Week 30. Gift Giving

It is common to see this word combination as author’s Gary Chapman’s coined term, one of five love languages. In a nutshell, we all show and receive love in one (or more) of five ways, called love languages: words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, acts of service and gift giving / receiving. This week I was reminded of the joy of giving gifts to yourself. Not the fancy, expensive things, or not overdoing it (but if that’s your jam, of course, by all means, whatever floats your boat). This time I’m talking about something simple that changes the quality of our time or lives. This could be a new pillow that saves our aching necks, a fan for our space, if we were planning to get a better climate control at home and not sweat our face off every time tropical heat decides to show up, or in my case, a pan that I was debating to buy for couple of weeks now. Yes, these are small joys of an adult but giving ourselves gifts like that also signals to ourselves that we deeply care and want what’s best for us in the long run. This is so much bigger than things. It’s consideration, having our own backs and taking care of the small stuff that over time compiles to bigger problems. That way we’re proactively giving ourselves the gift of peace of mind, better sleep quality, the chance to be healthier in the long run, the things we actually need the most in life, in that mundane everyday, minute-to-minute that sustains our biggest wins and awe filled moments that we’ll remember thirty years from now. If we have supportive systems in place in our lives, we have a pretty decent chance to flow with life, instead of constantly putting out fires from a reactive and defensive place. I might or might not be writing these words with a sheet mask on my face, looking for no other benefits from it than to amuse and jump scare myself while passing any reflective surface in the house at two in the morning, reminding myself that these gifts, long term planning and system creating also has to be fun to do. Otherwise it’s just another chore, not a loving act towards ourselves.

Have a week of meaningful gift giving.