What's this all about? Part II: GIVE

If "crave" represents scarcity, then the "give" part of my blog represents abundance.  

I get a kick out of playing with words and phrases.  The day I came up with this phrase, I was in my cubicle at work (does anyone have a cubicle at home?), frustrated with cravings, but had been in therapy enough years to know I needed to do allow my feelings and do something with them.  It just wasn't my first choice.  A snack would have been my first choice-- or Ed's first choice (ED = eating disorder)-- but I took a break and pulled out a piece of paper and doodled and wrote words.  

I wrote "crave" over and over.  I wrote everything that rhymed with "crave."  I wrote everything that started with "cr."  I drew a casket ("grave" rhymes with "crave).  I googled "crave."  Every phrase I saw was about satisfying a craving (here I was trying NOT to give in to the urge) or reducing cravings (believe me, just the word "reduce" triggered my scarcity mentality).  Then a rhyme stood out from my list:

GAVE

CRAVE

While my scarcity mentality had me trying to get, not give, and I knew all about giving in to cravings, I realized that there was something different there.  Something I needed to flip around to flip my mindset.  So I brought in the what-ifs:

What if I GAVE what I CRAVE?

What if?

Instead of the drained feeling I get when I've given and given and have nothing else to give, I felt the teeniest bit of spaciousness.  Room for abundance.  A hint of a new well to draw on.  What if?

Well, first I would have to know what I crave.  The idea of going around handing my co-workers candy bars because I wanted them was laughable.  Not that I don't like to share or bring in the occasional office treat, but I pictured myself physically giving what I craved, and I looked silly.  Clearly, that is not what I craved.  I needed to figure out what it is, and then figure out how to give it.  And to whom to give it.  

I was awfully good at giving to others (whether or not they appreciated was I was giving)-- or I thought I was.  Of course, I ended up taking any time my well ran dry, generally making a mess of any giving I had done.  But at least it was something I had practice at, despite not being good at giving to myself.  At first, I practiced mostly on my husband.  When he was driving me up a tree, I paused to figure out what I was craving from my interaction with him, then I identified what his variation of that might be, and I looked for a little way of giving that to him.  When I felt judged by him, and pointing out that he was being judgmental didn't help, I identified my craving for acceptance, then turned it around and figured out a way to accept him.  

After that, I got a little obsessed and tested my phrase all over, practicing on everyone, and learning to give to myself.  I'm not an expert at giving what I crave, and it has not solved my problems, and it doesn't replace the Golden Rule, or the Serenity Prayer, or any other tasty morsel of love and wisdom, but I have one more tool in my toolbox for turning my mind from scarcity to abundance.  If I crave, then deep down there is enough to give. 

Letting it out

I have composed many blog posts in my head since my first one.  I'm sure any number of them would have been better than this one will turn out.  However, I am practicing a skill of DOING IT ANYWAY.  Potential is abundant; when I fail to act because reality doesn't match the potential I imagine, I am not coming from a place of abundance.  Even though my dreams and hopes and plans are exciting, inspiring, and even POSSIBLE, my "scarcity mentality" keeps me from getting much closer, holds me back from Abundance.  Hold me back from my own power and the richness of life.

A few years ago, after coloring Easter eggs with my kids at my mother's house, I got all worked up when it was time to throw out the pretty water.  This happens every year; I don't want the fun to stop, I feel like I want to go on coloring forever.  That year the water was in clear glass tumblers, and I stacked them up in a rainbow and looked at the light streaming through them from an outside window, and I took some photographs.  I whined a little about having to stop (remember, I'm the adult here-- my kids were off doing something else by now) and was agitated, and my mom, an artist, said, "Emily!  You need a creative outlet!"  I laughed and said, I do, I really do.

Every year I get kind of the same way about Easter eggs.  One year, I splashed the color into the snow.  Another year, I dyed the sidewalk.  This year, I rinsed my hair with the egg dye.  No one remarked that the color was different (I couldn't tell) or that I smelled like vinegar, but my hair rinsed magenta for the next three days.  So, it's a little quirky. 

I keep stopping and starting.  I have hundreds of ideas of "outlets" and I keep telling myself no.  I have ideas for going into business, by myself, or with my mother or a friend, and I keep dragging my feet when others do not embrace my crazy ideas.  This blog is my new outlet.  It is the beginning of a network of outlets.  I have spend years reading, absorbing, processing in therapy, twiddling my thumbs, and now I need to let it out!  Express myself!  I have many ways of expressing myself, but this is one that I need now.  Even if I go weeks between posts, even if I ramble, even if I write masterful prose that never moves from the space between my ears to cyberspace, I am letting it out.  I'll call it starting and starting.