Mary did it, George! Mary did it! She told a few people you were in trouble and they scattered all over town collecting money.
They didn’t ask any questions— just said:
‘If George is in trouble—count on me.’
You never saw anything like it.
- The film It’s a Wonderful Life

Here comes Thanksgiving, the American holiday built around food. This is not only distinct from holidays that include gift giving; it is also one where many people act charitably to others. Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, however much of the traditional Thanksgiving foods were hunted and gathered rather than farmed.  To celebrate the holiday, here is a post about an anthropological study which finds that hunter-gatherers who share generously are better cared for when they need support than those who keep their food resources for themselves.

Why do individuals give away valuable fitness-enhancing food resources to other individuals? Answers from anthropology generally fall into one of three categories: nepotism (supporting relatives), reciprocal altruism (mutual back-scratching), or tolerated theft (not giving up ownership, but not prosecuting people who need and take). In “It’s a Wonderful Life”: signaling generosity among the Ache of Paraguay, Gurven, Allen-Arave, Hill, & Hurtado from the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico show that,

…those who shared and produced more than average (signaling cooperative intent and/or ability to produce) were rewarded with more food from more people when injured or sick than those who shared and produced below average.

Although they currently reside on permanent settlements, the Ache of eastern Paraguay were full-time hunter-gatherers occupying a 20,000-km area of the upper Jejui watershed up until the time of contact with researchers in the mid-1970s. They continue to spend up to 33% of their time on extended foraging trips.

It is important to note that consistently high food producers who give more than they receive, gain the least risk-reduction benefit from daily pooling of food resources because they are the least likely to go without food on any given day. The study shows that, even though these generous individuals do not receive the proportion of food they give, they receive additional food during hard times. These hard times might include episodes of sickness, disease, injury, or accidents which are fairly common events in traditional societies and can render individuals incapable of producing food.

What seems to be important in this research is that these people have a reputation for being generous that endures over time. So even when they are not able to share, they are known as people who would if they could – based on their past behavior. It also seems important that, by sharing generously, they build a reputation for being able to produce large amounts of food. For that reason, there is motivation in the rest of the community to support those people, so that they can recover and return to high levels of food production (and then share it). The authors conclude:

If altruistic behavior is analogous to paying a high premium for long-term health insurance, then extensive food sharing can be construed as risk-averse behavior in the long term, even if it may appear as risk-prone behavior in the short-term.

Are you generous with your food resources, during Thanksgiving and throughout the year? If so, why? If you are not generous, why not? This time of year is also traditionally a time of reflection, so consider what you are gaining and risking with your habits and practices.

Not what we say about our blessings,
but how we use them,
is the true measure of our thanksgiving.
- W. T. Purkiser

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine,
then let us work together.
- Lilla Watson, Murri (Aboriginal Australian) visual artist, activist and educator

Over time a theme has emerged on this blog; that is the relationship between charitable contributors, organizations who engage them, and the beneficiaries who are supported by their efforts. This can be seen in many of the postings under the category Contributor Relationships (in the gold bar on the left).  Kim Samuel-Johnson recently posted a frank and poignant essay about her struggles as a philanthropist to be in relationship as a contributor. She says:

I’ve noticed that isolation, or at least a feeling of bleak separation, can occur in the very act of philanthropy; that sometimes the manner in which the gift is made diminishes and isolates both the person who is seen as giving and the person who is seen as receiving.

Ms. Samuel-Johnson is the president of the Samuel Foundation and a board member of The Synergos Institute. Synergos publishes the online newsletter Global Giving Matters and this essay is the first to look at the inner journey of a philanthropist.

Samuel-Johnson is concerned with the isolation that comes from having financial resources out of scale with others; this can make her feel like an outsider. She is advocating that the contributors, service providing organizations, and beneficiaries join together as a community of concern. This is reflected in postings on this Generosity Path blog such as A Relationship with Beneficiaries. She says is beautifully here:

So, far from feeling separated out as “the person with the money,” or the outsider in some other way, I feel the boundaries between the “me” and the “they” disappear. I feel welcome as part of, if you like, the family. This means a lot to me.
And yet – and this is important – there has to be a clarity and an honesty about what it is that each of us can bring. In my case, I try to bring a lot of passion and very high standards, two qualities I consider essential for philanthropy, because we all need to engage both the heart and the mind. I’ve also brought monetary resources, which are generally not unimportant.
In the case of others, though, they have brought resources of comparable or greater value, including knowledge of the community, management or other skills, creativity, hard-won knowledge, or a commitment to see the project through. In a way, mine may have been the easiest contribution to secure!

In the essay Samuel-Johnson also connects giving and receiving into one dynamic, where both givers and receivers benefit in their own way. She says,

I finally understand that if the giving and receiving is done with the right spirit, from all corners, bearing in mind that we are all giving and receiving simultaneously, then money is a facilitator, not my “gift” per se but instead an expression of my commitment, and an important one at that.

And here she lays out a vision of how this contributor/beneficiary relationship can honor everyone’s contributions and reduce isolation for all of the collaborators:

If the giving and receiving is shared and if everyone is able to come to the table, roll up his or her sleeves, and work together with an understanding of the interests, experience, passion, and goals that brought us together, then each of our needs will have already been factored into the initiative.
What is left then is simply a group of people creating something new together, in harmony, where no one at the table and from there outwards to the various partners or constituents feels like they are ever alone. I interpret this kind of collaboration as stemming from a wholesome and generous spirit of giving and receiving, a place of being included.

This is beautiful, brave, and counter-cultural work Samuel-Johnson is doing. It is also a spiritual journey, where she is working to live out her values. BRAVO!

A true vision of peace sees a continuous mutuality between giving and receiving. Let’s never give anything without asking ourselves what we are receiving from those to whom we give, and let’s never receive anything without asking what we have to give to those from whom we receive.
- Henri Nouwen

Tara Brach

For Tara Brach, generosity can come as spontaneously as our breath; it is the natural outflow from receiving, from being grateful. Brach is an author, a Buddhist meditation teacher, and leader of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (DC). She guides her students to use meditation, their acute sensory awareness, and to cultivate a consciousness of the present moment — which she calls Natural Presence.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 2007, Brach gave a talk called Gratitude and Generosity. In it she pointed out that breath can become a guide to living life fully; that you can breathe in, let the breath come in fully and deeply, and understand the experience as an expression of receptivity. Then breathing out and really letting go of the breath, surrendering it, can be understood as an expression of generosity, of offering into the world.

Gratitude has everything to do with happiness.
- Tara Brach

For Brach, gratitude is a recognition and appreciation, which confirms a sense of abundance in the world. This leads naturally to generosity.  She notes that people who are happy are appreciating life and that their happiness flows out naturally into the world, as a gift. However this recognition and appreciation, which precedes gratitude, is only possible by being truly present in the moment and place we inhabit, by seeing things as they are, and by letting reality as it is flow through us. She contrasts this with being caught up in our thoughts, memories, and judgments about the present reality, which distracts us from what actually is.

Since she lives near a river, Brach uses the river metaphor to deepen her explanation of being in natural presence. She says that similar to when we are standing in a river, if we allow the water to flow through and around us rather than trying to fight the current or control the flow of the water, we are more stable and secure. With our consciousness, if we allow the flow of life we are more present and free, and giving also flows more naturally. In this way generosity is an expression of inner freedom.

Brach believes that the basic way of expressing our abundance, freedom, and generosity is to give our blessings to other people, to give our love. She tells a tale from Rachel Naomi Remen’s book, My Grandfather’s Blessings. When Remen was young her grandfather would spend time and tell her about her goodness. He gave her a name, Neshumela, which means little beloved soul. After his death, Remen realized that she had learned to see herself through his eyes, as blessed. She says, “Once blessed we are blessed forever.”

So breathe in as a practice of receiving, practice meditation as a way to cultivate natural presence, as a way to feel the abundance of the world. And breathe out, giving your presence as a gift. Brach exhorts us to then: tell the people in your life about their goodness, bless them, and let them know your love – out loud.

Gratefulness is flowing from my heart.
- Hezekiah Walker

Listen to the Gospel song Grateful by Hezekiah Walker:

A social network map of 2,200 people, James Fowler

We practice generosity with others and with ourselves,
over and over again,
and the power of it begins to grow
until it becomes almost like a waterfall, a flow.
- Sharon Salzberg

How altruistic is your social network? In their experiments, Christakis and Fowler have found that when people in their studies were on the receiving end of a generous exchange, they were likely to become more generous to the next people they were paired with — until their larger study group was “infected” with altruistic behavior. This might help explain why altruists are able to continue being generous without constantly being taken advantage of my other community members, possibly leading to more subdued altruistic behavior. It also might point ways to increase generosity in our communities. According to Christakis and Fowler’s work, we can improve our world by both acting in pro-social ways and networking to other people who are living well and doing good works. How are you choosing to grow your actions and influence your network?

James H. Fowler is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. Nicholas A. Christakis is a physician and a professor in both the sociology department and school of medicine at Harvard University.  They have based their recent co-authored book Connected on The Framingham Heart Study data. The famous Framingham Study is a cardiovascular study that has been running since 1948 (now on its third generation of participants) with over 5,000 adult subjects from Framingham, Massachusetts. As part of the collected materials, the study regularly asks the subjects for the names of family members and one friend – although people often list more than one friend. This rich mine of data historical has allowed Christakis and Fowler to chart the social networks of a whole community and track their behavior on a range of variables. You can read more about their work in the recent New York Times article by Clive Thompson (source for the quotes in this posting).

Christakis and Fowler have found that we can affect people three degrees away from us  - that is your friend’s friend’s friend (or brother’s friend’s sister), so we actually may have a lot more indirect influence than we think:

…they conducted a laboratory experiment in which participants played a “cooperation game.” Each participant was asked to share a sum of money with a small group and could choose to be either generous or selfish. Christakis and Fowler found that if someone was on the receiving end of a generous exchange, that person would become more generous to the next set of partners — until the entire larger group was infected, as it were, with altruistic behavior, which meant the altruist would benefit indirectly.

Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler

Statistics show that most of us are connected to more than 1,000 people (within three degrees of separation). This is the pool of people whom we can theoretically help make healthier, fitter, happier, and possibly more altruistic and generous - just by our contagious example. So what can you do, among your network to be generous and grow generosity? Studies show it will make a big difference.

If someone tells you that you can influence 1,000 people,
it changes your way of seeing the world.
- James Fowler

We are not fighting a losing battle,
there are so many beautiful things that we should be encouraged by.
- Majora Carter

Majora Carter

Majora Carter is an urban environmental pioneer. When asked about her responses to the ongoing economic crisis, she states that we were already in a moral crisis. Along with her other suggestions, she intimates that people have had many dormant or undeveloped skills and ideas, which are now being mobilized because there is a new urgency to respond to. She says, the tools have always been there. What resources do you have; resources that have not found expression, that have been in reserve, that you can now respond with - to help us all get through this moral and economic crisis?

From 2001 to 2008, Majora Carter she was the founder and executive director of the non-profit Sustainable South Bronx, where she pioneered green-collar job training and placement systems in one of the most environmentally and economically challenged parts of the U.S.A. Carter is a MacArthur Foundation fellow and now has her own economic consulting firm. She was interviewed as part of Speaking of Faith’s ongoing series Repossessing Virtue, about the world-wide economic crisis. Carter says that many people would have agreed that morally, people should not be dying of starvation or perpetrating environmental damage, however she looked for a way to help people address these issues. Her reasoning was that if we could reframe these things as a pragmatic, economic problem and that it would be in our best economic interests to change, then people would stand up and take notice. How much more urgent are these calls now that the world economy is so rocky?

What is Carter doing differently in this economic maelstrom? She says she is trying to be much more joyful, deliberately so. She is taking time to appreciate all that we have; all that she has. That is what is going to make the work much more joyous.

Carter was told recently: a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.  She says that, in the 10 or 11 years that she had been doing urban environmental work, she has seen not just parks developed where there were former dump sites, but she has seen people’s lives changed. She has seen people coming from families that lack the understanding that they could even have jobs, come to the understanding that they can be really powerful and that the fruits of their labor can help a tree grow and help their family survive. The tools have always been there, she says, we have just not been comfortable enough and confident enough in our ability to help make things happen.

Knowing that I am not always going to be on the receiving end;
that I have something to give, and just giving it.
That is where I get my strength.
- Majora Carter

Here is Carter speaking at the Dream Reborn event:

Receiving is an art…
So many people have been deeply hurt because their gifts were not well received.
Let us be good receivers.
- Henri Nouwen

Giving and receiving are locked as dynamic actions. There can be no giver or gift without a receiver, and how we are as recipients affects how we are as givers. For this reason, it is almost impossible to talk about giving without also commenting on receiving and vice versa. Consideration of what recipients are needing, hoping for, and receptive to will help us to be better at giving. Some studies have shown that there may be gender differences in how we receive and a popular book discusses how the specific forms a gift is given in will make a difference in how well-loved we feel.

In a study about women and gifts of flowers, pens and other objects, Rutgers University professor of psychology Jeannette Haviland-Jones revealed findings about the reactions of the recipients and  tied these to the form of gift given. In Haviland-Jones’ study, participant’s responses to being given gifts included true smiles, improved episodic memory and positive moods, which lasted even three days later. As compared with other gift objects, flowers provoked instant delight and happiness, and induced powerful positive emotions. Based on these findings, there seem to be few negative reactions or impediments to the women receiving these gifts. In fact, the gifts seem to create some powerful positive effects.

By contrast, Todd Kashdan, associate professor of psychology at George Mason University did a study of gratitude, the emotion of thankfulness and joy in response to receiving a gift in men and women.  Kashdan’s previous studies have found that gratitude is one of the main elements in creating happiness and meaning in life. In this study, he found that men are much less likely to feel and express gratitude than women. By contrast, women reported feeling less burden and obligation and greater levels of gratitude when presented with gifts than men. An additional finding was that older men reported greater negative emotions when the gift giver was another man. So receiving may be easier for women than for men – especially for men if the giver is of the same gender.

These are studies of relatively small groups of people and account only in a limited way for individual interaction styles and other factors. However, if we consider that every person, regardless of gender identification, has aspects that might be labeled masculine and feminine; it may make it easier to consider these generalities. Still it does indicate that, in order to achieve greater pleasure and well-being, that feminine ways of receiving may have something to teach those who tend toward more masculine pitfalls in receiving.

There is a popular book by Christian author Dr. Gary Chapman, called The Five Love Languages. Although the original book (there are now a number of versions) is geared toward heterosexual married couples, it is based on the interesting idea that we will feel more loved if we are given gifts in the format of our preference. These 5 formats, or languages, are what are referred to in the book title.  They include:

• Words of Affirmation - where the recipient prefers verbal appreciation
• Quality Time – where the recipient prefers focused attention
• Receiving Gifts – where the recipient prefers tangible or material expressions
• Acts of Service – where the recipient prefers assistance with their responsibilities
• Physical Touch – where the recipient prefers bodily contact & embrace

This focus on the person receiving the gift, considering what will make them feel loved, and providing the language to explore and convey these preferences seems extremely helpful. One of the versions of The Five Love Languages is a Men’s Edition. Although I have not read the book, from what I can find about it on the web, it seems to speak primarily to traditional gender roles within a marriage – where men sometimes struggle in their role as givers (of affection, gifts, erotically, etc.) to the women who are the recipients. I am sure this provides valuable assistance. Based on the studies cited above, it seems that the men could use some help being receivers as well.

Giving presents is a talent; to know what a person wants, to know when and how to get it, to give it lovingly and well.
Unless a character possesses this talent there is no moment more annihilating to ease than that in which a present is received and given.
- Pamela Glenconner

There is no one so poor that he has nothing to give,
and no one so rich that he cannot receive.
Mother Theresa

Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin; one does not exist without the other. We cannot be a world full of givers if there is no one to accept our gifts. Yet for many people, especially generous people, giving is a wonderful experience and being a recipient is uncomfortable, embarrassing, or even shameful. If you cannot be a recipient, if the experience is so fraught for you that even when you have to endure it, you are taking your mind somewhere else, then how can you really be present with people who you are giving to? Recognize that we all have unfulfilled needs, no matter how subtle. This will help us to have empathy and build solidarity with people who have essential needs. We are joined together in a common neediness, even if the specific needs are different. And as Mother Theresa said, “If you refuse a gift that is offered to you, you deny the joy of the giver.”

As generous people, we need to keep in mind that giving can be potent stuff. It can carry power; in giving we can elevate the recipient, make her or him feel good about themselves, or we put her or him down so that she or he feels like a beggar. In like fashion, if we are a recipient, we may accept a vulnerable position, subject to the inclination of the giver. However, that risk can also bring benefits. A gift well given can carry a special recognition of you as the recipient; what you like, what has meaning for you, what might touch you. Ultimately, entering into the dynamic of giving and receiving with true generosity builds strong bonds of relationship.

Why is it sometimes difficult to accept someone’s generosity? For many people there is shame associated with needing something from someone else. In some cases people feel that they do not deserve the gift or care because of some personal insecurity. Many people do not want to inconvenience anyone else and might feel that they are a burden, even to those who care about them most.

Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver,
and this connection gives birth to a new sense of belonging.
- Deepak Chopra

It is most important to be aware and conscious when someone is giving you something; that is what I call a generosity in receiving. Really be in the moment, set aside any awkwardness, embarrassment or for that matter entitlement. This person has gone out of their way to give you something, whether it is a chocolate chip cookie, assistance with a household repair job, or significant financial resources. One is expected to be grateful, and you probably are. Really being present in the moment of time where you receive something will open the way for a reaction that will gratify the person who gave you the gift.

So I would advise stopping in the moment, breathing it in to really experience it. Then think of your expressions of thanks as a separate gift, a new gift – related to the gift that you were just given but separate, honoring the person who faces you.

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
- Victor Borge

According to the Wonder Time parenting blog, a baby’s first laugh in the Navaho tradition is, a sign of joy that signals his desire to join his earth family and community. The Up Your Consciousness Blog states that the baby’s first laugh, marks its birth as a social being for the Navaho.

Whoever is present at the first laugh is considered in some way responsible for that event. That person is not only in charge of arranging the Baby Laughed Ceremony for the child, it is also thought that the infant takes on the qualities of that person.

The A’wee Chi’deedloh (The Baby Laughed Ceremony in Navaho language) is a social event where guests file past the baby with plates full of food. With the help of an adult, the baby then gives a pinch of salt to each plate as a symbolic act of generosity. The salt is meant to rekindle and sustain the goodness in each recipient. It is also considered to kindle the generosity in the baby and be the first in a lifetime of generous acts.

To close the ceremony, at the end of the meal, either the host (who witnessed the first laugh) or a family elder blesses the baby, wishing for a life of generosity and gratitude.

The Up Your Consciousness Blog give these helpful lessons to draw from this ceremony:

• We’re social beings, thriving mainly in the company and support of others.
• Generosity is a noble virtue, best instilled from birth.
• Opportunities to celebrate generosity remind us of and regenerate our goodness.
• An act of kindness raises the endorphins of not only the receiver, but also of the giver, and of everyone who witnesses it.
• Genuine, heartfelt laughter is an act of generosity!

The salt of life is selfless service.
- Sri Swami Sivananda, Hindu Spiritual Teacher

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee…
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

This is the 3rd of a series of posts about the Generosity Spiral. If you have not see the other two posts (The Generosity Spiral Part 1: Receiving and The Generosity Spiral Part 2: Giving), you may want to go back and look at those to have a better context for this posting.

The Generosity Spiral: Receiving and Giving

Click on the chart to have it expand for better viewing. It may be helpful to print it out as well so you have it while reading this post.

Depicted here are zones of receiving and giving in one conjoined spiral. This speaks to the living dynamic that connects giving and receiving; both are creative endeavors (neither is passive) and one can affect the other. Here are a few examples of this using the zone names from the Spiral:

If someone is moved to give to you in a Fully Engaged way (whatever they can in the way of skills, time, bodily effort, and possessions), if you receive it in Reciprocity (immediately attempting to give back in kind), then that giver’s efforts will probably be diminished. This dynamic obviously limits the creativity and openness of this encounter.

The dynamic of the giver or receiver can also work to grow the openness of the encounter.  If you receive offerings from someone With Love (with unconditional affection and focus), then even if the giver’s approach is normally Meager Giving (just enough to be recognized or avoid social pressure), that giver’s approach may soften and open to be more giving.  My hope is that you see in these examples the possibility and opportunity for transformation, for both yourself and other people, in your encounters with them.

You will notice that in the tighter parts of the spiral, that the paired labels – the attitudes and behaviors in giving and receiving are more mismatched. If one imagines a giving situation where someone is Giving to Impose with someone who is engaged in Needy Taking, the possibility for conflict in that situation is high. As the spiral gets broader and more open, there is more likelihood of clearer engagement and satisfaction for both parties with the paired labels. For example, if someone who is engaged in Purposeful Giving interacts with someone who is capable of Creative Receiving, the possibility of a productive encounter is high.

How can this be helpful to you? My hope is that, by looking at this model and making a more conscious choice in your actions and reactions, you will be able to give and receive in a more open and creative way.  I also hope that you will understand that giving and receiving are a dynamic that can go beyond being just transactional to be transformative. This means that if someone is approaching you in a Self-Interested way, by adopting a more generous approach, for instance in a Welcoming way, you will be modeling a more open-hearted approach that may be helpful to that person.

As I said in an earlier posting, the Generosity Spiral was created with individuals in mind. However, I believe it can also help charitable organizations to think about their own approaches. If you work for a nonprofit, church, or foundation, your orientation as a recipient (of charitable gifts and volunteer contributions) will affect how open and creative your contributors can be. Just as how you are as a giver (providing services in accordance with your mission) will affect how empowered your beneficiaries can be.

By linking receiving to giving on this spiral, I also hope that the illustrations of these dynamics will show that givers are recipients and recipients are givers within the same interaction. Organizations who understand this have more ability to engage at deeper levels and grow those relationships.

Please see the earlier postings (below) for the thinkers and sources I gratefully drew upon to create this Generosity Spiral model.

Take-Aways:

• When giving something, the way you give it will affect the richness of that interaction.
• When receiving something, you can deny or deepen the joy and satisfaction of the giver by how you receive it.
• As a giver, you are also receiving, so how you give can affect your own satisfaction in the encounter.
• As a receiver, you are also a giver, so you can affect the givers satisfaction in the encounter.
• As a charitable organization, how we receive contributions (of all kinds) can affect the size and nature of future gifts.
• As a charitable organization, how we provide support to our beneficiaries can determine their ability to be self-supporting and to act as contributors.

It’s not that you’ve got to be generous, but you get to be.
It’s not haranguing or threatening; IT’S LIBERATION.
- Dr. Martin E. Marty

How do people become more conscious and intentional about their generosity? I wondered what might assist them on their path. That got me to thinking – what is the generosity path? Are there sign posts that might be useful to folks to establish where they are or find their way from where they are to where they may want to go? Growing out of these questions, I created a 2-part Generosity Spiral: a receiving spiral and a giving spiral that go together. I will post them one at a time and then together: the Receiving Spiral is pictured first, in this post, because we start life as recipients before we can consciously give anything intentionally. Some notes about it:

• It is a spiral shape to give both a sense of moving inward and outward from the self and also to imply a returning, which often happens as people deepen their understanding and practice in a certain area.
• The model was intended for self-examination with the idea that the consideration itself is more valuable than whatever the model conveys.
• The labels refer to zones of generosity and not absolute points. In addition one does not necessarily start in one zone and move towards an adjacent zone, nor is it directional; no one zone on the spiral is suitable or even desirable for everyone.
• It is likely that you are in one generosity zone in one part of your life (at work for instance) and in another zone in another part of your life (your family life for instance). There are any number of zones you could inhabit at any given moment, however you may have patterns and preferences for certain “comfort” zones.

The Generosity Spiral: Receiving

Click on the chart to have it expand for better viewing.

Each zone could use some explanation:

• Needy taking (manipulation): Using some kind of force (psychological, emotional, intellectual, physical) which results in a gift that was not freely given.
• Non-acceptance (giving deflected or negated): A reaction that nullifies or does not acknowledge the gift.
• Accepting with status (making better or not as good as the giver): In the interaction, the giver is either made to feel inferior or superior to the recipient – not a peer.
• Formal accepting (in accordance with manners): Follows the manners required of the situation but does not go beyond that.
• Accepting within reciprocity (limited by ability to give back): Elicits an immediate attempt to “give back” in equal measure without regard to the particulars of the gifting situation. This also may allow the recipient to receive as only much as they might be able to give back.
• Flexible receiving (according to people and circumstances): Can vary in response to specific people and circumstance. Not a set response to all gifts.
• Creative receiving (builds engagement): Builds true engagement with the giver. It requires an ability to use the gift giving event as an opportunity to build a new level of relationship with that person.
• Welcoming (receiving and giving belonging): Being truly present for someone (“receiving” them) and/or accepting the gift as an expression of their true self. This level of reception can make the person feel a sense of belonging with you or in the community you both inhabit.
• Receiving with love (unconditional attention): Carries with it affection that is palpable to the recipient. It gives focus to the recipient in a way that can make her/ him feel loved.
• Receiving across time (honors past and future generations): Not bounded by time so that generations who have died or are yet to be born are honored for what they have given, or will give to us.
• Selfless receiving (of both destructive and beneficial gifts): Sometimes what is given is uncomfortable of even harmful to the recipient, yet it is accepted with love.
• Spiritual receiving (of gifts from unknowable origin – in the scientific sense): This is a response to the gifts we receive that no other human (living, dead, or not yet living) has given us, yet we benefit from them. They might be gifts as fleeting as a glimpse of a rainbow or as profound as much needed rain to save our subsistence crop. They are given to us by whatever source you believe in: Mother Nature, the energy of the universe, God (with whatever names), the spirit within us, etc. If there is recognition of these gifts and gratitude for them, they can potentially create the groundwork for spiritual belief.

I have examples of receiving within each zone, and will post those later if needed, based on the feedback that I get.

In creating this, I gratefully referred to the work of Eric Erickson, Abraham Maslow, and the Spiral Dynamics model developed by Clare W. Graves, Ph.D. This spiral model was spread by Don Beck and Chris Cowan in their business management book Spiral Dynamics, and further popularized by writer Ken Wilbur. You will notice that Graves’ spiral is larger at the top, like a tornado. I chose to make the Generosity Spiral larger at the bottom to convey that the broader parts of the spiral also relate to a something deeper, more profound.

What do you think? Is this model useful to you? Make a comment and let me know how this relates to your experience of receiving.