Has it been kind of cold where you are? A couple of weeks ago, we had summer come way early, but man, it skipped right back out again. Brrrr! Are you interested in sitting down for a cup of tea or coffee?
Cool.
Here's the group question for today.
**What do you feel is your greatest gift that you personally have to give another person?**
It might seem like an odd question, like the answers will be generic and obvious, but if you really drill down on it, I think our answers will be very different. They'll be as unique as we are. And of course, as with all gifts, just because we want to give a certain gift doesn't mean a particular person will want to receive it. A gift needs the right kind of receiver.
Here's mine: To delve deep into a person, even if you're not entirely sure you're ready to go there yourself. To deliver understanding and release.
Kind of a strange gift, yes. I even put it to the test with strangers in my brief and defunct tangent blog, Night Conversations.
But despite its strangeness, I like it. In fact, you often see me applying it to myself right here.
Anyway, let's hear your gift in comments!
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13 comments:
Judgment tempered with understanding.
To clarify: We all crave understanding. We all make mistakes. When we really blow it, sometimes our friends and family offer absolution without any strings attached. For a while it feels like unconditional love but eventually you come to wonder if really they just don't know how badly you screwed up.
To truly feel loved and accepted by another person, you have to know they judge you with full knowledge and find you worthy anyway.
So I disclose my own transgressions and acknowledge them in others. Then we move on.
Love and understanding.
A great gift to have.
To truly listen would be mine. Not a particularly good gift you might think but how many people do you know who appear to be listening but aren't?
For me it would be saying implicitly, "I'm there".
This is such a difficult question for me. If I had been asked this 12 years ago, I would have had an easy answer. But my story of me, of who I am, has been stripped layer by layer to the point where I no longer believe the story I used to tell myself.
All I know anymore is that I am. And others will take gifts from me that they find in their story of who I am. Whether those gifts are truly something from me, or just reflections of what they are actually giving themselves while believing that it is coming from me... well, either way I'm happy if my presence is a positive for them. But I'm coming to believe that it much more about them than me.
(Too much philosophy for a fun friday. :P)
I am a keeper of stories. I catch spilling stories. Like you I can engage with someone in a way that allows them to feel comfortable enough to spill from their heart.
When it happens, I feel so honoured to be the one to hear it all.
Something I plan to blog about.
Empathy.
Everyone is going to say empathy. I was even going to say empathy. But I'm also wondering: if everyone believes they're really full of empathy, why is the world full of uncaring jerks? Just something to ponder...
What can I give people? All I have is me. Take or it leave it.
Enthusiasm and encouragement. I do it every day in the classes I teach. You will not find me punching holes in people's dreams.
I like empathy... but I am also too impatient with people. If you want to rant about how horrid your life is today, I'd rather encourage you to find something happy and worthwhile to do instead.
I guess my gift is to never doubt anything.
Lots of delving answers. I appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts on this!
Sorry to get here late, especially since my answer is "my time." Giving my time is forgetting myself and being fully present for someone else. That's why I'm late getting here. We drove 600 miles this weekend to spend time with our grandson. We took him to the zoo, which was fun, but it was our time that was important to him.
A friend once pointed out that she thought my best asset was the ability to make people feel better. I never realised it before she said this but yes; if they are sad, I can make them feel a little less so, even get them to laugh. If they feel comfortable, I can put them at ease. If they're down on themselves, I can make them feel good about some aspect of themselves instead.
Ironically the only person this doesn't work on is me.
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