What 'Presents' Are You Giving This Year?
The Perfect Gift!
This holiday season we are all so busy buying gifts for the ones we love and appreciate.
We spend weeks seeking out the best deal from Black Friday, Cyber Monday and all the Holiday sales in between. Checking Target ads for lowest prices and rechecking them on Amazon.
We have baked, crafted, infused, colored and decorated.
We have made our list and checked it twice! But what are you really giving this holiday season?
I am not talking about how much money you gave in donations this year or the family you sponsored. I am talking about what you give and add to those around you in your everyday life. How do you treat your family and friends? What do you do daily to show them support and give them what they need to succeed and have their best life?
In my line of work as a childbirth educator and doula I work with couples on achieving their best birth. No matter what birth that is; hospital medicated birth, natural birth center birth, or a homebirth. We discuss what it means to support a laboring woman in her time of most need and challenge. We talk about what it takes to be a coach and how best to support, guide and help someone in pain.
The ideas we work through:
How will your behavior affect your partner?
How will you talk to create a positive atmosphere?
How will you encourage your partner to achieve their goals?
What are you doing daily to support, guide and help them to be the best they can be?
All of these ideas go beyond birth.
Since I have traveled down this path as a supporter of ALL women and families in their birth experience, I have become hyper aware of how I affect others.
What do I bring to a room full of people, what do I bring to my two young children, and what do I bring to my loving husband?
Do I help situations with my “presents”? Do I make a situation better or worse? Do I encourage and support people to grow, change and see the other side of things? Or do I commiserate and create a pity party? Do you help or do you judge and criticize?
I want to help, I want to make people feel good/amazing/incredible. I want to encourage those around me and ensure that my “presents” in your day is one of the best parts.
It is a constant vigilance this path to self-awareness. I work on it daily and remind myself;
“people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
Your ‘presents’ is a HUGE gift, how do you give it?
