Today's prompt was a bit of a challenge. It's been a busy day and I haven't had time to sit down for too long! Hopefully it makes sense! ;)
Day 5 Share
Learning to share is one of the first lessons we want to
teach our children. We want them to be socialized and that
means they must learn how to let others use or borrow what belongs to
them. Recently I overheard a conversation on a podcast regarding sharing. One
mom would always ask her young child whether there was one special toy that she didn’t feel
comfortable sharing that day and put it out of sight before her friend arrived,
so that her visiting playmate wouldn’t be tempted to play with it. As I
pondered this, I thought that it was a wise move and respectful of the child.
How many of us want to share EVERYTHNG we own
with others all the time? How many of
us have ever purchased a dark chocolate bar and hidden it behind the pickle jar
in the fridge, so that we could enjoy it on our own, because we really didn’t
want to share it with anyone? I have! Of course, if this becomes a pattern,
there may be other issues at play (chocaholic!)
Seriously, as a rule, the key is to live a lifestyle of generosity.
These could be with things, time, money, and even ourselves and our thoughts. But sometimes our belongings are too special
to share with others. We have to respect how we feel.
Sitting
in a circle with others, being asked to
go around clockwise and share one after the other, is an example of forced
sharing. That really doesn’t work for me, with my personality. Sharing, to come
from the heart, must be volunteered, not forced. Give me freedom to respect and be myself
and I’ll be happy to share.
What do you think?
What I think is that I agree. I hate enforced sharing. My family of origin would do it around the table at thanksgiving. It would take about 20 minutes, there were so many of us, so there was a lot of time to stress out about it. There was no opting out. I hated it.
ReplyDelete"Sharing, to come from the heart, must be volunteered, not forced."
There's a 12-step I go to weekly, and I love their approach. Maybe every group does it like this? After introductions, everyone just sits in companionable silence, waiting for whoever wants to share. If someone wants to, they introduce themselves, and share. No one interupts. When they're done, we might have silence again, or someone else might introduce themselves and share. There's no commenting on what someone else said, no gossip, no advice, no criticism. Having the freedom to share or not share has been an intense luxury.
I love that! 'No pressure' is my motto :)
DeleteAmen sister Jae! And good post Aneta. I wrote about this a while ago after being in an enforced sharing situation. It's funny because I actually don't mind sharing as long as I'm not forced to!!
ReplyDeleteSame!
Delete