| No 62. How gracious are you? |
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In the last week I have been in receipt of more love and support than I can remember in my life. My husband has been seriously ill and an improvement in the last day or two has left me some space to reflect on this whole business of giving and receiving, and in particular receiving.
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When people come to see me with career problems, something I will often suggest is that the person seek help and advice from one quarter or another. That suggestion is often met with dubious looks and when I inquire into those dubious looks the person usually says something along the lines of 'well, these people are very busy, they won't want to talk to me.' At that point I will often ask how they would feel if someone asked them for help. Invariably they say that they'd feel rather flattered to be asked and very pleased to help.
We humans think we're very bright and sensible and logical and yet we are quite capable of holding two apparently incompatible thoughts: that people don't like being asked for help, and that people do like being asked for help. The only way that these two thoughts can be reconciled is if you believe that you are the only person in the world who likes being asked for help, and that everybody else is too busy.
These illogical beliefs are fed by another pair of incompatible thoughts, this time about giving. A particular example sticks in my mind. I had just arrived on the train at Charing Cross station, part of the melee of people rushing to work in the early morning. An elderly man was standing at the exit rattling a bucket with 'RNLI' written on the side. I searched in my pockets for some loose change, I have great admiration for the Lifeboats, but there was none. A decision point. I could walk on by, as I was tempted to do, or I could stop and get out my wallet and see if there was something suitable in there. Perhaps it was because I had recently read a book on abundance that I reached into my bag. I did find some change, but on the spur of the moment I took out the folding money and put a tenner into the bucket. The look on the face of the old man was of complete surprise and gratitude. That simple act filled me with pleasure for the whole day and I can even feel it now, years later.
So here are the second set of incompatible thoughts: that giving means having less yourself, and that giving means having more yourself.
Scientific research has shown that happy hormones like serotonin rise during the act of both giving and receiving, but more so in the person who is giving than in the person who is receiving. This fits entirely with other research showing that random acts of kindness reliably increase people's happiness. So it would appear that giving someone your last Rolo is really a gift to yourself...
Thinking this through logically, it seems we can't lose - either we're giving and therefore feeling good, or we're receiving ourselves and feeling good. So what goes wrong?
A man called Harville Hendrix and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, together started a form of relationship therapy called 'Imago'. Part of this therapy is getting couples to tell each other what they enjoy and appreciate, and to give each other those things on a regular basis. HH has written this all up in his book 'Getting the Love you Want' which is used by relationship therapists all over the world. A few years later, curiously, another book came out: 'Receiving Love'. In it he talks with great humility of the breakdown of his own marriage and the consequent discovery that giving simply doesn't work unless you are also both able to receive. And many of us find receiving very difficult.
Try this:
1. What are your experiences of giving? When and how do you give, and how does it make you feel? How does the reaction of those to whom you are giving affect your experience? What makes you want to give, and what stops you? Do you stop when you feel you are being taken for granted, or when you find you are always giving but never receiving? Do you stop when you feel that you will lose somehow, or that you don't have enough resources? Do you give when you can see someone needs you, or do you give because you feel you should? How does your reason for giving affect your experience?
2. What is your experience of receiving and how does it make you feel? Are you able to feel grateful, or does it make you feel uncomfortable in some way? Do you feel a sense of being loved and cared for, or do you feel disturbingly indebted and want to restore the balance as soon as possible? Are there some people you can receive from and not others? Are there some circumstances where you feel able to receive and others where you can't?
Enjoy giving and receiving this week.
And to all those who have given so generously to me and my family in these last difficult days, in small ways and large, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
with love
Anita
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Until next time
Anita
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