How do we define gifts?

Title: Nurture (2004)
Media: Acrylic
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How do we define gifts - if we make good use of bad rubbish then isn’t that a gift in its own right?

This could be applied to just about anything but what I'm talking about more specifically today are the gifts that aren’t tangible. The things that we don't see as gifts because they might in fact seem like the worst things that could happen in our lives.

Through the various jobs I’ve had - I’ve met people from all walks of life and the one thing that I’ve realized is that there are no "normal" families that we see on TV or dream of. We have created this illusion ourselves - even the families that appear to be “normal” on the outside are often hiding all sorts of things underneath – we just don’t know what they are. In fact dysfunction is the norm. We all have feelings and memories that we need to work through - we may have been beaten, molested, over indulged, ignored etc.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is “what have those experiences taught us - how have they affected us - what lessons do we need to take from them and how can we integrate them into ourselves and move on” When we continually feel anger, hurt, blame and denial then we are the ones that suffer. It's completely up to us what we do with our lives.

I love how Anne Wilson Schaeff puts this -
If my life resembles a garbage dump, it is up to me to sort through, turn over the soil and plant the flowers to make use of all the natural fertilizer.