We share best with others from our experiential abundance. Indeed, sharing from life’s overflow is impactful.
Experiencing or Learning?
Sharing with others implies that we have something of value to offer them. That is, we’ve gained some valuable insights from personal or professional experiences.
But, the fact is, we may have very little to offer if we’re not learning from our life experiences.
Worse yet, if we have a poor self-image, we may not share our insights because we don’t see the value in what we’ve learned.
Head or Heart?
Beyond no insights, or our reluctance to share, we have the problem of logic vs emotion.
It’s non-threatening to be factual and logical. That is, we share with others from our head. Why? Because that surface level of sharing is easy.
And, it’s safe. By sharing logic we take no personal risks. There’s no emotional investment. Instead, it’s clean, sterile. Unfortunately, sharing only from the head isn’t impactful since there’s nothing for the other person to relate to personally.
However, when we share our life experiences from the heart we have impact. We’re emotional. We share what the experience meant to us personally.
We share best out of the overflow of an abundant life because that place of experiential learning is where we have the most insights to draw from! proverbsforprofessionals.net
Sharing From Life’s Overflow
Heart-level sharing flows out of the experiential insights we’ve built over time. In so doing, we’re allowing others to benefit from the abundance we’ve experienced.
Granted, we must have a growth mindset to recognize opportunities in the face of life challenges. In parallel, we must have an abundance mindset to discern how we’ve been transformed for the better through those experiences.
Our self-awareness – knowing who we are, and our self-confidence – feeling good about sharing our learning with others, combine with our life learning to influence others. proverbsforprofessionals.net
An Overflowing Spring
In Proverbs 18.4 Solomon shares a word picture of what our life’s overflow looks like. He describes our wise words as a spring that continually flows into a brook.
Thus, what flows out of us, in the form of experiential wisdom, can be a source of refreshing for others.
Likewise, in Proverbs 16.22 he says our ability to grasp essential meaning is a spring that refreshes us. Thus, good for us and good for others.
Personally, I see this word picture daily. There are three springs that constantly feed the two streams on either side of our property. Those streams come from the mountain behind us. The streams combine with others, before flowing into a lake nearby.
Apply This Today!
What comes out of us naturally is the overflow from life experiences. The quality of that overflow is dependent on our willingness to learn and then to share.
Our experiential insights are not an end-all for those we share with. Instead, our insights combine with advice from others to assist that person as they grapple with a life issue.
Sharing from the heart is hard. It’s emotional. We’re letting people see inside of us – for better or worse. But, that sharing is also real, thus authentic.
A Question to Consider
How often do you consider the impact on others of what’s flowing out of your life?
I’m Dale Young. My posts share the balanced life to build wise character and guide wise behavior.
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