Giving and Receiving

  It was recently brought to my attention that I was over doing ‘giving’ – that I was in super-mother mode around adults. It was an appropriate call, although in my defense I have had a very sick daughter so my Mothering antennae were a bit twitchy. Anyway it got me thinking about the whole giving and receiving conundrum. As I’m a visual learner I came up with the idea of the Giving-Receiving spectrum set out in the diagram below.  I have started to use it in my sessions and clients are finding it useful.

  In the green zone in the middle there is Authentic Giving and Authentic Receiving. Authentic Giving is done without agenda or need to get our strokes as a ‘good’ person or to gain approval or be needed; and also with an awareness of what it is the other person would like to receive (i.e. not what we decide they need). Receiving authentically means feeling only gratitude and requires acceptance that there is no power or dignity lost in asking for help. Both of these can be a challenge for many of us especially if self-esteem is low or self-reliance is high!

  On either side of these appropriate behaviours, however, the pendulum swings into the red zones of Over-giving and Taking. The over givers can be suffocating, dis-empowering, controlling, needy and ultimately tend to end up resentful while the takers usually demand a lot of attention, are draining, controlling, needy and ultimately lose respect for the ‘giver’. The interesting thing is that I notice how often the over-giver and the taker seek each other out and then spend a lot of time continuing to enable each other in their respective patterns.

  So I guess the challenge is to be conscious of where we sit on the spectrum (BTW it can be different places with different people). To hold boundaries around those who demand too much from us; to make sure we aren’t giving as a form of control or to ensure that we are indispensable; to be careful that we aren’t sitting expecting others to carry our load or rescue us; to be guilt-free about receiving; and finally gracious when help is offered so that when someone does step up and give to us we don’t complain that they didn’t do it ‘right’ or the classic "I could have done it better myself!"

  And if we can manage all that it might make the approaching season of giving and receiving and being around extended family a whole lot easier!

Diagram copyright Triskele Healing Therapy

Finding Wisdom

  I recently received the following beautiful piece of advice from the spirit guide of one of my clients. “Down here on earth you think that knowledge is what you gather and glean, however true wisdom comes from what you relinquish.”

  That means I suppose that as we work to raise our internal vibration we need to let go of our preconceived ideas and prejudices, our judgments and our old unhelpful patterns. We have to relinquish the need to be right all the time and/or our commitment to arguing a belief system. We can also let go of the search for answers or fulfillment in money, career, possessions, or addictions of all sorts.

  But then what a challenge is left! To let go of the non-stop activity of our lives and minds! To see beyond the accumulation of knowledge through work, study, books, the media or even spiritual courses. To step back from the programming we’ve run on since kindergarten, that to seek understanding we must look to the world outside and around us.

  “What could possibly be left?” we ask. Yet it is only in stillness and silence that we can access our own truth and inherent wisdom. It is only in the present and wholly conscious self that we can connect with our intuitive selves and the untold wisdom of our soul’s multifaceted story. When brave enough to let go of our busy egocentric mind chatter, we can get to commune with our spirit guides and teachers who want more than anything to provide us with the wisdom and perspective to get through the struggle that is the human condition. 

  Certainly for me it has been in connecting with my spirit teachers and guides that I have received the most important insights and revelations of my journey down here. And I believe that has often been the case for my clients too, just as in the gift of the wise words received in the session mentioned above. The answers are not in books or blogs or in gurus, though they can certainly point the way. The greatest wisdom lies in our own centre, where if we invite them in, angels come to sing.

Letting our Children Go

My youngest child has left home to attend university. Before she went I was going over questions in my head: “Have I taught her enough? Is she emotionally self-reliant? Will she be safe? Will she remember not to put her whites in with her colours etc etc. I got the message from spirit to let her go with love, trust and the knowledge that she will do the best she can, just as I did the best I could with the understanding, skills, fears and expectations I had at each stage in raising her. I thought then of one of the ‘verses’ in Taehotsa’s Songs for Women. Taehotsa was my Native American spirit teacher for many years and gifted me these very powerful words for each stage of a woman’s life. You can read the rest here but below is the one most appropriate for me now, as my daughter moves on to the next stage in her life and I move on to mine.

Song for the Grown Child

I stand aside and let my children pass.

Slowly I have parted the tent flap wider and wider so they may find their feet upon the grassy plain; grow used to the vastness of the sky; learn to talk alone to the stars; and read the clouds upon the wind.

I can recall each full moon rise since their coming.

For I have taught them according to each season, welcoming its arrival and honouring its passing.

And in the teaching have I been blessed to grow and better know myself.

And in the learning have I been honoured to watch their spirit find its form.

I see their strength, know their challenges, understand their souls.

But I am just a guide, revealing footprints in the soil.

Time taps me on the shoulder and whispers in my ear, “The path parts, this now is theirs to track.”

And so I step aside and let my children pass into the mountains, into the wood, across the desert, drawn onwards by a far-off star.

They smile at me as they go, they turn and wave at every crossing.

They are certain. I am certain.

That should they reach down to drink from still water

They will see me smiling back, forever by their side.

Our Healing Circle

  In a recent session I was given a lovely image which revealed a way we can look at the client/therapist relationship. I was with a client who, with several health issues sees a range of practitioners, both western and alternative. She had recently added someone new to that list and was worried about following all the instructions, especially as her intuition was that some were not quite right for her.

  During the session however we were reminded that it is not the practitioner who sits in the centre and allows clients access to their skills and knowledge – a very western medicine model. It is in fact the other way round. Each person seeking help invites the practitioner into their healing circle, when they reveal their physical and/or emotional pain. Each person sits in the centre and can invite as many therapists in as they wish but it is their own healing circle, they control the gateway and the energy within that circle.  This is a useful concept  because it underscores that each person is in control of their own healing journey. Practitioners of all ilks bring knowledge, insight, intuition and experience as gifts into the circle but it is the client who at all times holds the power.

  Importantly if the power rests with the client then so too does the responsibility. We practitioners must seek the client's trust in us and our methods but we cannot impose change or healing. We cannot force the taking of pills or supplements, the adoption of healthier diets nor the release of unhealthy patterns. We cannot insist on the choice to live consciously or demand that there be awareness of the hurt child in action. It remains the client’s right to integrate whatever they wish into their healing strategy or to reject. 

  The wonderful thing is, however, that if a person does accept the gift of the therapist’s knowledge, revelation and advice and chooses to take steps towards better health they are honouring and empowering only themselves.