Ah balance - how often we need others to support us and how ready we are to support others.
This is something that we don't always think about although there are those who are not only thinking about it but teaching, complimenting and providing insight and wisdom to support balance.
In these days it is difficult isn't it, to know what is your balance and what is the balance for others. It is so very tempting isn't it - almost to the point of being seductive to read about what others have done to achieve their comfort zone and what you might do in order to achieve yours based upon what they did but in fact very often you need to discover certain things.
What are your natural talents and abilities as compared to what talents and abilities are natural for others, try to expand on what is naturally of ease to you and allow others to expand on what is of ease to them and don't try to do everything for yourself.
It's very important to allow others to help you just as it's important for you to help others. Balance, I believe, is a community experience and as a community experience it is one of sharing, one of being and one of yes - enjoying.
I believe we can do this benevolently and granted - while it may be a road it is a road worth traveling. So, good luck to you and enjoy your balance and allow others to help you - that's very important. Allow it and say thank you but don't overdo it - what do I mean by that.
It's very easy because of the conditioning and your life experience that you've had to believe that if somebody does something for you that you must do more for them in order to feel safe with having received something from them. Allow others to do things for you and learn how to say a gracious thank you and don't feel that you must go to the moon to pay them back for their kindness in kind.
Consider practicing this. Pick two friends or three if you like and promise that you will do something for them in any week you choose - you will do something for them that is more than you normally do and all you want from them - and they must promise - all you want from them is a sincere thank you. "Thank you very much" they might say - sincerely with a feeling you can feel and that's it.
If you like you can all do something for each other that is more than you might normally do - not a big thing - just something small and learn how to say, "Thank you very much" with the feeling of thank you and then let it go.
In other words we need to learn how to receive support in our own comfort zone to achieve our own balance without excluding that support by making it jump through hoops or without forcing that support to stay away because you are afraid there are strings attached.
Learn how to experience balance in a way that is complimentary. You know how you like to do things for others - let them do things for you too.
Alright - goodlife.
9 months ago
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10 comments:
You describe a code of behaviour that would solve soooo many interpersonal problems. Thanks for the 'forward-looking' feel you always bring. I find people are normally talking about these things due to the consequences of not practicing these healthy behaviors.
I alwyas enjoy the way you get out in front of these issues. It feels like a pulling guard in football making room for the running back!
I agree. What a beautiful and enormously helpful suggestion to practice on the trail. Receiving help, receiving gifts, receiving love (without the feeling of 'gotta pay back')... all things that I have had to work on over the years. Imagine that! I found that the more I have learned to receive (or un-learned the blocking of abundance in all forms), the more it ultimately leads us into the greatest and most balanced love affair of all - the one with the Greater Self. Thank you Robert, for your much appreciated 'bouquets of wisdom'.
Your post reminds me that my response to gifts from others is my return gift. Both the heart-felt thanks and the lesson of honest appreciation are priceless.
In our society, we have become conditioned to repay indebtedness to the point of one-up-manship. Then the pleasure of giving a gift, whether material or something of oneself, is muted.
I've noticed that many of us, myself included, have difficulty even accepting a compliment. I've worked on being able to receive and not try to match or bump it up a notch, but simply say thank you. Not always easy. I tend to be generous, but not because I want or expect in return, only because I care and want others to know I do, that they are special to me. But when the shoe is on the other foot . . .
It is simply a work in progress, isn't it?
I enjoyed your post and it made me think of many things inlcuding:
Maybe not being able to accept another's generosity is a way to say, "I'm not worthy."
I've also found in my own life that it's important for me to see why a person is being generous. Sometimes, an act of giving has more to do with wanting to control people rather than pure generosity.
A small, strange phenomenom I've noticed in recent years, hardly anyone says "you're welcome" anymore.
I agree about balance being a community issue. The act itself implies more than one thing or person.
Thank you for letting me share.
Seven, thank you for your comment and very interesting illustration.
Yes I do feel that it is important to look at how we can smooth the way not only for ourselves and loved ones and family but for those who will follow - if not in our footsteps which is not necessarily required but simply follow somewhere along on their own path and interact in their own ways with those around them. This I believe, is how you are referring in your illustration.
Thank you again for your comment. Goodlife.
Eileen, I do appreciate your observations, your teachings, your experience and your wisdom as well. The insights and the clarity that you provide are most helpful to all those of us who read your Feelings Aloud blog.
I know that what you are saying here in your comment is so very true because we have perhaps gone down similar pathways.
Goodlife.
Lynilu, I do so very much appreciate your comment. It does, as you intended, illustrate the point.
Sometimes, as you know, it feels safer to give because receiving provides reminders of innocence in receiving in the past and confusion about our proper response. Of course it also jars memories where manipulation and pain were also called into question about receiving.
Still, I can see clearly that your wisdom and life experience are presented here so clearly for others and I have complete faith in your ability to continue your work in progress to its most benevolent outcome.
Goodlife.
Tree, thank you for your comment. I believe it is possible - you know - to develop something other than, "You're welcome".
I have found that, "Goodlife" is a good thing to say. It is a blessing, it is a wish, it is a greeting - a salutation as well and I use it - as you can see - regularly.
As far as the unknown in accepting gifts - there is always that isn't there - and yet regardless of the intent of the giver it may really just be up to us how we choose to receive it and where we draw the line of our boundaries as well as perhaps to make those boundaries clear to others - yes.
Thank you for your comment. Goodlife.
Robert,
When I first read this post, I wasn't sure what to say, but I am always intrigued by your words, wisdom and ability to consistantly raise that interest in me. I am still not sure what to say, except thank you. I believe that at the heart of the matter, I am afraid to accept things from others, love included. That is why the internet is such an easy place for me to connect with others - here there is no question of where to look or how to position my body or how much of a smile I should make. The very fact I am concerned with that level of intimacy makes me shudder at my own fears and want for approval. In among the fears though, is an eagerness and a braveness. It is the part that wants to accept, to be a part of the flow of give and take, not just comfortable to give away everything to prove something to an imaginary God figure watching. So it is with the braveness within that I choose to seek to accept the gifts bestowed. Thanks again.
Ilias
Ilias, thank you for your courage to live. This is not a flip statement - it is something genuine.
Courage to live is more than breathing, waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the knowledge and awareness of all our challenges, all that we would like to change within ourselves and all that we would like to influence to change for the better in our world.
It takes courage to live through this - every day - step by step. I salute you for yours.
Goodlife.
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