Thanks-GIVE-ing

Recently, I have had the good fortune of being able to buy several pairs of new shoes. Admittedly, I haven't always been able to do that. For five years my funds were nearly non-existent and the most I could muster up was $10 for two pairs of
second-hand shoes at a thrift shop. I wore them every day for years until they fell apart. That is when I decided to finally put them out to shoe pasture for good. 

This single act inspired me to consider what my feet had been wearing over my lifetime. Long before my period of financial chaos, I started buying my own shoes when I turned fourteen, and while they were always nice when they started out, I stuck with my routine of owning only one pair of dressy shoes and one pair of tennis shoes at a time and that was it. I managed to don beautiful clothes, but I am extremely hard on my shoes and they inevitably showed wear and tear within a short period of time. From my ankles up, I looked like a fashion plate, but my feet looked like they were homeless. What was that all about, I wondered? Being the avid fan of symbolism that I am, I decided to dig deeply within in order to learn what lesson this whole shoe thing was trying to teach me.  

It didn't take long to understand that the shoes I was wearing surrounded my feet and my feet represented whether or not I was grounded inside my body.  My exterior presentation was a metaphor for my internal reality. I wasn't grounded at all and my shoes amplified this truth for all the world to see. Well, that would not do. I needed to take action! Now, I am not saying you have to own copious amounts of shoes to be grounded.  I am simply trying explain the metaphor in my own personal situation. And that's when I decided it was high time to have my outer world reflect a different more peaceful inner world. Ergo, my quest for new shoes began—but, this was only the first part of what I had to learn.

I began my shopping journey online, scoping out a plethora of sites to find the perfect boots. I had measured my calf length and wanted a 17" high boot, but much to my chagrin, that length was not as easy to find as I would have liked. I did, however, discover a wide array of boots that I loved that were the perfect height, but alas they were anywhere from $1000-$1500 per pair. Needless to say, I was astonished. Even if I had this kind of money to spend, I would never be inclined to spend it on a single pair of boots that I would tire of in a couple of years. I would rather spend a couple of hundred dollars on the boots and give the remaining $800 to the homeless, so they could buy shoes for themselves. How many pairs of sneakers could that buy for how many people? A whole heck of a lot.

That's when the Universe stepped up to the plate. It always has a way of guiding us in the right direction at the right time and this time was no different. Within about an hour or so of my proclamation, someone on Facebook posted something about a kid who started a non-profit organization called Gotta Have Sole. And when I say kid, I really mean it. At the age of 11, Nicholas Lowinger had the idea to create an organization where people in need could have brand new shoes free of charge. He is now 16 and as of this writing, he has offered over 19,000 pairs shoes across 35 states to the homeless and 550 to veterans. 

After watching his promotional video, I began putting all the pieces together. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude because I had the ability to buy my own shoes, when I once was not so lucky. I wanted to share this new found gratitude with others. It was high time I gave back to the community. I decided that for every single pair of shoes or boots I purchased for myself, I would make a donation to Nick's group, so that someone else could have a pair of shoes too. For every $10 donated, the foundation can offer a brand new pair of shoes to someone in need. That's a mere ten bucks or less than the price of a three cappuccinos from Starbucks.

So, in this month of Thanksgiving, remember what you are thankful for and pay it forward in some way. Even if you don't have the means to donate money, there are many other offerings that can be made. For example, if you are grateful for having the legs that keep you walking and you see an elderly person struggling to walk across the street, help him out. We were never meant to be an island hoarding all of our abundance for ourselves. We are meant to be a community, helping each other out wherever we can. If we keep the cycle of giving and receiving in constant flow, not only will more abundance show up in our lives, but we will feel good about the process.

...and so it is!

Happy Thanks-GIVE-ing to us all!

To learn more about Nick and The Gotta Have Sole Foundation, please visit their website at www.GottaHaveSole.org or watch his promotional video below.

Thank you for reading and Namaste! (The Light in me recognizes the Light in you!)

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