A Balanced Giver | LOH #206

When I saw this week's Ladies of Hive prompt, I knew I wanted to jump on it straight away. It took some self-pacing to steer away from my natural inclination toward the first one - "What travel destination has impacted you the most, and why?" - since I've written on that several times before. And when I managed to quiet the buzz, I actually got a chance to notice how inviting the third prompt was, also:

"How do you create balance between giving to others and prioritizing your own needs?"

Not well, if I'm being honest. I have a tendency to get swept up in other people's lives. I take on more than I can hold, then surprise myself at the lack of space (and strength) that follows me around.

Because of that, I have a hard time really listening to my friends' problems. Inevitably, I want to make them my own, both to absolve them, but also to prove in a way what a clever little fixer I am. It's always easier solving someone's problems when you're not standing smack-dab in the middle of them, isn't it?

I'm a giver by nature, but also by denomination - when you give, you make it harder for them to walk away. Or so we think. I played around a couple times with people who took my giving as a challenge - how much could they take before I ran myself empty? Quite some.

But I've learned a few things, both from my friends and the people who just wanted to sweep me up for the hell of it.

1. If you wanna play fair, you gotta give back.

Wait, what? I thought I was the one doing all the giving. It might seem like you are, listening to someone's problems, letting them off-load, offering advice. From there, you look like a great giver.

Except when you take someone's truths and stories and shame and secrets without putting some of yours on the table also, you're just hiding. As long as I keep you vulnerable, I don't gotta be. Except that sort of uneven relationship runs aground pretty damn quick.

Besides, allowing yourself to bare vulnerabilities is actually a pretty clever way of maintaining balance. When you define roles as simply the "giver" and the "taker", it invites a rift, and where there's a rift, pretty soon there's disconnection.

When I give you my ear, I feel like I'm giving you support. But when I accompany that with my own vulnerability, then you feel my support, also.

2. If I give you enough, maybe you'll decide to keep me.

I have for a long time oscillated between my hermit ways and my Little Girl Blue desire that someone will be sold on all I have to give and decide to commit themselves wholeheartedly to me. Not necessarily in romance, but in every relationship. There's this pervasive little idea that if we're all that, people won't be able to resist.

Precisely.

That should be a scary thought, not a tempting one. Because when people decide to keep you, there's always a risk of taking you away from your own roots, your own attempts at grounding.

So another thing I've learned through much trial-and-error has been that I need to keep a close eye on myself. To regularly ask, am I putting on a show so that you'll take me home or am I giving because I feel called to do so? It helps steer me back when I'm digging around for lungs and other spare parts to gift you.

3. A balancing act doesn't equate monk mode.

Monk mode means pretty much what you'd expect. I've noticed in our society a tendency to go full hermit for a day, a week, a month. People taking mental health days and breaks and cutting off social activity to recharge. And while that may be helpful in the short term, it doesn't seem like good balance to me.

Say I give myself to friends, work, lovers, family for five days, then cut myself off for two to "recharge". Well, it's the same as sleep, isn't it? We always say we'll "catch up on sleep" at the weekend, and while we do feel better, some trace of the imbalance lives on inside us. I don't think oscillating between two extremities is a healthy practice.

Rather, I'm learning to say 'no'. With kindness. Compassion. Patience. Whatever else. Sometimes I need to say no. Both to the world and myself. That's the trickier one of the two, to be honest, learning to give to myself when my injured, vulnerable self wants to give to someone else. So they'll like and include us. Nah-huh.

But maybe later.

Are these tips and tricks working? Sometimes. There are spells in my life when I give till I can't, when I get swept up by other people. Sometimes they put me back. Sometimes not. But I'm learning and I think I'm getting better at it.

What about you?