THE GIFTS
Eventually, we come to a point when we have been given all the information we need. This is a moment of great responsibility. It is the point when we must stop simply wandering along the trails of life and begin to carve one through the world for ourselves, using our intentions. For the first time in our journey, we shift our focus from an inward path of ‘me’ to one of outwardly dynamic giving, or ‘gifting’.
Through the process of remembering our stories’ authentic threads, we have by now reconnected with the spark of unique genius that was born in our hearts when we came into this world. Through the alchemical fire of our testing times, we have discovered our individual strengths and have started to use them to create a life beyond the norm. Our experiences of the darkness and the light have begun to provide us with our healing crises (in their various forms) and we emerge from them with stronger mental, emotional and spiritual immune systems. By the time we reach the Gifts Stage, we have ventured home to our true self in a more mature form, having stripped away many of the layers of identity and programing that we accumulated in our younger years.
Gifting becomes a two-way process in that we are both giving to and receiving from and through life in a continuous flow. Our acts of service do not always manifest in the ways we expect them to and often our greatest gifts are given in the small daily interactions with the world around us. We move beyond the traditional idea of being of service and our gifts are given in terms of our presence, love and appreciation of our human and more-than-human families – and less in the grand heroics of leadership. This doesn’t mean that we won’t be called into wider action on behalf of our communities, but that we no longer need heroics in our lives to feel recognized, validated and aligned to our deeper story. We let go of the collective human shadow of the special one/hero/leader/messiah and step into the unique grace of our own natural human beauty. As my grandfather used to say, “The quality of the individual is based on their contribution to the whole.”
Extract from Tough Bliss: Restorying Life
- If money was no object, what would you spend your life doing / being?
- Where would you like to give more if you could?
- How can you give the gift of your time / experience / love to someone who needs it today?
For this week’s Storyhack, we have the penultimate stage of the 6-part video series exploring the Beyond Human Stories, Restory Cycle.
Embrace your true Gifts.
