100 Days of Giving

100 Days of Giving

Simple Gifts

An Exercise in Hope

By Kathy Stutzman

Copyright 2013 Kathy Stutzman

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27

Day 28

Day 29

Day 30

Day 31

Day 32

Day 33

Day 34

Day 35

Day 36

Day 37

Day 38

Day 39

Day 40

Day 41

Day 42

Day 43

Day 44

Day 45

Day 46

Day 47

Day 48

Day 49

Day 50

Day 51

Day 52

Day 53

Day 54

Day 55

Day 56

Day 57

Day 58

Day 59

Day 60

Day 61

Day 62

Day 63

Day 64

Day 65

Day 66

Day 67

Day 68

Day 69

Day 70

Day 71

Day 72

Day 73

Day 74

Day 75

Day 76

Day 77

Day 78

Day 78

Day 79

Day 80

Day 81

Day 82

Day 83

Day 84

Day 85

Day 86

Day 87

Day 88

Day 89

Day 90

Day 91

Day 92

Day 93

Day 94

Day 95

Day 96

Day 97

Day 98

Day 99

Day 100

About the Author

About the Cover Design

Dedication

To all who have inspired, supported and accepted dreamers like me.

Prologue

Simple Gifts

When I started this exercise, the motives were somewhat selfish. I needed a focus, a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to look forward to each day. Waking up to giving seemed like a good idea. I had no idea how hard it was going to be, what challenges the exercise would offer, or what the rules would be. I just knew that if I set as a goal to give something each day I would have something else on which to spend my energy instead of ruminating about the scarcity in my life, or the fear of losing my job. I also had absolutely no idea of what I would get back in return, no expectations of how much would come into my life, all of the unintended consequences - both good and bad.

This is written as a personal journal, for a personal journey, although what I did, anyone can do and I believe that your rewards can be as great, if not greater. The things I chose to give are everyday common gifts and did not cost very much, if anything. The true value was in the timing, the method of giving, and the recipient. The unexpected value to me was that I got my life back from out of the darkness; your rewards may be very different. What I do know is that implementing an intentional act of giving into your daily life will inspire you, provide hope, and disburse caring into a world that so desperately needs love.

Introduction

I always believed that I would be the best person to win the lottery. Not just the ten million dollar lottery, the really big one, sixty million, one hundred million or so. And not for the obvious reasons…although paying off all of my bills would feel pretty good. No, I am the best person to win the lottery, the really big one, because I love to give. I was born to give. My fantasies about winning the lottery are the car payments I would make for my family, the food I would buy to fill the food shelf, the foundation I would create and lead to provide funding for micro lending and sustainable industry and agriculture projects, the schools I would build in Africa, the budding artists I would support through their starving days, the community theatre I would patronize... the list goes on and on.

Interspersed in those fantasies are the visions of helping my husband fulfill his dream of spending an entire winter on the ice fishing, my children becoming world humanitarians and every once in a while, the thought of me walking on the beach in Hawaii comes through just to ground me. I am ninety-five percent altruistic and the rest is selfish. I am accustomed to writing off the guilt about being selfish by reminding myself that I have to give to myself in order for me to have anything to give to others. And so I ended up here, in this new giving experience. And an exercise that was designed to help me get out of a dark slump has challenged me in ways I never thought possible and has given me more than I dreamed I would get from winning the lottery, the really big one.

I was born with the life mission To Serve, Create, and Bring Joy. Every time I take the opportunity to check in with what I am about, in answer to why I am here, this mission statement comes pouring out, To Serve, Create, and Bring Joy. It does not matter whether I do the visioning exercise in a facilitated group, individually while meditating, in a business meeting, or while showering (my best thinking time), it is always the same, To Serve, Create, and Bring Joy. I hear that mission in words, in song, in male and female voices, I see the words, and I taste the words and understand the words down to my core. When I choose not to pay attention to those words and stray from my mission with that deep understanding, my heart hurts.

When my heart hurts, it really hurts. Not in a way like I am having a heart attack, but with a heavy, pain soaked, hard to breath, unyielding, weighty, and formidable pressure that takes my breath away slowly. It is a distinctive pain that appears whenever my core purpose is challenged or ignored. When my heart begins to hurt, I can usually shake it off pretty quickly by adding movement to my life, breathing, running, writing, finishing a project that has been bugging me, by doing whatever it was that had me stuck and the pain passes, the pain simply sneaks away. But this time it was different. This time it just wouldn't go away. This time the heavy darkness that surrounds my heart when it hurts spilled out into my body and seeped into my very being. My pores, blood vessels, and brain were filled with this heavy darkness which obscured my every moment.

In part I owe this pain to Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil McGraw is a television psychologist who gets real with people. He lays it on out the line and asks questions like, How’s that working for ya? I am a big Dr. Phil fan. I often thought that I would make a terrible psychologist because I would be way too directive, laying my opinions on the table, instead of employing subtlety and metaphors into my craft. And so, I am not a psychologist, but I think if I had become one, I would be like Dr. Phil.

Several years ago Dr. Phil was waging a war on fat. I love his fat shows and last year taped his show every Monday so I could follow the thirteen fat people that he was helping with lifestyle changes. I loved the concepts of no fail environments and dealing with toxic relationships playing out right in front of me with real people that I could relate to. Although I have become rather complacent with my life since moving from Boulder to the Midwest and have gained a significant amount of weight, I was still not as fat at the people on the fat shows.

Our move from Boulder is one that my husband and I revisit many times in a year. We do not revisit it in regret but to remind ourselves about how we make decisions when we are following our mission, following our right livelihood. To remind ourselves that we have made decisions that on the outside seem daunting but within ourselves felt like the only sane, clear choice. When we talk about the decision to move we talk about that stream of energy that swept us up and everything in the universe streamed in the direction of the Midwest making it impossible not to get on that wave of movement and ride it home, ride it to our next adventure, follow it to our purpose. While this may sound rather metaphysical (and probably is), it is also very physical. Thinking back on it I visualize doors banging open to ensure that we were going in the right direction. Every time a barrier or challenge to the move came up, doors banged open from hallways previously unnoticed and we were swept though those doors into the light, toward our purpose, toward what we were supposed to do.

I mention this wave of purpose, or the energy that drives me when I am in line with my core mission because when I stray from my purpose for an extended period of time it feels like this wave of energy is pushing against me, fighting me, crushing me. I feel like my feet are stuck in the mud of a stream bed while the white water waves crash over me and squeezing the breath right out of my body. So how does Dr. Phil fit in this stream bed?

Well, in February, for some unknown reason both my husband and caught a small clip of the Dr. Phil fat show. I still cannot explain why we were both at home at that moment, because we would both normally be at work and I would be taping the show. But here we were watching it. During the show Dr. Phil introduced his Booty Camp for people who wanted to lose about twenty-five pounds and unveiled his new book that outlined how we could do just that. Stan and I jumped at the opportunity. I went right out and bought the book and on the following Sunday we began the Dr. Phil Plan. We loved it, we loved having a common family goal and we loved the results we got. The lifestyle changes we made were easy for us because they moved us more in line with the lifestyle we had led for a long time prior to moving here. Three months later we had both lost over twenty-five pounds each, were exercising regularly, doing yoga and had dropped eight sizes between both of us.

Although I was feeling physically better than I have in years, I was feeling a growing sense of unease. I felt raw and vulnerable. No longer protected by my fat, I was unable to use my weight or lack of physical wellbeing as an excuse for complacency. The darkness crept in. The suffocation of energy pressed against me and clogged my throat. And, the assault of the nonprofit industry by the political leaders of the state in which I live intensified.

Each morning I woke up in darkness, unable to breath, reluctant to face the day, unwilling to endure yet another assault to my psyche. When it got so bad, I just stayed in bed. After several days I realized that I needed to do something, I had to figure out a reason to get up and out of bed, I had to get back in touch with my core mission, To Serve, Create and Bring Joy. But how could I do this when I felt empty, dark and filled with scarcity?

I appealed to the universe to help me find an answer to my angst. Although I would like to say that the answer came to me like a lightning bolt, it more settled in like an awakening of what I needed to do. A light shined in the dark hallways of my mind and I knew what I needed to do. I needed to give, nothing more, nothing less. Simply give. I asked no questions, I had no rules, I just knew that every day I needed to wake up, get out of bed, and give.

That was the beginning of this incredible adventure which lasted three months. During this journey I have given and received more than I ever thought possible. I began journaling about my experiences and got as much from the writing process as the giving. Simple Gifts was birthed.

Each daily entry has a thought or a lesson learned attached, in some cases, the daily statement comes as a challenge. At the end of each day, you are encouraged to write about your own giving experience by responding to the questions. If the questions do not fit your situation, write about something else, they are merely there as an aide, an inspiration, not an obstacle. I do hope that you give yourself over to this experience and be open to receiving, and I would love to get your feedback. Thank you for joining me on this journey!

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Daily Giving Journal

Day 1 When I give, I feel light

The Gift: A ten pound bag of IAMS hairball formula cat food

I had known for a while that I wanted to give this bag of cat food away. I accidently bought it one day many months ago and after the first bowl realized that our two cats just didn’t care for it. Now I am a person who struggles to throw anything away, especially something I have just purchased so the bag of cat food has just been sitting around annoying me. I loaded it into my car and it sat there for weeks because I just didn’t ever get out to the shelter. I had lost touch with the times that our local shelter was open since it was run entirely by volunteers and there just never seemed like a convenient time to go. So on this, my first day of giving, I decided to just bite the bullet and drive the extra mile to go out to the shelter to see if it was open. As I approached the parking lot I noticed that my heart was beating loudly and I was a little nervous, questions were racing through my mind:

•What if there is no one there to accept my gift?

•What if this is not the type of cat food they feed their cats?

•What if this is not good enough?

•Will they tell me that my gift is no good, too old, not enough?

•What if they mock me and my gift?

While they may seem like pretty silly questions and concerns, they were all there and more. I realized why I had not yet dropped off the cat food and was wondering if fulfilling my daily gift exercise should have been something more meaningful (or easier). But