EPI 90 - The Law of Giving & Receiving: A New Way to Experience Generosity

Hi friend — welcome back to The Habit Within! I’m Camille Kinzler, and today we’re diving into something that’s been showing up everywhere in my life lately: giving — what it means, why it matters, and how to reconnect with the purest, most aligned version of it.

If you’ve ever wondered how to give from a truly open heart — without obligation, without expectation, and without that quiet hope for something in return — this episode will feel like a deep exhale.

Because giving is supposed to feel good.
 It’s supposed to feel aligned.
 It’s supposed to feel like overflow — not sacrifice.

So today we’re exploring the deeper spiritual laws that shape the way we give and receive, and how to reconnect with generosity as a natural, effortless flow of energy rather than a transaction.

In this episode, I share:

• Why pure giving is actually harder than we think — and why most of us were taught a tangled version of it
• The universal Law of Giving & Receiving and how energy circulates when we give without attachment
• Why withholding interrupts the very flow we want to experience
• What gift-giving taught me this holiday season and why it awakened something in me
• The difference between giving from alignment versus giving from expectation, guilt, or obligation
• How the Andean concept of AYNI (sacred reciprocity) beautifully captures the heart of generous, connected giving
• A personal story from my childhood and how early experiences around “expected thank-you notes” shaped my understanding of generosity
• Why receiving with an open heart is every bit as important as giving
• A simple invitation for you to try one act of pure giving this week — with no announcement, no validation-seeking, no attachment

This episode is an invitation to come back to the essence of generosity — the place where giving becomes joyful, expansive, and deeply human again.

Big Takeaways

• Pure giving activates a flow of energy that always returns to you — but not in transactional ways.
• AYNI teaches us that reciprocity is sacred, natural, and communal — not owed.
• True generosity never drains you; sacrifice and resentment do.
• Receiving openly is part of the energetic rhythm of abundance.
• One act of pure giving can recalibrate your heart in profound ways.

I’d love to hear from you

What’s one act of pure giving you’re inspired to try this week?

Message me on Instagram or share your reflection — I love hearing how these conversations land in your real, everyday life.

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Transcript

(0:00 - 0:34)
How do we give from a pure heart without expecting anything in return? So today, that is what we are diving into, something that I believe can be really powerful when we really place genuine intention. Welcome to The Habit Within. This podcast is for high-achieving women, 35 and older, who seem to have it all together, but feel like they're constantly running on fumes, struggling to balance it all, and losing sight of the woman they used to be.

(0:34 - 1:11)
I'm Camille Kinzler, a former physician assistant turned transformational coach, blending science, positive psychology, and a metaphysical approach to habits, health, and vitality. If you've ever asked yourself, why am I so exhausted even after a full night's sleep? Or, I feel like I'm juggling so much, but I'm just barely keeping my head above water, you are in the right place. Each week, we'll explore the real reasons behind feeling overwhelmed, trapped in the cycle of overworking, and constantly running low on energy, and how to break free from the patterns keeping you stuck in survival mode.

(1:11 - 1:18)
It's time to stop living on autopilot and to start feeling like yourself again. Let's dive in. Hey, hey, babies.

(1:18 - 1:42)
Welcome back to another episode of The Habit Within. This is your host, Camille Kinsler, and today we are diving into the art of pure giving. I don't know if this has been in your circles, but there has been a lot of giving happening, a lot of talking about giving and what that means to you, means to the community, means to the person that is receiving it.

(1:43 - 2:37)
And it just really got me thinking is how do we give from a pure heart without expecting anything in return? So today that is what we are diving into, something that I believe can be really powerful when we really place genuine intention into giving a gift or our services without wanting anything in return. And that's hard to do. If you really, really are honest with yourself, or when I'm honest with myself, it actually is something that there typically is some little tie to it, right? Maybe it is even just to feel good about giving, but let's just dive into this a little bit more because I know that many of us grew up in environments where giving was tangled with maybe a sense of obligation or guilt or expectation.

(2:38 - 2:59)
And then somewhere along the way, we lost this ability to really give simply because it just feels really good to just give because it feels really aligned and it feels like our heart really wants us to do it. I don't know about you, but have you ever found a gift and you're like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait to give this to this particular person. It doesn't happen to me very frequently.

(3:00 - 3:24)
There are friends of mine who are amazing gift givers. I do not think I'm an amazing gift giver, but there are those beautiful occasions where I find something and I just know it's for a particular person. I've had about two or three of those purchases this season, this holiday season, that I can't wait to give the person their gift.

(3:25 - 3:58)
And I don't, I guess I should say it this way too, is I'm not even sure, it's not something that they necessarily asked for, but I feel like it's something that they would be really excited to receive and dive into their books, by the way. But there is this universal principle woven in many spiritual traditions across the world, and it's this law of giving and receiving. And it just reminds us that pure giving isn't just this moral task that we do, it's actually this natural law of energy.

(3:58 - 4:38)
Thought it would actually be fun in the new year to go through some of these universal laws, but this is not one of the 12 where it says the law of giving and receiving. There are different translations and there are different combinations of these laws. What's really cool about the law of giving and receiving is that when we give from a pure heart, when we give freely, when we give without attachment or expectation, we activate this really amazing flow that moves through us in our giving, but then it comes back to us in ways that we can't ever predict.

(4:38 - 4:54)
So this doesn't mean that, yes, you're gonna give because you know that you'll receive something later on, but that is the law of giving and receiving. It will just naturally flow back to you. And you don't know when, where, what, why it's gonna happen, but it will happen.

(4:54 - 5:09)
And that's what's so beautiful about it. It then goes beyond this transaction and into this more of a cyclical giving and receiving rhythm of nature itself. So we'll go a little bit deeper into that with the law of giving and receiving.

(5:10 - 5:33)
And this idea, this law has shown up in many other ancient teachings from the Vedas in India to Buddhist philosophy to Christian text to Andean cosmology, which is one of my favorites. But basically at its core is life is a dynamic exchange. When you give, you open yourself up to receive.

(5:34 - 5:48)
And when you withhold, guess what? You interrupt that flow. In Ayurveda and yogic philosophy, giving is viewed as an act that keeps the prana, that life force moving. Stagnant energy leads to suffering.

(5:48 - 6:01)
Flowing energy leads to harmony. Deepak Chopra famously summarized, the universe operates through dynamic exchange. Giving and receiving are different aspects of the same flow of energy in the universe.

(6:01 - 6:17)
So in other words, y'all, you cannot receive if your fists are closed, right? You have to stretch out your hands to receive. And you cannot give when your heart is closed. What giving is not, in my opinion, is sacrifice.

(6:18 - 6:25)
It's not about draining yourself. It's not about draining your bank account. It's not about draining your services.

(6:25 - 7:11)
And really, if we feel that way, we need to step aside and say, really, what is my heart in this for the right thing? And being in a place of, in a time, in a season of life where serving has been a really big output in my life, and it's getting to the point where I'm feeling drained, it's like a good opportunity for me to really step aside and say, where am I serving from? Because if it feels like I'm sacrificing something when I'm in service, then something's not right. Because it should be the circulation of this resource, of this time, of presence, of gifts, of love, of life. And that's what it should feel like instead of it feeling draining.

(7:11 - 7:30)
So let's add a little bit more depth to this and speak about one of my favorites, which is this Andean law of sacred reciprocity. And it's called AYNI, A-Y-N-I. And it's especially common within the Cuenca communities in Peru.

(7:30 - 7:47)
And it's the spiritual principle that is, I think, of the purest expression of what giving really means to me. And AYNI means this sacred reciprocity. And not in like this Western sense of like, you owe me.

(7:47 - 8:03)
You know, you're gonna owe me something when I give this to you. AYNI is more about maintaining harmony between people, between humans, between nature, between the physical and spiritual worlds, and giving is an offering to balance life out. It's not for an individual.

(8:04 - 8:43)
It's to balance life out in all, in the connection of us all. And historically, communities practice AYNI by showing up for one another in harvest and in celebration and in needs. And again, this brings me back to this beautiful winter fair that the community had at my kid's school, and it really is this presence and this practice of AYNI, of showing up for one another in celebration, not because there's every turn that's expected, but because the act itself of giving keeps the community and keeps the world alive and in equilibrium.

(8:43 - 9:09)
And one day when somebody else needs it, when another community member needs it, the community is there and will naturally show up for them, not because it's some sort of repayment, but that's just the continuation of the flow. AYNI says that today for you, tomorrow for me, not as debt, but as devotion to balance. When we give with expectation, there's tension that is created.

(9:09 - 9:22)
When we give with resentment, we fracture the connection. But when we give in the spirit of AYNI, we practice and participate in something larger than a single moment. Larger than the individual exchange.

(9:23 - 9:54)
We nourish the web of life that will at some point nourish us back. This is a deeper spiritual reciprocity that I really want to bring to today's conversation that is so important. It's not the I scratch your bag, you scratch mine mentality, but this cosmic remembering that everything circulates when we stay open and openhearted and present within this connection and the community that we've created within just being human.

(9:54 - 10:19)
So I want to share like a personal story from my childhood that really shaped my understanding of this at a really young age. When I was growing up, I don't know if this is like a Southern thing or what, but writing thank you letters was extremely important to the adults in my life. And there were a couple adults that would give my mom a hard time if we never wrote them a thank you note.

(10:20 - 10:33)
Even if we gave them a verbal thank you, that just wasn't enough. And a couple of people, I think still harbor the reason it meant that my mother's children didn't write thank you notes. I mean, we did and then we didn't.

(10:33 - 10:42)
And especially when we were expected to, I really dug in my heels. And it really got to this point where I was like, you know what? I don't even want a gift. Like, this just feels too strange.

(10:42 - 11:10)
I don't know what she wants back in return. So just, it's better off if I don't receive one at all. And that's really sad when a child has that remembering that it's like, oh Lord, she wants to give me something because she really wants a handwritten thank you note, which maybe says something about me and maybe some law that's there about why I wouldn't wanna or why I should have written her a thank you note because that's what she wanted.

(11:10 - 11:25)
But anyway, it's this, you know, it just goes back to really feeling like there wasn't that pure giving that was there. There was expectation. And that actually shaped that experience really negatively for me.

(11:25 - 11:41)
And I'm so curious if you guys have had that experience as well. So today as we wrap this up, this short and sweet episode, I really want you to imagine what our world could really feel like if we practiced more Annie. If we trusted more in this law of giving and receiving.

(11:41 - 12:09)
This is for the receiving piece of it too. Please recognize that receiving something, receiving a gift with an open heart without feeling like you have to return it to that person, it's more of the pass it on mentality, right? Passing what you received onto somebody else with a pure heart. Just imagine if that is a place that we lived in and we gave from that place of overflow, alignment and really genuine generosity.

(12:09 - 12:48)
It wouldn't feel like it had to be something like dramatic or, you know, like how the holiday season typically is where we're gift giving and it feels really big and expensive and it's really public display of wrapping gifts and, you know, and all of that. But really looking at it more of this really beautiful, pure exchange into being in more awe and wonder of the experience. So this week, I really invite you to choose just one act of pure giving and do it without telling somebody else, without reaching for the reaction or without scanning for validation.

(12:48 - 13:11)
Just give it right there, right then and there. Trust that your offering becomes part of this much bigger cycle of harmony and abundance that will inevitably flow back to you when the timing is right. And with saying that, I hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed making it for you.

(13:11 - 13:37)
I am so grateful for you, so grateful for this space. And I will see you on the next time of The Habit Within. And the next time I received some, from last week's episode, I asked people to send five things that they were gonna do before the new year that seemed very simple, but aligning and refreshing in their lives that can make them feel present and revitalized.

(13:37 - 13:49)
And I'll share what I received with you next week. Okay, talk to you soon. The world needs the vibrance and wisdom of a woman's intuition to help heal the world.

(13:49 - 13:59)
When we learn to trust ourselves through leaning into and through discomfort, we learn to trust ourselves and in that space is our power and clarity.