Something to Think About ...

An act that is often exceptionally hard to do would be the explanation of many, as most of us know or we would have done it.  Then there is the problem of how do we do it, as we all know we have tried to give up old resentments and it isn’t all that easy.   You just may be saying, why should I do that, I was the one was wronged, not him….she’s the problem not me, so why should I be the one making amends here?  And perfectly good questions they are.   

I never found it to be a lot of help when I was feeling offended to have someone tell me I needed to forgive and forget; it is the right thing to do; it is what a big person does; it’s the righteous thing to do. You know all those reasons your mother told you why you had to do it, as when Gertrude clipped your favorite coloring book in the 4^th grade.  Then there are those grievances that are of such magnitude they can hardly be spoken of;  the abuse, the rape, the deaths; the abandonment.  Just how do you go about forgiving those and why should you?

We say to ourselves a wrong has been done…if there was not a wrong then there wouldn’t be anything to forgive!  Obviously there is a wrong, and payment must be made…punishment is in order and atonement is called for….and you are asking me to take action…to forgive…well…I am the victim here or why would I be the one doing the forgiving.  So let’s get the responsibility metered out properly here, I am the one in pain and she got the kids and the divorce or he walked away scot free …..and actually all of the above are reasonable and true, so it’s hard to argue.

The problem I always found was, even though I was right, even though I was the offended, the victim, I was the one who felt like horse dung ….righteousness only quells the insult of anger for so long.  Anger and resentment (which are the energy of offense) takes a lot out of us….keeping the flame of anger bright takes a lot of energy and resentment (which are the burning coals that angers turns into) after time and it takes a lot to keep down and from flaming up again, so it drains us….it eats us up from the inside out. 

When you really think about it, giving up our anger and resentment, which is what forgiveness really is, it not about the other guy, it is about taking care of ourselves.   Anger has its place.  All emotions have their place and are useful, even the more negative ones like jealousy and envy, sometimes they are what spur us on to make changes, not the best way but one way.   Anger is the energy of protection when you think about it; look at it from that perspective.  How often have we said, “I just couldn’t take it anymore” … and “I got so angry I did this or I did that about it.”   The adrenalin charge of anger gets us past our fears and we do something but it also clouds our decision making and can get us into a lot of trouble, so anger like medication, should be used sparingly and stopped when it has served its purpose.

Some of us have held onto our anger and resentment for so long we just don’t know how to let go of it.  It’s like were having a muscle spasm and can’t release the grip it has on us or more correctly, the grip we have on it because the anger, all emotions come from within us.  We choose how we feel.  “No I don’t” you may say, “I don’t want to feel this bad.”  If we don’t accept the premise that we are the source of our emotions, than we will always be at the mercy of those around us.  It’s up to you.

I think one of the big blocks that holds us back from giving up these emotions is we think that if we forgive and let go, then we are condoning the behavior. Forgiving someone does not mean that we condone the behavior at all, it means we are going to stop the magical thinking that somehow we are to punish them with our anger (and if this worked you wouldn’t still be angry) and if we can’t punish them then we are going to punish ourselves, because this is what we do when we hold onto these emotions, we are punishing ourselves, abusing ourselves like we were abused.  We can’t change the past, we can’t somehow magically change the events which have already happened but we can stop the abuse that is going on now, which is what we are doing to ourselves by holding in this anger and resentment.   How many of us are allowing dead people, people who abused us, offended us in the past, who are literally dead, continue to abuse us now because we hold onto that now useless anger and resentment (if it was effective we wouldn’t still be doing it).  

You don’t have to be angry to change things; you just have to be persistent.  I like the line they say in the gangster movies, “ain’t nutin personal, just business” as they shoot the guy’s knee caps off.   Now those boys were effective and they weren’t angry; something to be said for that, when you’re not angry you have a clear head.   

Forgiving doesn’t mean you are going to continue to let someone take advantage of you, it doesn’t mean you have to continue a relationship with them, approve or like them, it just means you are letting a higher power take care of it.  Be it your personal higher power or the court system.  You have let go of the lousy feelings and have a clear head about what needs to be done or not done.   To understand why someone did something doesn’t mean you condone it, or approve of it.  I understand why my abusers abused me, was it right, of course not but I refuse to give away my power to them, I may not have had a choice when the events took place but I sure do now.  Forgiveness is about taking your power back using that energy for a better purpose.

The first step is to recognize that this feels really lousy, really lousy, be it the anger, the fear, or the shame, all the emotions involved and then we decide.  We have a choice, we can make a choice that we don’t want to feel like this anymore; we are sick and tired of feeling this bad, and we are the only one who can do anything about it.  Just that acceptance, of recognizing we have a choice makes a big difference.   Now we can get to work on letting go.   Some people are going to be able to just lay it down and walk away and others are going to need to do some work to release that mental/emotional muscle spasm.   EFT is a great tool for this.  It releases the pent up energy in a safe way.  I like Dr. Pat Carrington’s choice method and how she suggests we start out saying, “I can choose to let go of just 1% of this anger and resentment.”    Once you make that choice to just give up a little bit of it, then you will be able to release a little more and a little more.  Give it a try see what happens.   If you want to learn the EFT method join my Wednesday night free EFT class at 8:30 EST.  The link is on my website under services.   Or, of course, we can do some one-on-one work. 

Maybe it’s just that we are all getting older, and some of us a lot older, I don’t know but it seems like since last fall it has been one thing after another for everyone I know.  

I guess as we age we have to expect illness and set backs, many of us are making adjustments in our own energy levels as the years quickly slip by and if you are not at that phase then you need to be aware of it.    I don’t mean were all in the bed, but what use to be a bit of a challenge, now sometimes seems looming.  I still work 40 hrs at the hospital and have two part time business that I am building and maintain a big house by myself, so it’s not that I don’t do, it’s that is getting harder and seems to take more energy and I get tired easier than I did when I was 40, say. 

Times are stressful and when you have lived as long as some of us, you have been through this before, the recessions,  thank the Blessed Lord no depressions, eaten your share of rice and beans, and therefore know that you can and will get through the hard times.    One of the reasons I think we do a disservice to our children when we shield them from life’s realities and they don’t have these memories of success to fall back on in hard times.  Being able to say, I did it before and I can do it again, can carry you a long way down a rough road. 

Yesterday I received word from a friend of mine that a mutual friend of ours had a major stroke and is in rehab.  This is a person who I received e mails from pretty regularly and had noticed I had not seen any lately, you know how you have those fleeting thoughts and think, wonder what’s up, and maybe they are on vacation or something of that nature.   The conveyor of the message was already burdened with illness in their own family of a serious nature, and the word of their friend was almost devastating as they wanted to help but their load was so big they could not.   

I noticed over the past year that somehow we have all been so busy, myself included that we are not even sending out the frivolous e mails anymore, which at least said, even though annoying at times,  say I am thinking of you, let alone really communicate with the people in our lives that meant a lot to us. 

Facebook is not communicating.  Twitter is not communicating.  It is a facsimile of communication because few people of sane mind are going to publish for the world to see their inner feelings, things they could be interpreted as weakness, held against them in print.  Kids do this adults, I would hope do not.  In actuality, it can cause us to isolate ourselves. 

Man is a pack animal, just like my three dogs that are asleep in my study here, lying on the floor next to chair.  We need the energy of the pack.  We may go off to hunt but we come back to the pack for support and to reenergize.   You can’t twitter that. 

Even the energy of the planet itself seems to be confused and at unrest.  It’s almost Feb. and it’s in the 50’s…and the daffodils s under my oak tree are coming up out of the ground….they are confused, tornados in the south in winter, uprisings all over the world, which have always gone on but we didn’t know about it every minute of the day, are all upsetting to the basic sense of security we all need and are contributing to our stress levels and our first response is to back away, conserve ourselves. 

Someone wrote a book about everything I needed to know I learned from my dog or cat, something like that and there is something to be said for that.  The animals come together in their pack, their herd and maybe that is what we all need to do too.. 

This year is going to continue to be one of unrest and we need to mark some time into our personal calendars and say I am going to make it a point to stay in touch with the people who energize me, people who I know are there for me when I need them; realizing I need to be available physically and emotionally for them so they will be the same for me when I need them, because I can guarantee you, the day will come when you do need them.   That my friend is life.  We all need to make it a point to get together….attend the block parties, girls night out, dinner with a friend, write a letter, pick up the phone while we exercise and talk to someone you haven’t for a while.   Invest energy into your pack!

If we make this a year of investment, then we will reap the dividends, if we pull back and get out of the market, conserving what we have out of fear and isolation then there will no coupons to clip, no  crop to harvest.    So maybe we want to ask ourselves, where I am investing my resources, the valuable ones, like time and energy and am I investing enough.

Xmas is usually my favorite time of the year.  When I was a kid my grandmother, teenage uncle, sister and I lived in a hotel in room 404 in the Embassy Hotel  on the corner of 9^th and Grand in downtown LA.  The room was probably smaller than my living room.  One double bed for my sister and uncle, a twin for my grandmother, a youth bed/crib for me, two dressers and a mission style wood chair and a card table and small chair for my grandmothers sewing machine which she used to bring in income from sewing for the residences of the hotel.  

From 1942 to 1952 we lived there and in the lobby each year in a corner in front of a big window management put up a big tree and this is where I would sit for hour upon hour where others could not spot me and look at that tree and out the window.   That simple tree was beautiful to me and soothing and I felt safe there, behind the tree.  The big stores downtown had displays in their corner windows and I would stand in front of the windows and look at Santa workshop for hours at a time. I loved the music that played in the store and piped out onto the street, the decorations; the atmosphere was different than today.  The hotel was a residence hotel mainly for elderly single people, all waiting to die and kids were unwelcome to say the least. Something changed at Xmas so Xmas has always had strong feelings for me. Never the material aspect as there never was any; seemed as if people made a point of being nicer and for that short period of time it was joyous and beauty was there. 

There was never any Xmas presents as eating was the priority, and occasionally someone in the hotel would give us a doll.  There were two female Hawaiian acrobats that stayed for a while who gave my sister and I a stuffed dumbo elephant and a big black and white panda bear which I carried around until I was a teenager. We had a couple of dolls over the years, all of which fit in the chair, (you didn’t throw toys away) and I would cover them with a towel at night so they did not get cold.  

Slowly over the years, starting with the first energy crisis and Nixon asked people not to light their houses and then Johnny Carson condemned elevator music with xmas carols and on the phone holding messages and then came the civil rights people and politically correct group started chipping away at the holiday and less and less of the spirit that was is left. I persevered throughout the years and did my part.  I was a among the few who lit house in one  my townhouse complexes and then one after another started putting up lights and when I left the whole end of the unit was a light. You came home in the dark of winter after a stressful day and rode down the street and it was cherry and welcoming.

The hospital where I work was all decorated and a good bit of effort was put into it by the employees and then someone got concerned that someone would be offended and the decoration went down almost totally one year and it was like the Grinch had stolen Xmas.  I cannot tell you how many times family members told me how much they loved the way the place looked, and the patients that were there enjoyed it all. I have watched the last 15 yrs take away the Merry in the season for political correctness. One person said Merry Xmas to me this year in a store and he was from Asia with an accent.  I worked on Xmas day and no one who I passed in the halls initially said Merry Xmas but me.  I wore my funny Xmas hats including the animated one of the Xmas tree that spins and plays music and passed out boxes of cookies to each of the floors and people laughed but spirit was low. 

Had not my grandchildren come for Thanksgiving I am not sure I would have decorated at all so much to do it seemed like and for what.  Then one of the girls at work mentioned how much she and her kids enjoyed the decorated houses and the Peer pressure was on.  So I drug out the wreaths and the little candle lights for the windows and put out the lighted reindeer on the front lawn and put up the tree but only did minimal decorating inside the house. And then one after another the lights went up on the other houses on my cul de sac and all except a couple of houses all were lit and slowly more and more houses in sub division began to light up. Lot more than last year and that gave me some hope and it was really nice in the dark of night, coming home.

On Xmas Eve I donned my silly hat, the one that played music and spun around and delivered cookies to my neighbors and wished them well.  When I first moved in here my Vietnamese neighbor came by on Xmas Eve and left a box of candy and it really was so kind.  And the neighbors had a little Xmas party this year which I was so glad I attended after work as I was so tired as it reminded me of 1945 for some reason; two little girls, a stay at home mom, presents under the tree, homemade cookies and I realized we were making memories for these little girls and warmed my spirit.  

I realized on a much deeper level about the importance of memories, the rituals that tie us together and hold us in stressful time; the little acts of kindnesses that are so huge. .A black and white stuffed bear to a little girl; those two sisters will never know the enormity of their gift; the bear was as big as I was and I clung to it when I was so afraid in the dark of night.  I realize you can’t buy spirit; you have to invest in it and I don’t mean to put anyone efforts down, but I treasured those broken home baked cookies by those children on a little paper plate that was brought to my door and the tattered and scotch taped box of icicle lights a neighbor left when I mentioned I wanted to put them up next year as I realized that is what was all she had to give much more than the Godiva chocolates that the doc staff sent.   

I had been asking myself, my guides, what is all this for, you keep struggling, working so hard?  Oh, I know on one level this is all about spiritual ascension yet there is still the human part of us….the child within us; that part of us that want to see some fruits of our labors.  Ego I guess.   Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for all I have, I have come a long way and much blessed, for which I give thanks every day. But you see a lot of pain and sorrow in these many years I have lived, especially in my line of work, and so many of our friends and loved ones are struggling with illness and hard times;  death is just around the corner for others.

I came home a few nights before Xmas and there was a vase of flowers sitting  on my door step from a old old friend and I  cried as it was a message from my guides that it was worth the effort, I was not alone and my questions would not go unanswered. and I went to the mail box  the next day and there was a present from an old and dear friend.  Every year she sends a practical gift like socks, or this year polka dotted gloves and a little Xmas floor mat.   I will cherish those gloves and those flowers until I die.  A 46 in TV or a new car could not have replaced the feeling of being loved by the flowers and the gift I got just when I was feeling as if Xmas was gone.  It gave me the energy to wear my silly hat on Xmas day and pass out the cookies on Xmas Eve even though tired and it would have been easier to just sit before the fire.    It is these loving kindnesses that keep the fire burning inside of us when it is about to go out the memories we hold that carry us through the darkness of the night.  And it appears we all have to walk through the darkness of the night until we reach the light of day….

So although in one sense it hasn’t been the best of Xmas, on a spiritual level it has opened up a lot of doors, made me aware of many things and how I need to keep the spirit of Xmas alive in myself all year long, and make a bit more effort next year, so it doesn’t die; it is alive within in each of us and I don’t want generation to come to miss the joy of it.   I understand now the importance of rituals, all rituals on a level I never did before and community and individual responsibility and what it means when you say it is better to give than to receive, as it truly in the giving that we receive.  

2012 is before us and I do not know what it will bring, I just know that if we all hold the true meaning of Xmas, of simple acts of kindnesses, of goodwill and cheer, within us that we will all be o.k. 

Will Power vs. Discipline  

Someone asked me what a Behavioral Change Facilitator was.

We all have a history and mine is worse than some and better than others, just like all stories are and all histories are.  I guess I was lucky in the sense they use to tell me I was the “smart child” and my sister, well “she is the pretty one” and you knew pretty was better; somehow I just knew it was.   My sister Cher grew up believing that being smart was better and she wasn’t.  I always thought I was unattractive and actually I wasn’t, I just continued to believe what I was told; I never saw it, and she thought she wasn’t bright.

My grandmother was agoraphobic and I didn’t figure that out until recently, which explains a whole ton of stuff…clinically depressed and always afraid.   All of those elderly people in the hotel where I grew up were afraid.  It was World War II, fear was everywhere but you don’t know when you are 2 or 3 that it isn’t your fear, you suck it up, you just keep taking in information.   You have no reference, you believe what you hear and see, nothing to compare it to. 

We all have a story, I have a client who suffered horrendous traumas  and violence;  and you wouldn’t believe how many woman have been sexually abused…..and men … (seems  woman are more comfortable being in victim’s role, it’s been put upon us for centuries so we are more apt to address it).  Often for men it’s really, really hard to face and deal with those traumas.    I had never even thought of that until I was volunteering in Rape Crisis in Spokane, WA, years ago and a young gay guy joined the group. None of us woman had thought boys were sexually abused and now look at all the horror stories coming from the Catholic church.  Some of the woman didn’t like him being there. It took a lot of courage for that young man to do join us and to speak out as that was Marlboro Country.  He was a neat guy.    I’ve known a lot of gay men over the years, some of them the sweetest, most caring and dedicated and loyal friends and it was really hard for them back then.  The world is getting more accepting but not when I was growing up.   It was from gay men that I learned what really being a man was about; that you can be a warrior, a tough ass Marine, an FBI agent and still be nurturing and kind and caring.  Real men have many facets and they are not the bull shit Marlboro man or cold and distant as my dad, who was never there, and when he was, he was distant and living in his own world of fear.

Once we get out of our own heads and start looking and seeing what’s inside other people, looking for their story, listening to their story, then we see, we are all different, while we are all the same, we have a story, we all just want to be loved and protected, and feel o.k. about ourselves.

Have you ever watched a 2, 3 or 4 year-old?  They want to be heard, they want to share the new ideas they have, they find a pretty flower or a nice bug and the coming run into the house and show it to mom.  They are curious and adventurous and if someone doesn’t listen to them, they pull at your skirt and will cry or stamp their feet.    They want to be seen and they want to be heard.   When we don’t get heard as children, when no one recognizes us, then we get stuck there.   Some kids just come in with the ability to deal with time better, wait to be heard, see more options.  Look up the “Marshmallow Study,” you will understand what I am talking about.  If mom and dad were never heard, then it’s all they know, and it’s probably what they will teach if there no intervention.

What most people want when they come to us is, they want us to change their story.  They really, on some level, want us to hypnotize them and go in there and make that story different.  “I want you to fix me.  I want you to make it so my dad loved me and protected me or that my mom wasn’t an alcoholic.”  Maybe not as definitive, but that is what they want, they want us to fix them.  They want us to change their history.  If only my history were different than I would be different now and I wouldn’t hurt.  I tell them in a nice way, I don’t have a time machine, and if they don’t believe me I don’t deal with them.

I tell them I am a builder and remodeler.  You have a structure and it needs some work, we look at the property first.  Do we have a colonial, a ranch, a split level modern, and take a look inside and see what we can keep and what we need to get rid of.  Maybe the sinks and toilets are o.k., but the kitchen sink has to go.  If we tear a wall down here, we will have more room to expand.   We get an idea of what we can and what is reasonable to do.  Then we start cleaning out the trash, getting rid of the stuff we cannot use, while we shop around for stuff we need, trying out in our heads what will look good in our new house, buying it if we like it, maybe trying some stuff and find out it doesn’t fit, and returning it.   We get some experts when we need them, the plumber or the electrician.  We recognize when we are in over our heads and we understand that we have to put work and effort out to get the house we want and when to start working on it.  We don’t expect to have it finished overnight.   You don’t try and paint over peeling wall paper - it won’t work.  There is an order in the way you have to remodel.  It’s vital to get the roof fixed so rain doesn’t pour in.  You need plumbing and water and you know that you may have to wash the dishes in a bucket for a little while until you get the sinks in and the plumbing working.  It’s a process.

We can’t just bring a bulldozer in and bulldoze ourselves away…well we can, but we just have to come back and do it again next lifetime.   We have to work with what we have right now and remodel it so we can live in it and feel safe, comfortable and enjoy it.  We can’t just go in and tear everything out, the roof will fall down.  What we do is we replace the useless, worn out, non-functioning equipment with new stuff.    We understand we can’t bring in the furniture until the house is ready or it will be ruined by the painters from the dust from the sheet rock being sanded.

Childhood is a time we were meant to learn how to take care of ourselves and if we can do it with fun and good memories, all the better but none the less the purpose is to learn how to be self sufficient and take care of ourselves.  Some of us never had a childhood or it was taken away.  Still we can learn the lessons of childhood; how to care for ourselves.  We can learn how to do that, we can remodel our structures with … how does that song go…”with a little help from my friends”.

Once we understand this process, then we can relax and just get the work done.   WE have to do the work and follow the process.    I want you to really spend some time thinking about this process.  Everybody has to go through this process some just later than sooner.  IT’S CALLED GROWING UP INTO ADULTHOOD.   That’s pretty much what I do, I help people remodel their houses and grow up.

Since this theme has been coming up time and again over the past couple of months, I thought maybe we ought to chat about it and it is part of working on having clarity.  You cannot have clarity if we are not using the same definition for the word.  We need to fine tune our words and expectations connected to those words.  

True CHARITY is giving in a benevolent way to those in need with no expectation of a return.  Charity is sometimes unwelcome because it implies a class distinction.  

 To GIVE is to transfer something to another person without the expectation of reciprocation, i.e., no strings attached.    

To do a FAVOR is bestow special attention or privilege or consideration to someone is also a form of barter, as in you do something for me and I will return the favor and do something for you.  In some cultures, this is the common form of currency.   I will help you bring in your crops and you will then help me bring in mine.    

To BARTER is to exchange good/services.  

We seem to confuse these words quite a bit and because they have different meanings and EXPECTATION  attached to them, this becomes a breeding ground for hurt feelings, anger and resentment and loss of relationships.    

Oh you say, well I know the definition of those words!…hummmmmm…   Maybe we want to think a bit more about those words, because if we don’t really get it, we are going to put the local shrinks’ grandchildren through college and not just his children.    

Seems like a whole passel of folks are confusing GIVING with FAVOR.  They are not interchangeable words because of the implied expectation.  

It is perfectly OK to do any and all of the above.  Do not mistake what I am about to say as long as everyone knows what the rules including ourselves. Where the problem arises is when we are not honest with ourselves and our motivations as in what and why we are doing it.  

If one gives to charity and tells themselves I am being a good, righteous and benevolent person by this and gets his name on the platinum donors list, no one is being hurt by this except yourself if you choose to flaunt it about, then people may think your ego is a bit inflated and question your motivations and you lose the respect you were hoping to gain by the deed.  Giving and Favor are the ones that give us the most trouble most of the time.   This is confusing to a lot of us because of the unspoken definitions.   We hear statements like “in order to receive, we must give,”…  ”that the more we give, the more we will receive,” and that  “we should share.” These are written on our mental wall of rules from the time we are children.  The implication is that if we give/gift, we will get something back in return which, in fact, is passing out favors.  (This does not negate the fact that it is wise advice though.)  In some cultures, favoring and or bartering is openly done and is a form of currency.  As I said, there is no problem here as everyone knows the rules of the game…..it is when we are not honest with our motivations, to ourselves, and our expectations of others that we get into resentment, disappointment and anger. When I give a person a gift, what I am saying is I am going to transfer this object (possibly of value to me and you) with the hope you will find it of value and perhaps it will give you pleasure.  I have transferred ownership of it to you to do as you please.  I am going to give you a gift of my time with the hope that it will serve you well and I expect nothing in return for it, it is a gift, no expectations are involved. What most people really do though is perform FAVORS and label them as GIFTS, calling them gifts so they can feel better about themselves as they are now kind and benevolent.  Favors and bartering are business transactions and do not have the same feeling of benevolence as gifting has.  And alas, I too have been guilty of this. If I go and spend a good bit of time shopping for the perfect gift for a friend and I transfer this gift to them, then I have transferred ownership of the property and no longer have any right to say what happens to it.   I may hope they appreciate and enjoy the gift, as I invested time and money into it, and money is time.  But since I did not specifically ask, “What do you want for your birthday Gazelda?”, then I am setting myself up for disappointment if Gazelda does not “ooh” and “ahh” over the item that I specifically bought for her.  She did not ask for this item.  She did not ask for a FAVOR of this item.  I gave her this because I “hoped” it would please her that would be my expectation and the sheer enjoyment of shopping.  I did not make a contract with her as a FAVOR implies of, if I do this for you, you will return the effort by being appreciate or reciprocating when my birthday or Christmas comes along.   

I keep hearing people say, “Well I did this for so and so and he didn’t appreciate it.  I did this and I did that without them asking and they didn’t do anything for me when I needed help. They never offered.” Now, of course, the gifter/favorer, could have, when an opportunity came up to return the “so called” GIFT, by simply asking for help and not expecting an unwanted favor to be returned. That would be an honest transaction.  No, they expected the other person to understand that the past gifts were to returned even though the “so called” GIFTS were, in fact, unasked FAVORS to begin with.   Now the giver is angry and feeling unappreciated, and the recipent is wondering why the giver/friend is mad at him and placing guilt on him. 

The rule here is you have to be HONEST with yourself and your motivations or you are simply setting yourself up for grief.   Most of us do not even consciously think of these things and we need to, otherwise unnecessary and avoidable hurt feelings are sure to follow. If you cannot give/gift (transfer an object/thing)  to someone without strings attached so they can do whatever they want with the gift, then don’t give it, as you are setting yourself up for hurt feelings.  Instead you need to ask them what they want and then give them specifically what they want.  If you do this and give them what asked for and then they are unappreciative then you can honestly say, “Percy is an unappreciative twit.”  If the acts of asking makes you say, “Well it isn’t a gift then you are, in fact, correct because you are putting expectations onto the giving.  

Aunt Georgia’s old desk of hand polished mahogany may truly be of financial value, as well as sentimental value, yet if your granddaughter has steel, glass and white wall décor, expecting her to place the desk in a favored spot in her house is not a gift.   The act is either a barter or a favor.  The contract goes something like, be it spoken or not, “I am going to favor you, show you special consideration and give you this valuable object and you in return are expected to display it so all can see and you can say, “oh… grandmother was so generous in giving this lovely desk to us” in repayment for the favor of the object of value.  

If the granddaughter has really got her act together, she will say something like, “Thank you so much for your wonderful offer but I am unable to display this in the way that it should be so perhaps you would like to favor cousin Esmeralda with the desk as she has Georgian décor or to the historic society or whatever”……but alas many of us don’t have the communication skills or resolve to do this, as we have been taught this is ungrateful behavior even though we never asked for the ugly thing to begin with and end up with a basement full of unwanted "so called” gifts which we are afraid to get rid of lest we hurt someone’s feelings and drown in guilt and shame.    

Well, I am here to tell you that was not a GIFT….THAT WAS A FAVOR.  (Get out the Comet and a scrub brush and scrub those old definitions off your mental wall of rules.)  If some kind of verbal contract was not made that you were not party to, then you are not liable to honor it.   If I give you something that you do not want and pressure you into keeping it, then it is not a GIFT.  You have the right to not accept the FAVOR (in sheep’s clothing) and/or not return the FAVOR.  

When someone asks you for a FAVOR, the implication is that you will return it.   If we expect something in return for what we do, then we need to be specific and say to that person, “I will do this for you as a favor,” or "I need a favor from you and you can/I will do something for you in return later on,” then the person has the option of turning down the contract. Then everyone knows what is expected of them and no one gets their feelings hurt.  

I have a dear friend who is a retired dairy farmer and lives on land owned by the family for over 200 years.  Her favorite past time is bush hogging (a form of mowing and clearing an area).  She lives a simple life and being economic has always been her guideline.  Because I care so much about my dear friend, when she came to visit one year I wanted to treat her to places I knew she would never spend money to visit.  God has been good me and I wanted to share what I had with her.  The first day of her visit we went to a nationally well know restaurant for lunch.  Its name has appeared in numerous fiction books about Washington, D.C., and I thought this would please her and give her stories to retell.   She looked at the menu and the prices and although I had told her this was my treat I could see she was a bit uncomfortable.   That night we went to an upscale restaurant where the prices were not even on the menu.  This was a bit upsetting to her, and being truly a gracious person, she said nothing but I could tell she was looking for what she thought would be the cheapest thing on the menu.  Being the “meat and potatoes” person she is, she really did not enjoy the gourmet food that was presented to us.  When the check came, I discretely tried to keep it hidden from her but she saw the total.  I thought she was going to have apoplexy but she quietly said, “Thank you.”  

My intentions were good.  I was sincerely trying to gift her with something she would not otherwise be able to afford, BUT I never stopped to question was this a gift she wanted to receive or that she would enjoy or was it something I enjoyed a great deal and wanted to share with her?  Doing this was making ME feel good about myself and particularly GENEROUS AND BENIFICENT, if I am totally honest.  I didn’t question if it was going to make her feel uncomfortable and I have known her for almost 30 years.  She did not enjoy herself, I could tell.  It was not discussed, of course, because she is a gracious person.  Was I hurt by this?  NO, it was a gift and no strings attached.   I learned a lesson from it.  I try now to make a habit of asking people what they want and like; and when she comes to town we go to the Outback or to the Silver Dinner and she has a wonderful time.   Had she made remarks about how expensive the items on the menu were or the food was not to her liking, then that would have been rude on her part (as a friend of mine’s mother has a habit of doing; but then my friend, who truly enjoys lovely dinning continues to insist her mother go to upscale restaurants so she sets herself up for her mother’s snide remarks).  

If you are harboring resentment and hurt feelings and feeling unappreciated, then maybe you need to be asking yourself what were your intentions; was I clear when I made this verbal contract, did we even discuss a contract, do I work from a strategy of doing FAVORS for people, under the guise of gifting them, without letting them know this is what I am doing? 

Have you noticed the things we want and do in our lives have a common thread?  We are looking for something that will bring us peace of mind, security.  We buy big houses, fancy cars, designer clothes looking to change the outside to make us feel better on the inside, and many of us have expensive educations and some many letters after their names.   

I am looking out my study window onto the front yard where I have planted flowers and put up a window box under the bird feeder; the view is dominated by this old red bud tree. I was sure this winter it would come down on its own.  It has split at the base, numerous limbs have broken off and it already looks pretty awful as it has these knobby growths on it, warts sort of, the equivalent of cancer growth the arborist told me.  It is hollow in some spots from woodpeckers and the wearing of time.  I was going to cut it down when I realized if it fell, no matter what direction it landed, it wouldn’t do any damage, unlike the oaks and the maples.  I left it alone through another winter.   

In the spring, it budded, not as much as the previous year, but it budded.  It has leaves and one hardly notices how old it is.  At this moment, you can see the broken limbs through the canopy of leaves if you look closely, yet the tree doesn’t seem to understand it is dying.  It just keeps doing what it is here for:  to grow, to provide shade, to be a refuge for the birds and to hold the soil together with its roots, maybe not as magnificently as it did years ago.  It just keeps doing what it knows how to do and doesn’t ask if it’s better than the giant oak whose branches tower over it 60 feet.  It just basks in the sunshine when it can, uses the water than comes from the universe, maintains a root system helping with flood control.  It makes its contribution as best it can.  One day the heavy snow and ice of winter or the heavy winds will bring it down.  Then, I will cut it for firewood to warm my house and take the ashes it leaves behind and put them in the flower beds to nourish new plants and, perhaps, plant another tree which will carry on and that tree will continue the cycle of life in another way…it’s all just energy.   

I was talking with a person who was having problems with depression and I asked them to answer this question: “If my life were a movie, what would the name of it be?” The answer that came back was “Disappointment, Sadness, and Struggle.” When I went to bed that night, I asked “Spirit” to help me find the right words to reach this person, enabling them to unlock the door that was blocking their progress.

In the first patient’s room I visited was an old and delightful woman who has many chronic health problems; and whose life, I know, has never been one of ease.  She was a very simple woman from the South, not well educated; most of her life has involved her family and her church as opportunities were few for woman of her age. As I had not seen her for quite a while, we begin to chat and when I ask what brought her to the hospital this time? I sympathized with her about her recent fall and the burden it puts on her as she lives alone and she said to me  “I never ask God to get me through it, I only ask that He teaches me to dance in rain.”

I walked into the hall, outside her room, with tears in my eyes, for not only did I receive an answer to the question I had asked the night before, but an answer to a personal question about a disappointment I recently received. As I went through the day, I shared this story with my co-workers each and every one thought about it. You could see it in their eyes, as they made the connection and one so profoundly said,”She is so right because there will always be storms.