GIVERS OR GRABBERS

Our developmental journey includes the task of sharing. The purpose and direction of this lesson is the ability to functionally live in community with others - where giving and taking is a necessary social consideration.

Definitions:

Givers: those who realize that happiness comes through serving others; they do not only give money and gifts but time, energy and attention.

Grabbers: those whose life is dedicated to grasping. They search for something for nothing. They are self-absorbed and constantly talk of money, of themselves and are looking to gain advantage at every turn.

What makes one person a Taker while others give readily?

Psychologically it all boils down to how we interpret the ‘psychological strokes’ we receive for giving, are they positive or negative, conditional or unconditional ?

Definition of a Psychological Stroke: Strokes are the recognition, attention or responsiveness that one person gives another. Strokes can be positive (nicknamed "warm fuzzies") or negative ("cold pricklies").   www.crossroads.sandler.com

                                                               

There are also conditional and unconditional strokes:

A Conditional Stroke: is received for something you did. (Doing)

An Unconditional Stroke: is received for something you are. (Being)

As we know children model the adults around them; therefore giving and receiving becomes an important opportunity for teaching. If we have not been nurtured with unconditional positive regard, we may seek our ‘warm fuzzies’ more from what we do than who we are.  If we are lacking in positive unconditional strokes, our only access to positive regard will be positive conditional strokes.  We will ‘do’ rather than ‘be’. 

This gives rise to those who posture as Givers when in fact they are Grabbers.

When individuals posture as Givers, sometimes it takes a pretty good “detector” to tell the difference, but the telltale sign is always in the subtle emptiness of their relationship abilities. Grabbers give with wrong motive, the ultimate goal being for some kind of return. In giving, the reward may be to foster a certain image, or an overall feeling of indebtedness in you. This is a sad fact.
Mark Goulston: Psychology Today

Another sad psychological adage is that Grabbers often insist on seeing themselves as Givers and they will be the first to tell you so.  “In my thirty years of practice, I'd say this has been true about 80% of the time.”- Bill McDonald (McDonald & Kimball PLC)

Next we get the ‘Over-giver’; when the hunger for love has been betrayed, their Self is broken and poisoned and they give out of fear and anxiety in order to be found acceptable.

In recognising ourselves in any of these scenarios, we can turn the tables on this weakness:

A.   The Grabbers must stop and begin to realise their abuse of others. Only then can they begin the deeper work on self; growing toward becoming a ‘healthy Giver’.

B.   Over-givers must begin work deeply on self to become come healthy balanced Givers. 

How do we recognise a ‘true Giver’?   

Overwhelming willingness to give of their time, energy and attention.  

And while we are on the subject; be a Psychological Stroke Counter – make it a goal to increase the number of ‘warm fuzzies’ that you give to those around you.

DISAPPOINTMENT - UNMET EXPECTATIONS

 

“Ultimately the whole and the broken live side by side in us all.”

– E Frankel

Weiner et al (1979) found that disappointment is one of the most frequently experienced emotions.

Rabbi Harold Kushner asks, “How do people cope with the realisation that the important dimensions of their lives will not turn out as they hoped they would?” We all experience disappointment. 

Disappointment is defined as an experience of sadness involving unfulfilled hopes or expectations. Disappointment forces you to admit that you did not get what you hoped for and it is actually easier for you to protest with anger than it is to encounter your sadness around the course of events. Disappointment is the acceptance of reality.

There is foremost a disappointment in ourselves that drops our spirit into the lowest of lows, creating obstacles that we must overcome within ourselves as we are held back and kept from reaching our goals. Our bodies react with a chemical response that leads to melancholy, inertia and a feeling of hopelessness.

Every disappointment, every rejection, every dream that doesn’t come true leaves a wound on a person’s soul. - Kushner

What are some of the causes of our disappointment? 

·       Perfectionism: a perfectionist lives in a fantasy world; we have to be real regarding our expectations.

·       Overconfidence: people who embrace uncertainty are the ones who manage to face problems. Uncertainty is acceptable.

·       Setting unrealistic goals: be realistic, start with an accessible goal and build from there.

·       False ideas about rejection or failure: failure is only feedback telling you that you should change your way, be more flexible or try harder. Do not fear failure.

Disappointment is merely an unmet expectation, it’s only when you imbue it with negative meanings that it becomes painful - Goulston. 

It is how we respond to disappointment that is crucial. Do we respond with bitterness, envy and self-doubt or with wisdom and resilience? 

Overcoming Life’s disappointments:

1.    Revise expectations; “kyk weer” as we say in Afrikaans, take a second look at your expectations, were they unrealistic?

2.    Increase your resilience to disappointment; do not allow it to lead you to pessimistic thoughts. 

3.    Use humour to reframe the disappointment.  A new study finds that positive reframing i.e. looking at a circumstance in a different light and perhaps laughing about setbacks is an effective way to feel satisfied at the end of the day. Yet we acknowledge that not everything can be seen through a humorous lens.

 

“If we will be quiet and ready, we shall find compensation in every disappointment” – Henry David Thoreau.  

I believe there are always ‘treasures in the darkness’, we just have to search or look back in order to acknowledge lessons learnt. We also have to acknowledge that if life did not challenge us, we would not know how strong we are.

A most invaluable lesson we can all learn is that life is about facing our past with gratitude and our future with confidence. Even as we carry with us the memories of dreams that never came true; there are always more attainable dreams awaiting us.

“ The worth of a person’s soul is not measured by his/her bank account or the volume of the applause a person evokes but by one’s humanity, by one’s compassion, even by the courage to keep on dreaming amid the broken pieces of our earlier dreams.  True success consists not in becoming the person you dreamed of being when you were young, but in becoming the person you were meant to be, the person you are capable of being when you are at your best." - Kushner

Keep on dreaming.

 

 Resources

• The cognition–emotion process in achievement-related contexts. Weiner, Bernard; Russell, Dan; Lerman, David Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37(7), Jul 1979, 1211-1220. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.37.7.1211
• Dr. Mark Goulston, Psychology Today.
• Harold. S Kushner, Overcoming Life’s disappointments, 2007

DRAMATIC AND ERRATIC Part 1

- TOOLS OF THE TRADE

'Dramatic-Erratic' people live amongst us; we all know someone who fits the profile. What tools do they use? Let’s take a look so that we are equipped for our journey with them.

TOOL 1

Lack of Empathy

In 2008 Barack Obama received a letter from an 8 year old girl on the importance of recycling and banning wars; he thanked her and offered some advice of his own in reply: “If you don’t already know what it means, I want you to look up the word ‘empathy’ in the dictionary. I believe we don’t have enough empathy in our world today, and it is up to your generation to change that.” 

The word “empathy”—a rendering of the German Einfühlung, “feeling into”—is only a century old, but people have been interested for a long time in the moral implications of feeling our way into the lives of others. Albert Adler states that empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.

If we begin with the acknowledgement that a person reveals who they are through their personality; this is directly related to a person's perception of reality and how they fit into it. We can follow a person's basest insights acknowledging them to be their personal values, which are the foundation of their behaviour and thinking.

A person's core coping skills is related to how they cope with Honesty, Justice and Empathy.(Anthony)

The ‘dramatic-erratic’ among us lack empathy. They simply do not care about thoughts and feelings that conflict with their own. We, therefore, cannot expect them to listen, validate, understand, or support us. Their behaviour feels more like a game of tug of war.

TOOL 2

Lying

Pathological lying refers to the ‘dramatic-erratic’ who lie constantly to get their way and do so with little concern, regard or respect for the feelings and rights of others. Pathological liars are often goal-oriented as long as they get their own way. They present as manipulative, cunning and egotistical.

A pathological liar might exhibit the following behaviours:

• Lie to control and get their own way
• Change stories often
• Exaggerate, lying about almost everything, but tell the truth about major things
• Not value truth
• Live in their own reality most of the time
• Behave defensively when questioned or challenged
• Lie to gain sympathy
• Don’t admit they lie
• Contradict what they say because they don’t remember their lies

The ‘dramatic-erratic’ lie to manipulate and exploit, they lie to others and themselves because they do not understand the truth.

TOOL 3

Manipulation/Exploitation

Clay Watkins states that secrecy is what gives manipulators their power. When we recognize and label how someone is manipulating us, we empower ourselves. We strip the manipulator of his or her power over us. 

We can counter with our very own Power Tools:

1.    JADE - Don’t Justify, Argue, Defend & Explain. We must stop circular conversations (Arguments which go on almost endlessly, repeating the same patterns with no resolution).

2.    The 50% Rule - The 50% Rule says that we are responsible for 50% of the things that happen in any relationship. Be aware of your responses. Speak the truth in love.

3.    Rescuer Syndrome - Be aware of Rescuer Syndrome. Don’t assume that your strength, skill and knowledge are adequate to compensate for another’s poor or bad behaviour.

outofthefog.net/

 

 

May our relationships flourish as we continue to instil clear boundaries so that we can live life abundantly!

 

RANDOM OR PREDICTABLE?

In ancient history, the concepts of chance and randomness were intertwined with that of fate. Many ancient peoples threw dice to determine fate, and this later evolved into games of chance.

Most ancient cultures used various methods of divination to attempt to circumvent randomness and fate.

Randomness or predictability?

Martin Luther believed that absolute free will and unbounded randomness are extremely limited to the point that behaviours may even be ordered and not random. This is a point emphasized by the field of behavioural psychology. Give a behaviourist random subjects and they determine to condition them to behave in certain patterns.

 "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors."
--John Watson, 1930

 What about pre determination or free will?

C. S. Lewis, a 20th-century Christian philosopher, discussed free will at length. On the matter of human will, Lewis wrote: "God willed the free will of men (and angels) in spite of His knowledge that it could lead in some cases to sin and to suffering: i.e.He thought freedom worth creating even at that price."

Thoughts of randomness raise themselves in times of crisis, suddenly we are faced with the ‘Why’ question? There seems to be “No sense”.... we know that we believe in an orderliness to life; nature reflects it and scientists observe and count on it every day...yet loss makes the universe a cold unfriendly place. Thoughts run through our minds which in the end is often illogical and outside of our control – an “accident”. An act of free will. Randomness.

Jerry Sittzer author of “A grace disguised” talks of The Terror of Randomness: that shocking moment when life as we know it changes forever.

Affliction is anonymous; it deprives its victims of their personality and makes them into things. It is indifferent; and it is the coldness of this indifference – a metallic coldness – that freezes all those it touches right to the depths of their souls. They will never find warmth again.  They will never believe anymore that they are anyone (Simon Weil).  

For those who have experienced this; suffering may be at its fiercest when it seems random...Wrong place at the Wrong time.

Sittzer states that loss may appear to be random but that does not mean it is. It may fit into a scheme that moves beyond even what our imaginations dare not think.

I believe that the ‘road along a belief in randomness’ finally ends in bitterness. It is better to give up our pursuit for control and live in hope. We love again and live again; we hope again. Deep understanding of our own pain makes it possible for us to translate our weakness into strength and to offer our own experiences as a basis of healing to those who are now suffering.

This is a redemptive cycle we can all play a part in; when we have journeyed through struggles and thoughts of randomness to a place of acceptance, our experience is not for us alone but for those who follow after.

To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it – Mother Theresa.

You can also be that oil in another’s lamp!