There are many gifts that one can give to another, for example:
- Presence, Trust, Insight, Experience, Wisdom, Guidance, Encouragement, Mentoring, Teaching, Time, Attention, Forgiveness, Friendship, Invitation, Commitment, Loyalty, Love, Money, Opportunity, Effort, Energy, Skill, Openness, Explanation, Compliment, Education, Knowledge, Recommendation, Advice, Partnership, Priority, Remembrance, Visit, Purchase, Second-Chance, Support, Brainpower, Analysis, Strategy, Initiative, Information, Membership, Shelter, Car, Items, Job, Service, Relationship, Marriage, Sharing, Fruits of effort, Interest, Availability, Patience, Worrying, etc.
It is a pleasure to give a gift if gratitude is returned for it. If gratitude is returned for the gift, both the giver and the receiver feel understood and calmed. The relationship where gifts are shared and paid for with gratitude is very pleasurable and gets ever more peaceful with time. The presence of a relationship becomes the ultimate gift in itself.
If gratitude is not returned for the gift, then the giver should immediately stop giving; otherwise, the giver will become worried, resentful, depressed, and exhausted, and the receiver of the gifts will feel exactly the same. The receiver will be trained to be ungrateful, and the giver will be trained to be over-giving, and such dynamics will become ever more escalating. A lose-lose situation for both the giver and the receiver.
If looked at deeper, a giver and a receiver are always in both roles at the same time.
Very often, though, people give to those who do not repay with gratitude or take gifts even if they do not want to take them. They do that because they feel an obligation to give or take. Such relations can be among relatives, parents, spouses, children, employers, employees, partners, nations, parties, friends, etc.
The obligation to give or take, to be given or taken from, is a delusion. The existence of a relationship creates no obligations to give or take, to be given to or taken from.
Relationships can exist but be of a pushy, manipulative, and exploitative nature, where both parties push, manipulate, and exploit the other by giving something that was not asked for or by demanding and taking gifts without being genuinely grateful for them. Such dissonant relations are always hellish, create a lot of suffering, and for the sake of the energetic health of all parties and the relationship itself, they should be corrected by stopping the giving-receiving as fast as possible and as often as needed.
If uncorrected timely, they will escalate ever more, and attempts to stop giving to the ungrateful receiver will evoke an ever more destructive reaction by the receiver. Exactly the same, attempts to stop taking unwanted gifts from the pushy giver will evoke an ever more destructive reaction by the giver. It is similar to the detoxication reactions of drug addicts. This destruction can cause huge damage not only to the relationship itself but also to many innocent ones just because they were too close.
A good example of such damage is when one parent alienates children from another, not because the alienated parent did something wrong or did not give-take what is due to be given-taken after separation or divorce, but because the alienated parent stopped giving-taking what he was giving-taking before. The alienating parent is in his detoxication state, in blaming stance, and he will do a lot of damage to children before he heals from that intoxication. Depending on the innumerable circumstances, especially on the alienating parent’s side, like peer pressure or finances, but also on the escalating or deescalating actions of the alienated parent, the detoxication period can take weeks, months, years, decades, or a lifetime. That is not to say that the pushy-giver or ungrateful receiver was to blame for what happened or that one or another was in one or another role. They are both equally responsible for the relationship dynamics created by unmindful giving-receiving; they both created suffering waves that torture them, spread to their children, and many others as well. The best thing they can do now is to poise themselves, withstand the waves of suffering created, and not escalate them more by delusionary blaming each other and acting on that attitude. The practice of stillness, silence, and mindfulness is the way to heal.
To not create such situations, do not give gifts if they are not paid for with genuine gratitude, and do not take gifts without repaying them with genuine gratitude. If you are given a gift that you do not need, say thank you and return it. If the giver persistently offers you the gift that you have already kindly refused, be truthful and set the boundary early. Do not take the gift out of pity or out of discomfort to refuse it, because you will make things much worse.