The Helper's Conundrum
Posted on June 21, 2013 by Amy McGrath, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Why it can seem like you're putting way more into relationships than you're getting
Have you ever felt like you were putting way more into a relationship than you were receiving? It’s actually a pretty common experience among compassionate helpers and tenderhearted caregivers. Usually when you feel this way, it’s a sign that your mindset is a little bit off. It also means that you’re probably putting the needs of others before your own.
It seems harmless to put others people’s needs before your own. Actually, it seems downright divine. It makes you feel like a good person. You get the sense that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re being selfless and noble and an upstanding individual. You tell yourself that you’re being a servant leader.
Helping others in a selfless manner is a wonderful thing. It can be divine. Unfortunately, many people who are out there trying to help others are giving more than they think they have. They are helping from a place of less than instead of from a place of confident leadership. Secretly, they’re trying to prove they are a good person through the act of helping. Their service is backed by the need to receive acceptance from others. That’s the best way they know to feel better about themselves. That’s how they prove they are worthy – by doing good stuff.
If you are engaging in helping activities like listening to friends, taking over a program, or giving away your expertise, and you’ve arrived at the place where you feel that you’re giving more than you’re receiving, it’s time to examine your perspective on giving. Do you give out of abundance or lack? When you give out of abundance, you believe that there is more of whatever you’re giving. Since there’s enough for everyone, you can meet the needs of others and still have your own needs met. When you give from a place of lack, you’re giving to others because you don’t believe there’s enough for both of you. You can’t really sufficiently meet the needs of others because there is only so much for you to give away and you have to ration it.
Each of us desires intimate connections, understanding, support, and respect. Oftentimes, caregivers receive those things in exchange for giving away their service or helping others. You’ve been helping people for as long as you can remember. That means you have a well-developed point of view on the whole matter of giving and receiving. Throughout the years, you’ve figured out that when you help others, you’re going to feel good. You pretty much know what to expect. This is all fine and dandy – until you come across someone who doesn’t seem to give back. You listened to them, sacrificed your time, and gave your best effort and, for the first time, you didn’t feel good about it.
Helping others is supposed to give you that feel good boost. When it doesn’t, it’s easy to blame the other person in the relationship. Somehow it seems that you’ve come across one of the most selfish mooches in the world. It’s actually not about the other person. It’s that this person triggered an upset in your paradigm of how giving and receiving works.
The truth is that no one is obligated to give you anything in return. If you’re giving just to give out of your abundance and joy, then it doesn’t matter so much if you don’t receive anything back from that person. If you’re giving because you need the other person to give you back a sense of support, or importance, or value, or worth, then you’re actually the one who needs help. You’re in a place where you are dependent upon others to make you feel a certain way.
Your feelings don’t come from anyone or anything outside of you. They come from within, from your own thinking. When you’re not feeling very good in your relationships, it’s a sign that you’re giving from a place of lack. If you continue to give to others something you don’t believe you have, you will continue to feel that you’re giving more than you’re receiving. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Engage with me and I will give you the tools to cultivate the mindset of abundant helping – the kind of helping that leaves you feeling like the giving you’re doing is returned to you tenfold.
