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!
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| Diagram copyright Triskele Healing Therapy |
