9 Great Reasons To Garage Give

I'm going to make some really BOLD CLAIMS here, so get ready.

Doing a Garage Give is about MUCH MORE than just getting rid of stuff or helping others.  Although those are fine things to do, they are ancillary to the REAL reason why you should do a Garage Give.  And the real reason is...wait for it...

BECAUSE IT WILL HELP YOU TO CREATE MORE GRATITUDE, HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY IN YOUR LIFE IN A VERY PRACTICAL WAY.

Are you serious, just doing a Garage Give will do that?  YES I AM serious, and YES it will do that!  Doing a Garage Give is a very practical way to actually GROW YOURSELF.

Here's how.  We'll start with the easy surface level reasons and then we'll dig deeper. 

1-  You get rid of more stuff than you would doing a standard garage sale, freeing up more of your space both physically and mentally from the clutter we all accumulate over time.  

More free space just FEELS BETTER.  At the risk of sounding crass, it's sort of like how you feel after being constipated for a long time and then finally releasing it all and emptying your bowels of all that pressure.  That pressure and discomfort was caused by what?  By the leftovers of things you consumed in the past.  You've already gotten the necessary value out of them, and the rest is just waste material that is doing you harm at this point by holding on to it.  This is also true of most of the non-food things we buy and consume.  We usually buy things because we think they will make us happier or serve a need we think we have.  But once that need has passed, or we realize that thing didn't actually make us happier, it just becomes waste material, and pretty soon if we don't get rid of it, it starts to do us more harm than good and it starts to feel like pressure on the inside.  Living in a cluttered environment can wreak real havoc on our internal sense of peace and wellness and can literally squelch our inherent creativity. 

2-  You learn to become more detached from stuff and even from money.

The process of doing a Garage Give is an excellent hands on way to experience and realize the great lesson of detachment- one of the most important lessons we can learn in life.  Why?  Because releasing attachments to things and money can do wonders to your ability to experience true happiness in life and get you off the eternal treadmill of tirelessly pursuing pleasure and profit caused by the false belief that money and things can make you happy.  Now I'm not saying that money and stuff are somehow bad.  They aren't.  In fact money is a really good thing when used for good purposes.   What I am saying is that attachment to money and things as the source of your happiness is something that will not serve you well.  Money is not the root of all evil as is sometimes falsely taught by well meaning people- selfish attachment to money and belief that it is what will make you happy is much closer to the root of all evil if there is such a thing. 

Going through your stuff and deciding to get rid of things that may have meant something to you in the past but no longer serve a practical use in the present is a great exercise in detachment that will bless your life in countless ways.  It may be difficult at first because we often attach memories to things and then we hold on to things as a way of holding onto our past.  But if you'll just ask yourself this question as you go through your stuff, it will guide you in making the decision to keep something or let go of it.  "However important this thing was to me in the past, does it serve any meaningful purpose now?  If it were to be stolen or lost, would my life really be worse off?"  If the answer is NO, put it in your Garage Give pile and just have some faith that you'll be just fine without it. 

Once all the stuff you thought you needed at some point is now gone and you realize you're not just as good off, but actually better off for it being gone, some interesting things start to happen.  You start to ask yourself some really interesting questions like "What else am I attached to that I might be better off letting go?" Maybe there are old grudges you've held on to for years.  Maybe there are mistakes you've made in the past that you have carried around heavy feelings of guilt about for years.  Maybe there are apologies that you've been reluctant to give away.  What if the same thing is true for them as it was for your physical stuff- that you'd actually be better off getting rid of them then holding on to them?  Just see where this one takes you! 

3-  You learn to be less judgmental of others.

When you do a Garage Give, you don't have to haggle over prices and get put in uncomfortable situations where people are asking you to sell things for less than you wanted or less than you think it's worth.  Without consciously trying to, you end up casting judgments on them- by thinking of them as "cheapskates" which doesn't serve you or them.  Everything Free means no haggling and it also means no judging!  That right there is a big difference in what the experience does for YOU.  In a standard Garage Sale, you're likely to end up tired, stressed and annoyed, and you're only reward is a little bit of cash- maybe enough to pay a few bills and then its gone. 

4-  You get to experience more directly the immediate rewards of giving and helping others.

When you do a Garage Give, you get to see your stuff going to people that really appreciate it and are thrilled and excited to have it, and can put it to better use than you.  When you just drop stuff off at the local charity, you miss out on this really rewarding aspect.  Now I'm not saying to not give stuff to charity- there are plenty of good times to do that too.  I'm just recommending that maybe once a year you do a Garage Give and see the difference for yourself.  Why does it feel so good to give and serve others?  Because that is who we really are at our core- we are giving, generous, loving beings.  So when our thoughts and actions are aligned with that inner truth, we feel really great and when they are not aligned- we feel empty, frustrated, stressed, basically "bad."  The more we can align ourselves with the truth of who we are, the better we'll feel- and a Garage Give is a great way to do that. 

5  - You become less of an addict to acquiring stuff.

Another really interesting thing that happens as you do a Garage Give is that you observe people that are really pleased to find and take the stuff that once made you feel good, but now has lost it's meaning to you.  You can recall when you first acquired that particular thing how it gave you a little rush of feel good endorphins.  You were excited to bring it home, to wear it for the first time, to give it to a child as a gift, etc.  But it probably wasn't very long before it became just another thing taking up physical and mental space in your life.  So as you silently watch its new owner walk away feeling those endorphins, you can smile and know that it won't last, but it's good while it does.  Then when you feel tempted to buy that next thing that calls to your attention with promises of making you feel better- you can just smile and say "Sorry stuff- I've been there, done that. I don't need you to feel happy and I know that you'll let me down eventually anyway." And then walk away not just feeling, but actually being a little bit more free.

6- You teach your children really valuable life lessons that will serve them well their entire lives.

If you have kids at home, have them participate not just in the actual Garage Give day, but in the preparation for it by going through all their stuff and having them ask the same questions you ask yourself in deciding what should be kept and what should be given away.  "However important this thing was to me in the past, does it serve any meaningful purpose now?  If it were to be stolen or lost, would my life really be worse off?"  I was surprised when I first asked my kids to go through all their stuff in preparation for our first Garage Give how unattached to things they were!  My wife had to put some things back from their give piles because she thought they still needed them.  But this process of not being attached and not allowing clutter to accumulate can be a valuable life lesson that your children can learn first hand and not just by being told about it. 

Your children can also learn first hand what it feels like to be generous and help others without judgment and without expectation of direct return.  Generosity won't just be a concept to them anymore.  And those seeds of generosity and service will be planted in their hearts to bloom in ways that will bless and benefit them and others for the rest of their lives- and probably be passed on to their children in an endless virtuous cycle of generosity.  In fact all of the lessons that we can learn as adults by doing a Garage Give can also be leaned by our children if we take the time to teach them- most importantly by our own example.  And that is exactly what doing a Garage Give as a family is- a perfect chance to teach by example and through actual real life experience the concepts that you might otherwise preach to them, but they'll never really get until they see and feel it themselves.

7- You create a shift in your own mind from scarcity to prosperity.

Of all the reasons to do a Garage Give, this may be the most important to your financial life.  Most of us have grown up and taken on a mindset of scarcity.  It goes something like this:  "There is only a limited amount of money to go around and so I have to cling on to every bit I can because once it's gone it's gone and it's really hard work to replace it. "  This mindset creates an attraction of lack and neediness which according to the law of attraction (which is very real), will only bring us more circumstances of lack and neediness to prove to us that we were right.  The law of attraction will give us all the evidence we'll ever need to justify whatever it is we believe to be true.  And we love to feel "right"-- "See, I was right about that- money is scarce and seems to be getting scarcer.  The car broke down, I got a speeding ticket, I got in a fender bender, the dentist says I have cavities- that's going to take all the extra money we have."  It becomes a vicious cycle of self fulfilling prophecy that won't be broken until we decide to break it.  And doing a Garage Give is one of the best ways to break that vicious cycle.

When you do a Garage Give, you are by definition shifting your mind from "I need the money" which is a scarcity generating thought to "I don't need the money" which is a prosperity generating thought.  This mind shift is crucial because if you ever want to create prosperity in your outer circumstances, you have to first create and then nurture the feeling of prosperity in your inner world of mind and belief.  Now you may say, "Well I really do need the money, here's all the reasons why..." to which I would answer:  "You are confusing CAUSE AND EFFECT.  The reason your circumstances are what they are (whatever they are) is because they are the EFFECT of all your previous thoughts about scarcity.  If you ever want to stop the viscous cycle- you have to literally turn a blind eye to your current circumstances and all the "irrefutable evidence" you have amassed as to why you're "right" about scarcity and you have to instead give your attention to an opposite thought.  Ultimately that IS in your power- in fact that is ultimately what your true power as a human being really is- choosing which thoughts of all the thoughts available to you to give your attention to.  So amid all the evidence of scarcity in your life, give your attention instead to the opposite thought of prosperity.  Thoughts are real- they are like seeds, and your attention to them is like nurturing them into fruit bearing plants.  It is the combination of a thought and your attention to that thought that becomes CAUSAL- it is the cause that will in time attract to it the outward physical effect to match it. 

By doing a Garage Give, you will feel more prosperous- you will start to give more faith (accepting something as true before you have the evidence) to the thought of prosperity instead of scarcity.  If you are in a position to give all that stuff away for free (and you are if you want to be) then clearly you are in a more prosperous situation than many others right?  OK, that feels a little better doesn't it?- to be able to give all that stuff away and not need the money.  Yes that thought does feel better.  Now let's follow that thought with the question "In what other ways am I prosperous?"  If you're sincere about it- the answers will come, and as you give your attention to those answers, you'll start to feel even better.  For example, you may think "Well, if I really think about it, I'm better off than at least 95% of all people who have ever lived on this planet." (and that is true no matter who you are if you're living today). Then you might start to ask yourself things like "how else can I show my prosperity?  Who can I help?"  Before long you've changed your dominant thought about money from scarcity to gratitude, and prosperity- and unless you stop watering that growing plant and let it die of neglect of attention, it will bring you the prosperous circumstances to match it.  I defy you to read any good book on wealth creation that doesn't recognize and teach this principle.  Think And Grow Rich, The Richest Man In Babylon, The Greatest Salesman In The World, and many more- all teach this as one of the fundamental principles of creating wealth.      

8- You plant seeds of giving and generosity that MUST, by the law of the harvest, come back to you MULTIPLIED. 

However you want to think of it- as the "universe" or "God" or "karma", one of the spiritual or natural laws that has been realized and taught by all great spiritual leaders is the law of the harvest.  You reap what you sow- only multiplied many times over.  A single grain of wheat planted and sufficiently nurtured will in due time yield hundreds or thousands of new grains.  So it is with our "mind seeds".  If we sow seeds of generosity and prosperity, and then nurture these seeds through faith and belief, the law of the harvest will have to bring us back more of what we planted.

If you study the teachings of many of the world's most prosperous people, you'll begin to find some common seeds of causation for their prosperity.  One of the most important of them all is their realization of the law of the harvest and of the importance of being generous and creating a prosperity mindset.  Most people like to look at the rich and say "well of course, it's easy to be generous when you're rich."  But those who do this are reversing cause and effect.  The generosity and mindset of prosperity were always the CAUSE, and the money was the EFFECT.  This is especially true in the lives of those who have created rather than inherited wealth.  But even many (but certainly not all) of those who have inherited wealth, also were taught and have learned for themselves the law of the harvest and the proper order of cause and effect. 

When you sell your stuff in a garage sell- you already have your reward- in the form of the cash you received. But that's it- it stops there. You've traded your birthright for a mess of pottage. You've settled for a few dollars when you could have just cast the seeds of generosity into the field of life and let them grow where they will. The harvest will come- almost always from other sources other than where you gave your generosity. For example- don't expect the people that walk away with your stuff at your Garage Give to be the very people that will bring you back your multiplied harvest in time. It doesn't work that way. It's not tit-for-tat. It's a pay it forward system and your harvest will come in ways that you can't even imagine now. Just stay open grateful and receptive to what life brings you in terms of health, safety, opportunity and ideas. This is how your harvest comes back to you.

Of course this principle needs to be applied with wisdom. Obviously you need to charge customers for products and services in business or you need to collect a wage for your labor at your job. But even with jobs and business, the principle of generosity applies. By giving your customers more value than you charge them for, by giving your employer more value than they pay you for, and not having any expectation of getting your just rewards from the person you gave the service or value to, your multiplied harvest will come- and half the fun of it will be how it comes. Just stay grateful and receptive.

9. You start a ripple effect of generosity and good will that will continue on and on in ways you'll never know.

When people are the recipients of generosity, they in turn want to be more generous. They go away feeling happy, maybe even excited and even for a few hours, this is a positive thing. Maybe they are kinder to their spouse and children. Maybe they are nicer to a neighbor or to a stranger driving in traffic next to them or standing in line at the grocery store. Good cheer is contagious and it can go on and on in ways that you will never be able to know or measure.

Besides all the people that will benefit from your Garage Give, the most important person you will help is YOU. You will feel great and YOU will benefit in all of the other 8 ways outlined above and that will cause it's own powerful ripple effect in your life that will touch the lives of your family and friends and everyone you run into.