in contact with the floor, chair, or cushions.  Appreciate the support of the furniture and the building you are in, as well as the strength of the earth, making it safe for you to relax into your meditation time.  Next, in an easy gentle fashion, focus on your breath, for a few minutes, until you feel ready to proceed. Take as much time with this transition as you want.

When you are ready, imagine you are at the trail head, ready to step in among the trees.  Before you begin your walk, take time for gratitude.  You may be grateful to have an able body.  You might thank those who built the trail, or the landowners who share their property with the public.  Perhaps your gratitude is for the weather, or for a strong pair of sneakers and good socks.  What are you grateful for? Again, take your time.  There is no need to hurry.

Remember to breathe.

Now, stepping into the woods, where do your feet land?  What does the trail look like? Are there trail blazes or other markers on the trees?  Who made them?  Are there roots or rocks you might stumble over?  Fallen branches?  Are ferns or maybe even poison ivy growing near the trail? Is it a sunny day?  What kinds of patterns does the play of light through the tree canopy make?  Look around, what can you really see?

When we practice mindfulness, we can try to use all our senses.  Right now, for example, what do you hear in your own little forest?   Maybe leaves crunching underfoot?  Or birds — is there a variety of bird calls if you really listen?  Is it a still day, or is a breeze blowing?  What does that sound like?  Other animals?  Insects whirring by your ear or chirping from afar?  Maybe even traffic or construction noises off in the distance?  Mindfulness is about more than appreciating beauty — it is, deeply observing what truly is.

Still breathing?

What does the air smell like?  Did it rain recently?  Are there rotting logs nearby?  Do you smell your own shampoo, or toothpaste?  Maybe there are flowers, or berries — do you want to lean in and breathe in their aroma?

And touch — is the air on your arms and face cool from the shade, or is it a hot sultry day even in the woods?

Even taste — did you bring a water bottle along?  What does the water taste like?  Any leftover meal flavors still lingering in your mouth?  Did you pick a berry to eat?  Was it sweet, sour, overripe?

Breathing deeper now, and looking more carefully around you.  You’re surrounded by trees, but what species?  Have any blown over, from the wind or maybe lightning? What bark do you see around you?  Patterns?  Growths on trees?  Any holes in the trees? Perhaps holes made by animals, or perfect for animals to crawl into. And of course the leaves, or pine needles — different shapes, various shades of green? Are there also browns, and reds — trees in distress, or maybe autumn is coming on.  It’s time to see the trees themselves, not just the forest.  Are there any very old trees?  Or very young ones?  Any competing for the sunlight? What else?

Where would we be without trees?  Can you feel gratitude for them?

Still remembering to breathe, turn now to the rocks and stones. Do you see ledge, or quartz? What sizes — boulders? Pebbles?  Do you have to climb over any rocks?  Are they moss-covered?  Sharp, rounded?  Maybe you can even spot one that is heart shaped.

Now we’re walking next to a mountain brook.  Is your brook full and flowing forcefully?  Maybe it just rained?  Or is it late summer, with only a trickle? Pause and put your hand in.  How cold is it? What does the brook sound like?  What patterns do you see, in the way the water falls, and on the rocks below the surface?  Linger by the brook as long as you’d like.

When you’re ready, notice that the trail is going up hill.  What are the sensations in your muscles?  Are you winded?  Sweaty? Thirsty?  How is your body doing on this hike?  Or is it more of an easy going walk for you?  Even on this mental journey, can you listen to your body’s experience?

In this moment, we’ve stepped out of the woods into a meadow.  It may be sunny, or overcast.  Is it hotter?  Or is there a wind blowing, making your skin cooler? Looking up, what do you see in the skies?  Have the sounds in the meadow changed from those in the woods?  And sights — perhaps here you might see butterflies.  What else is different on this part of the walk?

Finally we’ve arrived at an overlook, where conveniently there’s a bench to sit on and savor the view.  What do you see?  A lake in the distance?  Mountains?  A city?  Is the view awe-inspiring? Does the larger vista give you a sense of place in the world, maybe putting your own cares in perspective? Can you pay attention to your feelings as well as the view? Just accepting your feelings, not trying to change them or judge them in any way.

Spend as long as you want sitting on the bench, taking in whatever is present for you in this moment.

Finally, let’s end this meditation the way we began: with gratitude.  Grateful perhaps for beauty, for public policies that have preserved park land, for your own self to take this time to flex your mindfulness muscles and nurture your connection with the natural world.  Who and what are you grateful for?

When you are ready, open your eyes and gently return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Have a wonderful day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Giving And Receiving, Meditation, Personal Happiness, Uncategorized

The Christmas Blog I Don’t Have Time to Write

Me and my Yankee Gift Exchange prize a few years ago.

Me and my Yankee Gift Exchange prize a few years ago.

Back in the 1980’s, before my plunge into working as a full time watercolor artist ate up every ounce of my creative time and energy, I used to make our annual Christmas cards.  I spent months playing around with ideas as part of my endeavor to make every card clever and quirky, especially after feedback from friends about how much they anticipated the yearly Sassaman Christmas card.

One year, the pressure was just too much.  Instead of making cards, I photocopied Edvard Munch’s haunting painting “The Scream,” and typed a little message of apology, noting that I was just too busy to make cards that year.  Word to the wise: “The Scream” is a poor choice for a holiday card!  I tried to soften it up by putting foil stars on the eyeballs, but it was still pretty horrifying.  Nonetheless, that non-card card was one of my favorites.

Over the decades, I’ve shed a lot of the Christmas season “shoulds.”  No more cards, for example.  No Christmas cookies.  No wreath on the door.  No careful arranging of the Santa Claus collection, and stocking up on candles. Fewer and less grand presents.  I like to give and receive presents, and I don’t want to be a Scrooge but a) out of control consumerism is wrecking the planet, so that’s a poor way to celebrate peace and love and b) research has shown that we get a much bigger bang for our happiness buck by buying experiences rather than things.  My family and I are happy to honor that research with a Christmas-at-the-beach vacation.

Still, I’m feeling pressure!  Once again, the pressure is self-created, stemming from my drive to create.  Maybe because I’ve been newly accepted into The Huffington Post’s blogging community, my brain is on fire!  There is so much I want to write.  The blogs and the book outline are piling up in my grey matter.

For example, I really wanted to write a blog about the importance of receiving.  I was going to question, when there’s so much emphasis on generosity as key to our personal happiness, don’t we need folks on the other end to do the receiving?  I would have written that receiving is also giving.  I would have suggested reviewing what has been giving to you recently — compliments, wisdom, household help, meals, hugs, cards, invitations, hosts.  I would have urged you to be gracious and grateful receivers, to smile and say thank you (rather than, “oh, it’s nothing”) — though, not all the time. I would have explained why “no” sometimes makes common and moral sense, referring to Sonja Lyubomirsky’s precautions in The How of Happiness chapter on kindness.

Oh, it would have been sublime! I’m sure of it — heartfelt and inspiring.  Sigh. I just don’t have time to write it.

One reason I am out of time is that I spent the last two days cleaning my house.  I’m not that interested in the minutia of life, including housecleaning, but last night I hosted the 10th annual “Women of Maple Corner Yankee Gift Exchange.” I live on a dirt road, and we heat with a wood stove.  Believe me, I had to clean. I mean, we can take “permission to be human” just so far.

As the cleaning ate up all my writing time, I began to get resentful.  I knew I’d appreciate a clean house and that I’d enjoy the annual holiday gathering, but without the party, I could have been writing.  Instead, I had lists of things to do — including writing, which never got crossed off.

Though to-do lists get a bad name, to a certain extent, they bring me comfort.  I love crossing items off; it gives me a sense of achievement. I even add items after the fact just so I can cross them off, ideally, with a thick dark marker.  Martin Seligman’s P.E.R.M.A. research is fun to consider once again, since the “A” stands for accomplishment.  Of course I like crossing off completed tasks.  It’s science!

Still, on my hands and knees washing the far corners of the kitchen floor, I had plenty of time to think about what I was not accomplishing.  Thankfully, with still more time, on my hands and knees scrubbing the living room carpet, I flipped that thinking around.  Rather than perseverate over what I haven’t accomplished, I thought it might be a good idea to appreciate what an awesome year of accomplishments and adventures I have had.  You may be familiar with this Mark Twain quote, or others like it: “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.  If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”  This seems just as applicable to what we do.  If we look only at what we haven’t done, we will never, ever be satisfied.

Which brings me to hedonic adaptation.  Humans are amazingly adaptable.  Good fortune, misfortune — whatever hits us, we adapt.  In many ways, this is a wonderful healing trait, as it enables us to find our footing and our smiles once again when life has slammed us into a wall.  The flipside is also the downside: what once excited us, what once brought us pleasure, over time becomes ordinary — which leaves us pursuing new excitement and pleasure elsewhere, often at great expense.

However, with an awareness of this process — that is, with mindfulness — we can take steps to maximize our pleasure and minimize the hedonic greying of what brings us joy.  Taking time to savor what I’ve already done, rather than pining for what is not going to happen in this moment, is a way to reclaim some excitement from the hedonic dustbin.

Yesterday I realized that my relationship with the yankee swap had also fallen victim to hedonic adaptation.  When my friend Nel and I started this party 10 years ago, I was thrilled to have found a place in the Maple Corner calendar of annual traditional events — right up there with Heidi and Lewis’s Martin Luther King Day commemoration, Nancy and Artie’s Mardis Gras (not to mention Barnstock!), Julie’s Channukah pot luck, Maria’s caroling, and JC’s New Year’s Eve blow out.  From the first, the Yankee Swap was a huge success — crowded, funny, and even environmental sound.  Everyone brought a wrapped present that was something she already owned — no new shopping allowed.  Redistributing those presents is where the fun comes in.  All of these parties are also a critical element in building community, the kind of community we need when the not-fun times come along.

Fortunately — maybe thanks to my ongoing meditation practice — I realized yesterday that I had adapted to the excitement of hosting this great event.  To reclaim some of my previous joy, I turned to gratitude.  Yay gratitude!  It so often can pull us out of an unnecessary slump.  Coming from a stance of gratitude, it is easy to appreciate how incredibly blessed I am to not only live in such a fun and supportive community but also to have my own ways of contributing. Really, I am lucky to host this party, together with my new co-host Roni.  Plus my kitchen floor hasn’t been this clean in years.

Last night’s party was the biggest, most boisterous one yet.  It was an evening filled with special moments, like welcoming brand new neighbors to the sisterhood of Maple Corner women; the dancing penguin Christmas ornament that made me laugh to the point of tears; an unexpectedly funny exchange about dyeing hair; a wrapped present that looked like a Dr. Seuss book; and a poignant moment, when one woman’s integrity demanded she “steal” back a present which had broken, a present which she had anonymously given in the first place.  Her generosity in reclaiming the broken gift resulted in a flood of presents to her at the end.

I am deeply grateful to provide the physical and emotional space for these magical happenings.

One final note about hedonic adaptation.  For years and years, the only thing I wanted in this world was beyond my grasp: I ached to become a grandmother. In 2012, that miracle happened with boatloads of joy, love, excitement, etc.  But time moves on relentlessly.  Our little newborn is now three years old, an accepted fact in our lives.  Sure, she’s not the exciting new infant she once was — but when I take the time to step back, to be mindful, to be grateful — my heart nearly explodes with happiness.

Soon, I will be with my granddaughter and other family members for two weeks.  No more to-do lists, no pressure (I hope) — but lots of savoring and gratitude.  We are all likely to be awash in holiday happiness.

May you as well find your way to a peaceful and joyous holiday.

 

 

 

Category:

Community, Giving And Receiving, Gratitude, Meditation, Personal Happiness, Savoring

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Human Connections, Human Happiness

Free hugs at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.

Free hugs at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.

Our connections with fellow humans — either fleeting or lasting for many decades — are the sine qua non of happiness (ie, without relationships with others, there is no happiness, and that’s about it for my 8th grade Latin).  Simultaneously, these connections can be vexing, painful, or unpleasantly surprising.  However, because we do in fact need each other, it makes sense to heed the Dalai Lama’s advice when it comes to our interactions with others.

This is the advice I have in mind, from one of the Dalai Lama’s books I read years ago: in every interaction we have, we can make the other person happier, or less happy.  That is powerful.  Every single time we make a human connection, we can either add to or decrease the other person’s happiness.

Not that we are responsible for others’ happiness entirely.  But it is quite a moral responsibility when put in those terms.

And, it may also be highly practical, because, well, you never know.

Let me tell you a little story, one of my favorites.  I’m quite pleased to find a happiness hook that gives me an excuse to share it.

The story takes place way back in 1968, when I was 14 years-old.  I was third of six kids, and we didn’t have a lot of money.  So the fact that I was by myself in our living room, listening to the Beatles’ Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album was unusual.  I loved that album, which I bought with hard-earned babysitting money.  Loved, loved. I was happily singing along with all my blissed-out teenage heart when a friend of my oldest sister walked through the room.  Let’s call him Paul.  Paul was handsome, witty, charismatic.  I had a bit of an unrequited crush on him.  When Paul paused at the front door and turned to speak to me, I was all a flutter, thrilled that he was stooping to talk to me!

“Do you know my definition of stupid?” he asked.

“No,” I quickly replied.  “What is it?”

“People who sing along to the Beatles,” he responded before turning around and exiting my house.

All these years later, I can’t quite remember how little and unworthy that remark made me feel. Instead, this story has become a family joke.  You see, just three years later, I married Paul’s younger brother Bob.  When Paul made that offhand remark to me, he could never possibly have imagined that I would be his sister-in-law for, oh, just about 45 years so far — and that I would never let him forget that brief interaction!

Not that I blame the funny, self-assured 18 year-old that he was then.  It was a long, long time ago, and that moment in time has been superseded by many another loving and supportive word or act (like driving Bob and me to the hospital to have our first baby, and doing Ed Sullivan imitations along the way).

No, the reason I love this story is, it clearly shows, when we connect with people, making them happier or less happy, we have no idea what roles we might play in each other’s lives in the future.  So being nice is both good common sense, and good karma sense.

Consider the case posted on Twitter last month about an angry man who cursed at another commuter on London’s Tube.  Not only did the angry man add to someone else’s unhappiness in the moment — he added to his own.  He arrived at a job interview a little while later and discovered that the man he had just cussed at was the interviewer.  He did not get the job.

That’s a very graphic — and karmic — illustration of how interactions can affect our own happiness as well.  As Donovan so beautifully warbled many years ago, happiness runs in a circular motion.

It’s also interesting to think about what might have happened if the angry man in the Tube had somehow connected with the interviewer in a more positive way during their commutes.  Perhaps he would have gotten the job?  Perhaps they would have had an ongoing, positive relationship?

Certainly, connections do not need to be lengthy to be significant.  Two summers ago, I was wearing one of my favorite dresses (very happy, covered in blue daisies) as I walked toward the library.  A woman I had never seen before, or since, was walking in the opposite direction.  As she neared me, she said, “You look very nice today, ma’am.” That’s all.  But she made me smile, and feel good.  I beamed a very genuine, “Thank you!” in her direction.

Certainly I’ve been on the proactive side of the equation many times. Recently, while vacationing with our cute-as-a-button two year old grandchild, we sang to and for total strangers in an open-hearted way that is hard to imagine without an innocent babe involved.  We were received in the same open-hearted way, again no doubt thanks to our granddaughter’s presence.  Otherwise, we grown ups aren’t normally this sweet to folks we don’t know.

That’s kinda sad.

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown defines “connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, hear, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”  She also states, “we are wired for connection.  It’s in our biology.  From the time we are born, we need connection to thrive emotionally, physically, spiritually, and intellectually.”

Even without cute babies, strangers can give that to each other.  Tal Ben-Shahar tells a story of an early, early morning at an airport, a morning at the start of a long flight, a morning when he was not at his happiest — until a woman who worked at the airport bestowed a warm and kind smile on him.  That brief but genuine connection cheered him up so much, he continues to tell the story year after year as part of his lecture on making the choice to smile more often.  I love it.  Done judiciously, it’s such an easy win-win.

Of course, our most meaningful connections are found in relationships of longer duration — but every relationship has to start somewhere.  Some connections we’re born into.  Most, we have to establish.  I remember the beginning of my friendships with two of my dearest friends in Vermont, Judy and Eric.  We had lived here only a few weeks, and I felt lost among the many happy strangers at the Maple Corner Fourth of July bash — until this kind and interesting couple took the time to chat with me, the newcomer, the stranger.  None of us knew that a deep and abiding friendship was being born.  I was just grateful that these two were being nice to me, seeing, hearing, and valuing me.  Connection.

It’s all about the nice, within limits. The point is to add to the world’s supply of happiness — yours included.  As a recent meme on Facebook put it, “you are not required to provide heat to others by setting yourself on fire.”  Sometimes the best we can do is not infect others with our glumness.

There is also the question of authenticity.  Who are you?  What is the best way for you to make connections — deeper connections with loved ones, new and even one-time connections with strangers?  Who may or may not end up married to someone in your family. Or giving you a job.

For most of us, it would be inauthentic to like the man in the photo, a fellow visitor to Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York last September.  He wasn’t on staff, he wasn’t leading any workshops — he just wanted to give hugs.  He was so sensitive about it, too.  No one got a hug who didn’t want one.  He just wore this sign while he was there, and hugged whoever responded.

They were good hugs, too.  Oh, yes, I took advantage of this opportunity to connect.  He made me happier.  He made lots of people happier.

That is my aspiration, too — I want to make lots of people happier. It’s a choice we all can make, each of us in our own style.

Good common sense. Good karma sense. Just plain good.

 

 

Category:

Giving And Receiving, Personal Happiness, Relationships, The Science of Happiness, Uncategorized

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Personal Happiness and Broken Systems

Periodically, I feel compelled to stress that my passion for spreading the happiness gospel is based on a fervent desire for a radically different political and economic paradigm — one that is focused on the genuine well-being of people and the planet, as opposed to a world which “has become an idolator of this god called money,” according to Pope Francis.  Like the Pope (I never thought I’d say that!), I “want a just system that helps everyone.”

The events last night that led to my granddaughter Madeleine taking care of her first ever baby doll have once again inspired me to write about the connection between personal happiness and broken systems.

My granddaughter practices nurturing relationships with her first ever doll.

My granddaughter practices nurturing relationships with her first ever doll.

My path is, of course, different from the Pope’s.  I believe that cultivating personal happiness is a key element (not the only element)  in working toward this shift.  Here are a few reasons why.  With greater understanding of personal happiness, comes a deeper appreciation of the sadness, emptiness, and destruction inherent in relying solely on Gross National Product  measurements of success.  When we internalize the knowledge that money and material goods are important but only a piece of our personal happiness, and also understand that chasing the almighty dollar can seriously undermine our enjoyment of life, we can so much more easily grasp the practical and visionary potential of a Gross National Happiness paradigm.

Further, cultivating personal happiness will strengthen the traits we need for the indescribably huge challenges of ameliorating climate change and ending the grown economy.  As we become happier individuals, we are, for starters:

  • less attached to things;
  • more optimistic;
  • more resilient;
  • more aware of what is truly going on around us;
  • more creative;
  • more compassionate: and
  • more grateful.

Oh, yes, and we are also more fun to be around — which no doubt makes us better messengers.

Okay, I’ll climb off the soapbox now and share what made me want to climb up there in the first place.  About a week ago, my daughter Jennifer’s old clunker car finally died.   She and my 20-month-old granddaughter will soon be joining us for a long Christmas break, but for a week and a half, she has had to cobble together a new transportation “system”: getting rides from friends, walking, and taking the bus.  She is fortunate to live in a city with decent public transit, but even so, last night my daughter and granddaughter spent 45 minutes on a cold, dark, and snowy Wisconsin night waiting for the bus to take them home.  It was pretty hard for Jennifer to be happy when her baby was crying from the cold.  My daughter sang to the baby to keep her calm until Jennifer’s cheeks were just too cold to keep singing.

Of course, the bus arrived eventually.  At home,  Jennifer decided it was a good time to open a Christmas present from Madeleine’s other grandmother.  That present is Madeleine’s first baby doll.   Watching her toddler practice taking care of this immediately beloved toy gave  my daughter a lot of reasons to feel much happier — gratitude, love, savoring the moment, etc.  So the story has a happy ending.

To me, this little vignette illustrates both the limits of, and the value of, personal happiness within broken systems.  For starters, cultivating our internal happiness is especially  important in the context of broken systems because, hey, this is the only life we get!  We should make the most of it, no matter the systems we live within.  I am so glad Jennifer and Madeleine got to end their evening on such a positive note.

To be clear, my daughter’s situation isn’t that bad.   She has a great job, a wonderful apartment, and a cousin who is helping her get a new car over Christmas break.  She’s only lived in Wisconsin a short time, yet she already has a group of friends who have been amazingly generous in providing rides.  Jennifer’s monetary resources may be limited, but she has almost an embarrassment of riches in terms of friends and family who love her and can help when help is needed.  Which brings me to another reason for cultivating personal happiness, a la nurturing relationships: it provides us the tools to build alternatives to systems that break.

But personal happiness has its limits.  My daughter’s transportation struggles inspired me to write about Gross National Happiness because of the millions of young parents — or old grandparents, for that matter — who struggle with transportation to school, work, and child care day in and day out, in broiling heat as well as frigid cold.  Their own fatigue and discomfort, intensified by their children’s suffering, may well make “happiness” seem like a ridiculous goal.  Not everyone has presents waiting for them at home, and there is no reliable car in the immediate future for untold numbers of America’s working families.  We do not have “a just system that helps everyone.”

And then there’s the obvious: we should all be weaning ourselves off fossil fuels.  A political and economic system focused on the well being of people and the planet would surely be moving rapidly toward excellent systems of mass transit.

Another obvious point: transportation is just one of our many broken systems.  That is why, this Christmas season, I will be spending lots and lots of time with my family and friends — giving and receiving, singing, playing in the snow, laughing, meditating, and doing my best to live a happy life.  At the same time, I’ll be working with my friends at Gross National Happiness USA and The Happiness Initiative to move towards a world of greater peace and justice, a world that does more than pay lip service to well being for all.

As Tiny Tim says, “God bless us, every one.”  Everyone.

And now I have to go bake cookies.

Category:

Coping, Environmental Concerns, Giving And Receiving, Gratitude, Personal Happiness, Relationships, The Happiness Movement

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So Many Ways To Give

No, this is not an early Christmas essay about handmade gifts or alternative holiday rituals.   Rather, I am moved to write about giving and happiness — specifically, my gratitude at finding a way to help survivors of Hurricane  Sandy despite my constrained finances.

In the past, when major disasters struck, my normal reaction was whipping out my American Express card and charging a donation, or several donations to organizations with complementary missions.    Of course, that was a good thing to do.  Indeed, just this morning NPR broadcast a story on the desirability of sending money rather than stuff to assist Sandy survivors.   Making a cash donation gave me a happiness boost, and, much more importantly, helped the recipients on their long road to recovery.

Right now, though, the American Express route isn’t viable.  I am not yet making enough money through my happiness work to shoulder my share of our household bills.  No complaints,  I’m sure I’ll get there — but in the meantime, I’ve put a lot of financial stress on my husband.  I’ve got to fix things on the home front before sending money elsewhere.

Still, I wanted so much to help.  I  believe the suffering families in New Jersey and New York are victims of climate change, something each and every one of us contributes to — which is to say, I feel a sense of obligation to them.  What could I do?

The answer came late last Saturday afternoon.  Through an email list serve, I learned of a truck leaving Montpelier for the Rockaways the following afternoon.  This driver had a list of requested donations, including blankets.  Blankets!  Yay, I had  several extra warm and cozy blankets which I washed, dried, folded, bagged, and delivered to the truck driver.  Small though this gesture is in light of the need, I was nonetheless grateful for this opportunity to help.

It’s a virtuous cycle.  It’s hard to feel unhappy and grateful at the same time.  And, almost every list of happiness strategies I’ve seen stresses the importance of giving to others as a way to feel better.  I’m willing to bet that Winston Churchill was no happiness expert, but this quote attributed to him does a good job of capturing the importance of generosity: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

I’m also pretty sure that Mother Theresa was not, alas, very happy, but no one could argue that she wasn’t generous.  She knew that,  “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”

That strikes me as a valuable insight.  Is the giving heartfelt?  If we are grudging or callous, our gifts may help the recipient, but we aren’t likely to get much of a happiness boost.  Not that a happiness boost should be the goal.  While giving can bestow happy feelings on the donor, it really needs to be about the recipient first and foremost.  No strings attached, and certainly not an opportunity to offload unwanted junk for the giver’s own benefit.

A gift from the heart I was so pleased to receive — a heartfelt gift from a four year-old.

Okay, bearing that in mind, I’ve been mulling over ways to give, including cash.  In my community,  some neighbors needed extra financial help recently to pull through some daunting challenges, and many friends and neighbors donated much needed money.  But we also provided meals.  Though I’m not a great cook, I did my best to concoct tasty meals for my friends.  This is stressful for me, thanks to time and money shortages and my insecurity as a cook — yet,  always, I felt really good about having climbed on board the meal train.

Giving can be simple or elaborate.  After the Haitian earthquake, a neighbor up the street organized a fundraising “cabaret” at our community center.  She went to a lot of trouble — hanging curtains, bringing in more intimate furniture, lining up refreshments and musical acts.  The result was memorable, an evening that raised a lot of money for Haiti and strengthened our local community as well.

There was another benefit concert a few years ago for a young family whose house had burned down. Mom, dad, and two toddlers just barely escaped into the -14 degree January night.  In connection with the concert, I solicited donations for a silent auction, which raised another $1,000 or so to help them rebuild.   I am so glad I put the effort into that event; I still feel a special connection to this now happily thriving family.

Last year, when Vermonters were hammered by Tropical Storm Irene, I was especially impressed by the many, many people who pitched in to do the physically hard and unpleasant work of  mucking out nasty flood debris.  For a variety of reasons, I never did that.  I did donate money; went to fundraising concerts; gathered up books to take to help restock a flooded library; and helped my church target monthly congregational giving to both general flood relief and relief for hard-hit farmers.  But, because I didn’t do any of the physical clean up, my efforts never felt sufficient.

Okay, so I’m not a giving super hero — and maybe that’s just as well.  A few months ago, I interviewed Kathryn Blume for an article in Vermont Woman.  “We don’t serve anyone by burning ourselves out,” she told me.  “Any cause we engage in is going to be bigger than we are.  We can give everything we’ve got, and it will still be there.”  An astute observation, for sure.

Last week I interviewed Paula Francis and Linda Wheatley for an article to be published in Vermont Woman  in February.  In early October, Paula and Linda completed a Pursuit of Happiness Walk from Stowe, Vermont to Washington, D.C. — a walk which was filled with giving.  Their gift to others was listening to the heart-felt reflections on happiness from hundreds of regular folks.  In return, they received the gift of witnessing individuals open up and share their hearts.  There were plenty of tangible gifts, too — like the owner of a diner where they had stopped who came running after them to make sure they had pretzels — but the intangibles were what made the walk profound.

So how many ways are there to give?  Is it infinite?  My daughter posted a super cool video on my Facebook wall of a young man performing 22 acts of random kindness to celebrate his 22nd birthday (my daughter proposes making this a new family tradition).  There are a lot of good ideas in here!

While working on this blog, I found an Arab proverb which loops back to my dilemma of what to give if not money AND addresses the “heart” of my message here:   “If you have much, give of your wealth; If you have little, give of your heart.”

How about you?  What does giving mean to you?

Category:

Environmental Concerns, Giving And Receiving, Taking Care of Ourselves, Uncategorized, Vermont

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Tis Better to … Receive?

I am a big fan of the Saint Francis of Assisi prayer.  Thirteen of its fourteen lines resonate deeply within me.

I’ve been mulling over this one: “for it is in giving that we receive.”  Happiness research makes clear that giving is, indeed, one of the most vital elements of happiness.  I am all for it.  Big time.

But how can there be giving without receiving?  Are the receivers to be only those in need — economic, emotional, or otherwise?  Or do all of us have a spiritual obligation to be good receivers as well?  And, is that, too, a path toward happiness?  To rephrase the prayer, is it not in receiving that we provide others the opportunity to give?

I suspect that many of us are better givers than we are receivers.  Receiving — even complements — may make some of us uncomfortable (“oh, it’s nothing!”).  Perhaps we can learn to give greater happiness by learning to accept gifts in all their forms with greater grace.   It is in receiving that we give.

I’ll end by sharing a gem I found while looking for the exact wording of the Saint Francis prayer (and the correct spelling of  “Assisi!”).  It is a stunningly beautiful and powerful rendition of the Saint Francis prayer by singer Sarah MacLachlan.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VSyuar6oF8

And now I’ll happily receive your thoughts on this topic!

Category:

Giving And Receiving