Profound Gratitude? What is Ayni? Enhance Your Family’s Alignment With These Two Intertwined Concepts.

Inside this post: What is the principle of Ayni? What is shamanic Ayni? What does Ayni or “right relationship” mean? What is profound gratitude? And how does gratitude relate to walking in Ayni? How do Ayni and energy exchange relate to each other? And since this blog focuses on spiritually aware parenting, families, children, and teens, how can we introduce Ayni–right relationships—to our children/teens and develop our family’s Ayni?

Ayni is a word or concept you frequently hear in shamanic circles. However, understanding Ayni does not happen in our mental perception but in our cells, as we start walking our life in greater and greater Ayni.

For a long time now, I have been feeling a call to share some thoughts about the essence of Ayni and relate it to parenting and spiritually aware children.

Yet, how do you share a concept that is still growing within you?

Some days, I feel like I am walking in Ayni. On other days, I feel I have taken a step back, and there are days when I have not retreated but have discovered that there are ways for me to grow further into the possible.

In this post, I hope to shed light on what this concept offers us, and then connect it to what we know about spiritually aware children and parenting. I hope we can bring it into our awareness in relation to how we walk life and set an example, and how we can bring it into our family life, the way we raise our children, and the tools we offer them.

What is Ayni?

Ayni is a word in Quechua. An Andean word expressing mutuality. A profound quality, guiding every aspect of Andean life.

In simple terms, Ayni refers to reciprocity. Today, I give you something, tomorrow you will give me something. The value of giving is not constantly calculated or compared. The giving and the receiving are based on what one can offer at each given point in time.

Understanding such a way of living and sharing is extremely difficult for the Western mind. If I am completely honest with myself, then, no, I don’t fully understand this concept I am trying to share with you here.

As I am working with it, I feel comfortable writing that I am doing my best to walk in Ayni, as I understand Ayni today. Giving, knowing, and experiencing how my giving is reciprocated in numerous unexpected ways.

Ayni takes place in all layers of our existence. It is not just in the exchange of goods or services. It is in every exchange we participate in:

The smile given to a stranger, a listening ear to a friend, an idea we throw out there, into the air, that others bring to fruition months later.

You, reading my article, pay it forward by sharing it with a friend, who then participates in the giving by talking about something they picked up from the article with another mom from their child’s school, which opens a new way for her to look at whatever she is struggling with.

In its highest form, or maybe deepest is a better word, Ayni envelopes our energetic exchange beyond time and space. More than once, I have met a new client from somewhere far across the globe, and we both know we have already met at some other time. We continue on this energetic exchange. Dancing from balance to one giving, the other giving, and balance again.

Ayni takes place in all layers of our existence. Ayni envelopes our energetic exchange beyond time and space.

Right Relationship

One of the characteristics often discussed in parallel with Ayni is right relationships: our words, our actions, our feelings, and more.

How do we walk in right relationships? What do right relationships look like? And with whom is the relationship we refer to?

To walk in Ayni, we strive to bring balance to all of our relationships: Family, both immediate and distant, both living and our ancestors who have continued their journey. Co-workers, colleagues, neighbors, and service people all around us. Our pets, our food, the plant people, and the stone people. Earth itself. Our source. And of course, ourselves. Human self, the various rules we play (mother, wife, sister, daughter, co-worker…), and the essence and truth of who we are. We wish to walk in right relationship with all of our layers and aspects.

In Buddhism, walking in right relationship consists of eight elements, together referred to as the eightfold path:

Right Understanding

Right Thought

Right Speech

Right Action

Right Livelihood

Right Effort

Right Mindfulness

Right Concentration.

Each offers practical ways of walking life, growing in the Ayni we bring to each thought, behavior, word, or action within our days.

Developing right relationships and growing in Ayni happens in steps and may look different for different people—balance expressing itself in alternative ways.

For example, my family and I are mostly vegetarian, almost vegan. I write mostly and almost, as it does happen that some of us eat meat or eggs, especially when traveling, sometimes not finding other options (as we also avoid gluten, dairy, and sugar). Recovering from my car crash, the doctors recommended that I eat lots of protein—meat. I tried but stopped soon after. After experiencing being ONE with all, it was just not possible.

I know others who feel eating a lot of meat-protein, is what makes them feel best physically. For them, walking in Ayni can come into play by purchasing their meat only from sources that respect the animals they raise or by blessing and expressing gratitude for their food. This is something I believe should also be done with vegetables.

Balance, as the basis of Ayni, grows and shifts as we listen to our inner truth, becoming aware of our need to find the Ayni or balance within our lives.

Ayni and Energy Exchange (+ the Great Giveaway).

Energetic exchange takes place in every moment of our day. It does not maintain an unbroken balanced score. There are moments when we give, and there are other moments when we receive. My experience is that over time, all the energy we give is balanced. Not in the same currency that we gave it and not immediately—possibly the balance comes beyond time, and lifetimes.

Energetic exchange takes place in every moment of our day.

When we bring resolution and heal past lives and wounds across our family lines, we offer ourselves and our families balance. Balance is often the goal when working with shamanic and soul techniques. In the here and now, we obtain our energy flow. Beyond time, we release and resolve, our balance beyond time and space is restored, and we can walk free of any energetic debt or imbalance we were unaware of (other than in the ripples it had in our here and now).

I deeply relate to the teaching of Ayni practiced by one of my teachers, Alberto Villoldo, referring to Ayni, as the great giveaway—each of us sharing our light, freely for everyone to enjoy. One may share spiritual teaching, another may provide energetic healing, physical healing, or may create a space for exercise. Others grow food, build houses, or create new technologies.

Each of us sharing our light freely creates a natural reciprocity. Everyone gives and everyone has what they need, and more.

“In its most profound sense, Ayni means sharing the generosity of the Primordial Light, which is boundless and expects nothing in return. And while folk wisdom establishes a practical mutualism between people, its higher sense is one of giving without expecting anything back.” Alberto Villoldo

Ayni and Gratitude

Gratitude, true and deep gratitude, is one of the tools that offers balance.

To understand Ayni, and the great giveaway, we need to internalize and celebrate gratitude.

Have you ever felt deep embodied gratitude?

It took me a long time to realize that I did not know what gratitude truly felt like. I was grateful. I expressed it, said thank you, and meant it, but it did not penetrate my cells.

Until I felt the quality of gratitude. So immense and surprising. I don’t even recall what it was for. I remember the feeling within my body. I was so grateful that I cried. I felt my energy flow. I was in awe, speechless, amazed by the sensations flowing within and around me, and by the realization that this was all gratitude.

It was a quality I had never felt before with such an intensity. It was so powerful and true that indeed, the same as with the idea of the great giveaway, there were no expectations accompanying it. It was profound and simple.

In the past, I’ve tried to work with gratitude journals. Working with gratitude journals never worked for me. But I have witnessed others who have made it a habit, and it entirely transformed their perspective. There are reasons why we have so many different tools and modalities. This way, we can each find the ones that work for us.

Making lists of what I am grateful for was a great reflection of all that I felt grateful for, and I brought it into focus and balanced any perspective that pulled me elsewhere. But it did not make me feel grateful. It helped me know and be aware I was grateful. Nothing more.

In retrospect, I can reflect and acknowledge that I was able to feel the quality of gratitude as a result of my healing journey, walking the medicine wheel, working with shamanic journeying, clearing energies that had stopped serving me and retrieving energies—my energy—that help me walk more and more whole.

Walking whole opened the door for me to connect to broader realities around us, and appreciate the beauty of people, Earth, and everything. For me, and it may be different for others, this is what opened the door to the quality of gratitude that now accompanies my days.

I learned to notice gratitude coming from within, as distinct from an awareness or intention to be in gratitude.

The first, gratitude coming from within, is a sensation. A feeling. Coming with warmth or an immense flow of energy within me, and around me. Sometimes, it comes with tears and, at other times, with a flood of joy.

The second, awareness and intention, are more at the level of my thoughts.

As I anchored this sense and learned to notice this feeling, the expansion that follows gratitude, I learned to identify it. It works both ways. I am grateful, and I expand. I expand energetically, for whatever other reason, and I am grateful.

Profound gratitude is never just for a brief moment, like gratitude coming from the mind. It stays for hours or days. I become more receptive, accepting, trusting, and creative. It affects everything around me.

When we walk in gratitude, we want to share that which we are grateful for.

Gratitude is the Key to Ayni

To walk life giving, with no expectation of anything in return, in a great giveaway, may seem challenging in our material world.

However, when we walk in gratitude, we only want to share it. When we are grateful for our abundance, which can be materialistic, or an abundance of ideas, friends, family, nature around us, or a spiritual understanding… we want to share it.

When we share, simply because we are grateful, we share with no expectations. We have already been given what we wanted or needed—that which we are grateful for.

When we share from gratitude, we enter a state of the great giveaway, and Ayni comes into play—reciprocity without any expectations.

In my humble walk, I’ve learned that anything I give, returns. I never know how or when. The universe nourishes me and my family, and reciprocity is at play.

Setting an Example

As with all of my thoughts on this little space, here on the web, sharing Ayni with our children starts with setting an example.

The more we walk in Ayni, giving, with love, knowing it all comes back, but not expecting anything in return, the more they will be able to choose whether this is their walk in life as well.

I don’t know anyone who is a saint in person. Giving of their light in full generosity, not needing anything in return. I do know many who grow in their giving throughout life. In the modern world, where currency matters, and we need the exchange for us to later be able to put food on our family’s table, giving is a matter of balance. Possibly, the example of giving and balance is what you may wish to offer your children.

In my journey of giving, I’ve learned that as soon as I start feeling the tingle of not being comfortable with my giving, that means I have stepped on my own toes, and I am not in Ayni. It’s never about the other one’s taking, as I can set my own boundaries.

As I have the ability to sense the balance beyond time, I sometimes find myself giving, not consumed by balance at all, and at other times, I can spot, from afar, the one who will come asking, and that it would be wrong of me to enter any type of exchange.

Think of the people in your life. Think of situations in your life and become aware of your point of balance.

I am a believer in giving. Yet, I do my best to ensure that my giving will not come at the expense of myself or my family. I am also very aware of nourishing myself continuously. This way, I give my daughters the example of giving with love, yet not reaching the point of regret.

Ayni and Money

I am often asked about giving and receiving money. Guiding our children on monetary issues and giving them the tools to be independent as they grow is essential in navigating how our world works.

The dance of giving, for the sake of giving and sharing our light, and receiving a monetary return on that giving is a dance on a very thin wire.

When we guide our children to work, and in what they love and enjoy (which comes to reflect their soul’s path), we kind of push them into a spider web.

This is why the example we set and the open conversations we may have around it are critical. Both working to earn our living and giving in various ways coexist. Each family’s specific way is hers. So is the balance and the example set.

It is an issue to be aware of, as it sadly guides most of the giving these days.

Ayni and Spiritually Aware Children

Spiritually aware children and teens know the principle of Ayni and are givers. Many, as I started describing in the sequence of posts about who they are, work with energy in parallel to their literal walk.

This means that while most of the reciprocity we have with others is seen (food, salary, help in organizing an event, sharing words or actions, etc.), spiritually aware children and teens are also significant players in the exchange of energies.

The energetic exchanges can mean that spiritually aware children and teens collect energies that are not theirs from the environment, helping clear it for others. Some serve as portals to bring nourishing energy to Earth. There are many types of such energetic exchange.

They may be aware of these exchanges, or they may not. The exchange can empower them, or it can weaken them. This depends on what’s going on, how they utilize their energy, and their boundaries.

Many spiritually aware children benefit from becoming aware of their energetic exchange with others. As it can be of giving and receiving from a place of Ayni, and reciprocity, but it can also take them out of balance.

Any empath or sensitive person knows that these gifts also need to be balanced, cared for, with awareness of where we go, and who we interact with. Many tools help; some you can find in the Nurturing Your Child’s Energy Fields – six-week email course (FREE), and hopefully, I will soon finish an article focused on empathic and sensitive, spiritually aware children.

Walking our Family into Greater Ayni

We all start with awareness. I hope the simplified description above will help you set on this journey. Become aware of your literal and energetic exchanges and of your relationships with Nature, Gratitude, and everything and everyone around you. As we become aware, shifts start taking place.

I am a strong believer in conversations.

I share my thoughts with my daughters. They know when I give and expand, I share with them my many inspired moments when I receive something that I never expected. They also know when I have stepped on my toes and feel I should have given a little less or feel I should have received a different compensation. And as they grow, experiencing these issues themselves, we talk, and learn together—each of us becoming more aware of her boundaries and point of balance.

As I grow in Ayni, I am mostly expanded and grateful for the abundance the universe offers me, feeling that I receive so much more than I manage to give.

Ayni is a quality we grow in, and the way to evolve in our Ayni starts with true gratitude.

Ayni and Right Relationships

As Ayni is built on gratitude and right relationships, talking about and reflecting on the various aspects of right relationships is important on its own. Our words have power. Our thoughts have power. Our actions have power. All are modes of giving, which can be positive or negative, and influence our lives accordingly. Children learn from our example.

Spiritually aware children are powerful, and they know that they are. The Example we set, guidance and awareness are critically important for them to have positive experiences with their gifts. Ayni is key to bringing such balance.

Puberty is a critical threshold. A point in their growth when many of them need the tools to be responsible for who they are, and how they walk life. Many spiritually aware children remain children longer than their peers. It is important to have awareness and aware conversations, and having them aware, so that they will possess the needed wisdom at testing moments.

Ayni Grows

We think we have reached Ayni, and then, we find we are out of balance. Not every lack of balance means we have taken a step back. Often, it means we are ready for the next step.

Ayni is a quality we grow in, and the way to evolve in our Ayni starts with true gratitude.

Learn about my journey (also to gratitude & Ayni) and the insights it offers to parents in The Promise We Made: Three Universal Soul Promises We Made to Our Children 🙂