In thanksgiving for life, I pledge to overcome my GREED, that confuses wants with needs, by trusting that enough for all our needs is given to us and to share GENEROUSLY what I so generously receive.
Let these words settle into your whole being. When you feel complete with your meditation on the pledge, deepen your exploration with the following reflections and practice suggestions.
- Throughout the day, experiment with gently questioning your “needs,” recognizing that each of us has basic needs that do indeed need to be met. In this experiment, we are not referring to those foundational needs. Consider instead: Do I really need to be right? Do I need the validation from others that I might be seeking? Is this purchase necessary? When I feel that I need “more” of something, can I pause to consider whether this is true?
- Notice how it feels in your body when you think you need something. Notice if it feels different when you pause to consider whether the need is true, or might be a perception.
- Practice being generous with what life has offered you. Give something meaningful to someone else today — the larger portion of pie, a gift without reason, recognition of someone’s hard work or kindness, your time or full attention even though you may be feeling you don’t have time to spare. How does it feel? What impact does your generosity have on you and those around you?
- How might recognizing that all of life is a gift and that our lives are possible only through the gifts of others impact the way you experience generosity?
- Commit to discerning between needs and wants, trusting that we are part of a web of give-and-take in which we always have something to both offer and to receive.
Should you be inspired, please leave a reflection below…
Enjoy the full five-day In Thanksgiving for Life practice.
Love is Transformative 
Gratitude and gifts have come up in several recent conversations. Recognizing things that we may not always see as gifts (like good friends) makes gratitude more real for me.
Thank you for putting this in such a tender loving way. It helps me go deeper into my experience. Thank you
I keep getting to the end of my days without doing everything I wanted to do. That makes it easy to not respond to people whose needs are “not urgent.” So when I read, “Practice being generous with your time or full attention even though you may be feeling you don’t have time to spare,” I sent two text messages. I feel better about the use of my time already and look forward to the phone calls these texts invite. I just needed a little help getting my mind outside of myself.
“By trusting that enough for all our NEEDS is given to us…..” I think this is the key to this seemingly pretty big ask of myself! Going to try it – I will report back!
A twig of poetree elucidates (final version) 🙂
Giving Thanx
While feeling sacred on this All Hallow’s Day,
I also feel pangs of the hungry, so wrought by
The profane, for the food wasted by us could feed
All the world’s…. Yet, betwixt,
In the mundane it’s only hurled.
Allowing our thoughts on our forbearers,
And a drink returned to the earth for them, as they,
The dearly departed, are us as well, we discern,
The depth of one’s sorrow is the well’s fathom
Of meanings and moments shared with them.
Thus, manners in which doings, not doings are done
Or aren’t, brings life, light to them, or it doesn’t.
For grace, just a word, can’t be sought, it seeks you.
As words, while paths of study, can’t lead to oneself,
For, intellect can not lead, as life does not follow.
Dougie MacLean with Kathy Mattea ~ ‘Turning Away’:
Lyrics: Chorus:
“…In darkness they do what they can,
In daylight it’s Sun’s blazing hands,
Our hearts so raw and clear,
We’re turning away, turning them away from fear…”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG-Gxpa2tvA
Thanx for all you do 🙂 reality
Being generous with my time and sharing the outcome is greater stability.