Or perhaps one for a hamster, a guinea pig, or a bunny.
This morning I was just ruminating over my Course In Miracles teaching for the day:
Giving and receiving are one in truth.
And this just hit me: I just want to be like the nice, normal, down-to-earth, caring friend who always seems to be there for you to give, to share, to listen, to help, and never seems to want or need anything in return.
Like not just for friends and family. But for anyone that might cross my path.
I want to make myself available to give all my love, all my attention, all my ideas or thoughts or wisdom or experience - all of my available resources - to whomever I am with, and to need, want, and expect nothing in return.
Because I just realized that as I am giving it, I am simultaneously receiving it.
I am receiving love, attention, ideas, thoughts, wisdom, and experience from... well... somewhere. Maybe it comes back to me directly from the person I am talking to, but it certainly doesn't have to. Maybe it comes from somewhere else entirely. Maybe I receive energy and insights on a subconscious level that I don't even realize I am receiving, but that I am benefiting from nevertheless.
In this clarity that giving and receiving are one, I neither need nor want nor expect anything from the person I am helping because I am clear that the entire Universe is already giving me everything I need in exact proportion to my giving.
Nothing new here. It's just the principle by which the Universe works.
What goes around comes around.
You get what you give.
Law of attraction.
Karma.
Call it whatever you want.
I realize that the Universe -- God, Yahweh, Shiva, The Mother, The Father, The Impersonal Principle of Existence, Quantum Physics... whatever -- is always giving me the maximal amount of love and support possible. Maximal. As much as possible. It's just my limiting beliefs that restrict the amount of that love and abundance that I can allow into my awareness, into my experience, into my life.
Those limiting beliefs that limit the love I receive also limit the love that I give. And as I release those beliefs, the more I can give, because the more I can receive, and visa versa.
Giving and receiving are one in truth.
I limit love and support.
(To me and through me.)
I limit my receiving.
I limit my abundance.
I do that.
Doh! My bad!
(Not the first time I've done something totally dumb for, like, uh... my entire life!)
I just realized this... the principle of giving and receiving is the principle of abundance.
So this is my new philosophy on abundance:
I give all to all and want, need, and expect nothing in return.
At the same time,
I absolutely love and cherish everything
that I receive in return,
from that person,
and from everywhere else
in the visible and invisible realities.
I gladly welcome with open arms all forms of abundance that I receive
that parallel all forms of abundance that I give.
I will not limit what comes to me because I know that it moves through me
to others.
And we all win in the process.
So in that open willingness, I gladly receive
all love,
all smiles,
all gratitude,
and also all leads, all jobs, all presents, all payments -
all forms of abundance
all everything!
From everywhere.
And everything.
And everyone.
I know it is coming to me by virtue of me giving it.
The more I get, the more I give, and visa-versa.
So what does this look like in day-to-day life?
In the world of tithing/volunteering/pro bono, I may freely give all sorts of stuff, as led by my spirit and intuition. I mean, my God, people freely give all sorts of things to me! Whenever I need help and reach out to strangers in the world or on the Internet, it seems they bend over backwards to help me while asking nothing in return.
And, my God, I use a ton - a TON - of free software that is absolutely amazing! And it's costing people a lot of time and money and effort to create and support that software, yet they are letting me use it for free.
Are you kidding me? When I was younger and had a "screw the system, corporations, and authority" complex, I put my computer skills towards getting cracked copies of professional software, and I felt so righteous about sticking it to the man.
But now I really honor companies and what they do. And now, paradoxically, in that honoring, these same companies are giving me - and us - their best stuff for free! Sometimes even for my own commercial use!
And in the world of charging for my services, I absolutely feel great about the value that I provide to companies and to individuals. I've honed certain skills and have decades of experience and that all is tremendously valuable. And so many situations just naturally lend themselves to charging, and sometimes charging a lot.
Often when I charge someone, the amount of money they save using the system I built for them far more than offsets how much I charged them. Sometimes exponentially. It's the biggest win/win for everyone.
It's like they give me $10, and as they do so, they "receive" $20 in savings. Put another way, as I give to them, I receive from them, and as they give to me, they receive even more in terms of what they are now saving, having given.
To give and receive are one in truth.
So as I go through life, I find that my intuition -- my gut, my Higher Self, The Holy Spirit, call it what you will -- guides me very naturally, and makes it very apparent when it is time to give freely and when it is time to charge.
And the more I give freely, the more I seem to come across these lucrative, high paying, high leverage jobs that totally take care of me and free up my time and resources so that I can freely tithe and volunteer my time and efforts to help others.
The more I give...
The more I receive
The more time and money and resources
I have to give
Which means the more I receive
Which means the more time and money and resources
I have to give
And so on, and so on
And it's a frickin' upward spiral of abundance!
As T. Harv Ecker would say... Good or good?!?!
It seems that the more Light-filled my consciousness is, the more I experience...
More abundance.
Less effort.
More peace.
Less stress.
More freedom.
Less manipulation.
More fulfillment.
Less striving.
More happiness.
Less fear.
Actions seem to have unusual power.
Buddhists might call it Right Action.
(I actually don't know, but maybe a Buddhist can clarify this for me.)
I call it living in resonant synchronistic flow.
I feel so blessed.
Which reminds me of another Course teaching:
To have all, give all to all.
What are you still doing here? It's over. Go home.
Oh, I get it... you just read all the way to the end of this, and I never explicitly connected this with a gerbil water dispenser. Good point.
Well, after the insight I wrote about above came pouring into my mind this morning, I was left with the image of a bunny rabbit drinking from a water dispenser.
Which reminded me of chickens drinking from a water dispenser.
Which reminded me of a DIY project I saw on YouTube where you connect a constant water supply - garden hose or something - to the chicken water dispenser, and that way whenever they drink from it and the reservoir goes down a little, the siphon at the top brings in more water from the hose. So you never have to refill the water bottle. It's always full. There's always an abundance of life-giving liquid.
And I realized that this abundance I am talking of follows the exact same principle.
There's a never-ending supply of love in all its forms (hugs, smiles, food, cash, whatever) that's always maximal and always topped off. And all I need to do is be willing to drink from it. Then, refreshed, I turn around and give, give, give. And as soon as I need to drink again, the source is always there, as full as it's ever been.
And, lastly, you might be wondering... So if this image you received was of a bunny rabbit, why does the title of this blog post refer to a gerbil?
Answer: I thought it was funnier. Maybe not. Small mammal humor has never been a strong suit of mine.
--
Addendum
I just have to add a ridiculous abundance metaphor that life blessed me with the other day!
We went into Trader Joe's to buy some things during the first frantic wave of everybody buying all the TP, all the water, and all the everything from everywhere. So in this Trader Joe's madhouse, we witnessed huge sections of the shelves entirely bare. Completely picked clean.
But one thing I really needed was their Black Bean Taquitos. I love those. I eat those for lunch every day. As I was rounding the aisle, I was sure I was going to see the freezer section seriously picked through, if not entirely bare.
Well, what I saw was...
Yep, I laughed in shock too.
Proof, and reassurance to me, that my abundance mindset makes all the difference in the world, even in the midst of scarcity, fear, and chaos.
Thank you Universe!