WHY buy the cow, when ya can get the milk for free?!
When a gift is expected, the giver is robbed of the joy of GIVING.
Giving to others from our bounty, just feels good~ but ‘super-givers’ never seem to recognize how they deprive friends, lovers and romantic partners from enjoying this same pleasure, by being unwilling to receive! (The Narcissist relishes being needed as it’s his deep-seated control mechanism~ but he cannot emotionally allow himself to need anyone, without substantial abandonment anxiety rearing its ugly head).
For many years, I’ve used a specific analogy with my pathologically Codependent clients (of which there’ve been too many to count): When the tide of the ocean goes out to sea, it must come back to shore carrying and depositing sand and shells with it, or we’d have no beaches anywhere in the world! Alas, it’s as important and vital to be able to receive, as it is to give. We must endeavor to get equally as comfortable, with both.
Soon after I retired from full-time practice years back, I was faced with a serious conundrum. For many years prior, friends urged me to monetize my website~ that is, sell stuff online. For decades, I could not even begin to fathom doing this. The mere thought of it was repellent, as it ran contrary to my mission and basic nature.
I am at heart an educator, and as long as my written materials have the power to change someone’s life for the better, that’s always been good enough for Me! After retiring from full-time practice and watching my checking account dwindle over the next year however, I was forced to confront an emotionally painful choice. I had calculated how many months of mortgage payments remained before that well ran dry, and a profoundly uncomfortable question begged to be asked: Could I stay afloat financially?
A handful of men over the past couple of decades have dedicated the books they wrote about their harrowing experiences with a borderline personality disordered lover, to me. I’d had direct contact with only one of these fellows, but from reading a plethora of BPD articles on my website, they were able to write cohesively about their romantic struggles, their recovery process, and their newfound ability to have surmounted that trauma. A cathartic exercise, to be sure!
Givers like myself, have an irrepressible desire to share with others from our bounty. We don’t do it to be liked or well-thought of. We’ve fought various battles “life” has presented us with, learned, healed and evolved as a direct result of those challenges, and genuine personal empowerment and inner-peace has resulted. We GIVE because we cannot help but share our remarkable, life-altering strides with others, in hopes they’ll be willing to receive our hard-won wisdom, put it to good use, and treasure it as life-enhancing.
The five men who’d published their books asked to ship a copy of their volume to me. As gently and politely as I could manage, I declined their kind gesture via return email. For me, it felt rewarding enough to learn I’d indirectly helped these people surmount their emotionally excruciating setback, and heal.
While thousands worldwide engaged my assistance to recover from a devastating BPD relationship, many others found relief in my writings, from their tormenting confusion, haunting self-blame, and shame of having loved someone deeply, who was incapable of returning their adoration. Again, as an educator, I’m always working to enlighten people about why they’re in pain, and how to go about resolving it.
I am utterly thrilled to have acquired just over 100 subscribers to my Substack newsletter! It’s comforting and confirming to me, that my followers are like-minded individuals who appreciate my offerings. In truth, my various social media platforms have given me a sense of community and family, I never had the luxury of experiencing as a child or young adult.
This of course, feels validating and very nourishing to me in the sense I can recognize I’m ‘on the right track’ with those I reach, and my ability to share unconventional, unique and enlightening concepts through my writings, is truly appreciated. What a marvelous present!
Those few of you who’ve chosen to demonstrate your love and appreciation for these offerings with your voluntary ‘paid’ subscriptions to my newsletter, touch me far more deeply than I can express with mere words. It’s the thoughts and feelings you’ve conveyed with your donations, that I greatly treasure. They settle deep inside me as gifts of respect, admiration and mutual love, and I cherish them~ not just as tokens of your appreciation, but as sincere acts of gratitude for my contributions to your enlightenment, growth and well-being . . . and I feel JOY about this!
I truly cannot thank you enough for engendering these marvelously warm, fuzzy feelings inside me! Writers tend to live isolated existences. Your reciprocal acts of kindness have truly made mine feel considerably less so. Please know that I will always feel grateful to you.