Each of us
comes from different backgrounds and traditions around gift-giving.
Some people’s
families do joke gifts, others do fancy dinners, others have a certain dollar
value that’s expected, and others do nothing at all. During this time, if you are different than
your family’s values, it can bring up a whole host of self-worth issues as you
end up feeling like you “fail” in the eyes of your family’s standards. And then
it creates a sense of being excluded from the family.
I will give
you an example of my own dynamic with our family’s tradition of Christmas.
Growing up,
I was into recycling, second-hand things, meaningful gifts and handmade presents.
I just naturally knew the wastefulness
of Christmas presents. I would use newspaper to wrap gifts, I would write stories
and give them to family members, or I would make bath salts and put them into
mason jars. Cute, right? Well, I was teased for it. They thought I was doing it
because I didn’t have money. Which I didn’t have a lot of money but that wasn’t
the reason. I was doing it because I put special thought into something they
would like and I cared about the Earth and its creatures -- which seemed to be
what the Spirit of Christmas was meant to be.
Over time,
I began to dread Christmas because it made me feel like no matter what I did or
gave, it was seen as “not good enough”, that I was somehow “too poor” to
participate in Christmas exchanges. So I retracted from holiday invites and
also from family functions because I didn’t make a certain amount of money.
Nowadays
they would call what I did “upcycling” or “eco-gifting” or “crafting”. It is
now an urban hipster thing to make your own bath bombs, or to personalize gifts
with a handwritten note, and to wrap everything in hemp cloth or
newspapers. I’d like to say that the world
is catching up to my trendsetting ways (wink!).
Throughout
my work, I’ve learned about the powerful force of belonging. Therapists,
abuse counsellors and addictions counsellors have understood this concept
deeply. The need to belong is a fundamental desire and need – so much so that
people will sacrifice their own safety, happiness and well-being in order to
fit in.
So many of
us do this (myself included) during this holiday time – putting ourselves into
debt just to participate in the greater collective pressure to give despite our limits.
So what is
the solution?
In order to
stay balanced, a key part is staying in our own integrity and value system.
Otherwise stress kicks in.
Here’s a simple
exercise to help you be true to yourself during this time of gift-giving:
1) Write down three things your family
expects of you with gift-giving – just so you are aware of their expectations
and pressure.
2) Write down three values you have
with giving. Such as: eco-friendly, elegant, meaningful, delicious, funny, spiritual,
etc.
3) Then write down a list of the people you WANT
to give to, and another list of people you NEED to give to – just so you can
really identify how much heart energy you should put into each person.
4) You want to put more of your energy,
time, money and focus for the list of people you want to give to. These are the
people you love. Beside their names, write one word of how you would describe
them, then write three things you think they are interested in or a shared
memory. Then using your 3 values you
wrote above, brainstorm 4 or 5 ideas of what to get them within your budget.
5) For the people you NEED to give to,
buy or make items on a mass scale that fits into 2 out of 3 of your value
system. For example, if your values for gift-giving are funny, eco-friendly and
heart-felt, then you might want to get or make in bulk something like snowmen
dryerballs or heart-shaped bath bombs.
This saves you time because it’s bulk, it’s in your value system, it’s
unique to you and people will get a gift within your means.
I’d love to
hear how this goes for you and what ideas you come up with! Happy gift-giving from your heart!
ox,
Heather
www.BlossomingHeart.ca
Grow Into Who You Are Meant to Be
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