Khush Raho with Sangeeta The Price of the Gift

I was offered a gift recently. A large box with a very pretty floral and gilded design. I have seen many beautiful and differently designed gift boxes, in paper, cardboard, wood, with clasps and buttons and golden bows and straps stuck on top, but this was a new design with a pull-out drawer. When I pulled it out, I saw nut bowls inside. I am sure you have experienced the small ‘oh’ I did.

It reminded me of what used to be my upcycling practice, trying to transform packaging materials such as shoe boxes or mailing cartons into something usable instead of throwing them away. Having worked in the packaging design business many years ago, I developed a sensitivity to the big toll packaging takes on nature. Its carbon footprint is rather high. The chemicals used for printing, lamination, paper, and a layer of metallic foil under the print makes a box virtually impossible to recycle properly. It costs a great deal to separate that layer from the rest.

But the second issue, one I've been observing for quite a while, is that packaging itself has become the main focus of the massive gifting paradigm. This is a huge business in retail, weddings, and corporate gifting. I think it's an important indication of where our focus lies, and it points to a real imbalance between what is inside and the form, how something looks on the outside.

This isn't just about inanimate objects we are using. Let's think about the amount of time we spend, in urban and now increasingly rural areas too, given the spread of the image via phones, on how we look. We all like to look good and at other pretty things. What comes to my mind is the old adage of inner and outer beauty. Inner beauty comes from balance, from being physically strong, emotionally resilient, and mentally sharp. Across these three levels, are we expending the quantum of energy required to balance the inner and outer?

As a healer, I get a lot of queries about hair and skin. Young, and not so young people have listless dry hair, hair fall, dull skin, and they ask what products they can use. My answer is not always what they want to hear, which is that if your physical health gets the proper focus and maintenance, the hair and skin will improve. It's a simple fact. If we work on the invisible body and the physical body in balance, hair and skin will be healthy naturally.

As I mentioned in the last article, energy follows thought. If we expand thoughtful awareness on our physical body, through regular exercise, diet, meditation, and awareness practices, and process our daily stressful thoughts and emotions with proper emotional and mental hygiene, we move toward real balance. But if we keep getting distracted by social ephemera, spending almost half the gifting budget on packaging that will be discarded almost immediately, and spend less on the true gift, which lies within: the gift nature has given us, the ability to control, manage, and nourish our inner and physical self by non-chemical means, then health and beauty will not shine through, or last.

So, dear friends, here is what I did. I gently declined to accept the gift my friend wanted to give me. I thought of all the packaging I already have in storage, which I don't have the heart to throw away, because I know how many of mother earth's materials went into making it. I keep hoping that one day I will transform it into something usable, but at the moment my storage is full. I've become more selective with experience and age, about both the outer packaging and what lies within it. I explained this to her honestly, and I believe she understood.

Small rituals. Profound healing.

Until next time — Khush Raho! Stay happy, stay healthy. 

(Sangeeta Bhalla

 is an Energy Healer, Instructor,

and Therapeutic Aromatherapist.

She can be reached at www.sangeetabhalla.net )