generous hearts

Reverb Prompt 10: Look back at the last year and consider: how did generosity open your heart? How can you cultivate generosity in the coming year?

I wouldn't say the Rolling Stones are particularly skilled philosopher poets, but there are some truths universal that can be found in song. This is one of them:

You can't always get what you want.

You can't always get what you want.

You can't always get what you want.

But if you try

Sometimes

You just might find.

You get what you need.

In the preview to this prompt, Kira differentiates between "giving" and "generosity" with the observation that generosity "is free of obligations; it opens the heart, and creates warmth and connection between the giver and receiver."

This week I had the rare gift of an escape to a 5-star resort on Jamaica's north coast. I went with no expectations except for some great company and a relaxing luxurious respite after a very hectic and exhausting couple of weeks. I got the respite. I got brilliant conversation. And - perhaps even unbeknownst to the giver - I also left with an expanded heart, increased sense of myself, and the beginnings of an important shift in the nastiness I fling at myself.

As my tears washed into the ocean I began to create a space for someone/something new - a 'me' that lives and loves and gives of herself without the cloying and off-putting need for endless external affirmations I can never truly hear anyway. Or who, at the very least, can see the power that would come from being that woman.

The gift of that awareness is far more than the giver could ever know. Maybe I would have come to it in the hubbub of Kingston, but it was far more accessible in the quiet waters of Runaway Bay.