Do you have people in your life who are takers? This blog is inspired by recent experience around people like this and how putting boundaries in place dramatically changed everything for the better for me.
If you are an over-giver then you have probably been taken advantage of at one point. Your kindness and generosity most likely have been abused at times and you may not be sure why this is happening. The goal of this blog is to teach you how to create boundaries with that type of person. The kind of person that is always talking about themselves and taking up your time and energy without restraint or respect, asking for more and more of you.
Recently, I have been experiencing the negative impact of my over-giving. In doing so, I have learned that sometimes I have more faith in people than they have in themselves or than they have in their own ability to change and shift into all that they are meant to be. I can see the light in a person and deeply want to help them shine, open up, start growing and be everything that they are meant to be.
Unfortunately, that does not easily work nor come to fruition. Sometimes I have had to walk away because I recognized that a person cannot hold space for me because they cannot break the chains of their own bondage to destructiveness through self-absorption. They just do not have the ability to continue to rise alongside me because they end up generating negative feelings that cause a disruptive ripple effect, such as jealousy or envy or competitiveness and the relationship breaks down.
What I am continuing to learn, is that over-giving is a dangerous place to play when you do not have balance in your boundaries. Many of you suffer from this reality that you are giving and giving and there is never anything coming back to you. It is not to say that you are supposed to have a payback, but rather that when you are giving, there is always an exchange of energy. If energy does not return, we can feel hungry for love and affection as a result.
Over-giving is also the way in my life that I have learned to feel important. Growing up as an empathic I was ahead of things and knew how people felt and wanted to help. I have had to grow into a person that can receive people that can support who I am too, my energy, my thoughts, my mind and my success and hold space for that because they want to.
That is the other true lesson, can you receive that which you give? Over-givers tend to give because they do not know how to receive. Often they are overcompensating or they have never learned how to be loved and supported in ways that are enriching and make a difference in their lives. The other thing I have learned about myself is that I often think I have an endless supply of energy, but I really do not. We need to be in relationships that can hold space for our advancement, that can bring up our creative process, that can truly and deeply open us up to the best of who we are.
The balance of giving is really beautiful, it is contribution and it is compassion. Balanced giving is love, it is kindness and it is helpfulness, but it also requires us to be cautious and clear around how much contribution we are giving because it does not make sense for us to continuously give and never have our glass get filled. When we have people in our lives that take and take and never really share the load of responsibility, it becomes very draining.
For those of you who love people who are takers and you help them hoping to get the return on that investment because you do not want to lose them, this message is for you. You might be in love with somebody or have a long-time friend that you want to persevere because you see they have richness inside, goodness, love and they just do not know how to let it all out and you keep on helping them, but it is not helping, I am here to tell you it is not your job to make that happen. Let me give you permission, it is not your job to help them get it out. Your job is to make sure that you are balanced and you are giving and that this makes you feel good and that you are not over-draining your energy and over-giving to somebody who just keeps taking.
It is very important for wellbeing, happiness and balance that we shine our light on areas in our life like that and ask ourselves if the situation we are in is really good for us. It is not healthy to do so much for someone if they do not want to shift, change and grow alongside you because they are so broken and do not know how to give. When we love somebody, it is often hard to see when they are selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant or egotistical. The reality is, if someone in your life is like that, understand these are not healthy well-balanced people and we have to face the effects of it in our own lives.
Are you surrounded by people that are egomaniacs ? Are you surrounded with people who do not give, who cannot listen, who cannot hear your stories and do not give feedback, who do not know how to show up and just hug you and love you up, say thank you, who want to help you rise to all that you are and want you to find your success wave?
In my case, I learned to over-give because that was part of how I had to survive. Part of being an empath and an intuitive person means that I can see things that other people cannot see, so I tend to think that “because I see it, I should do something to help it” and that is not the case.
Healthy empathy boundaries are knowing that you can offer someone assistance and if they take it and make useful shifts with it, this is wonderful, but if they just take and take, and continue talking about the same old thing for the next month and year and doing the exact same behaviour, it may not be worth your time and energy to be over-giving. Sooner or later, after five, ten, fifteen years, you are going to realize, that you just spent all this energy on someone who is unable to rise and shine to the occasion of change even though you have been sharing, giving, helping and offering for so long. There is no appreciation here and you will need to remove yourself from this experience sooner or later, so practice awareness now so you can learn more about yourself and find balance.
Watch out for these signs of selfishness and self-absorption in the people around you. Watch out for the signs of people not being able to say thank you and for making you feel that you are obliged to give them all this energy. Be cautious of people who take advantage of your friendship, of your love, of your relationship, of your loyalty, of your time and of your energy. If they start like that, then they are likely to continue to be like.
You can point it out and say, “I notice that this has been going on a lot…I am talking to you and listening to you for three or four hours and helping, but it seems to lead nowhere, do you want help?”. Start putting some simple boundaries up. Start saying that you do not want to talk for that long, that you just do not have time for it and see what they do. When we put boundaries in place, we find out who people really are to us and then we can make sure we are in check and alignment with the true amount of time that we want to give to people without feeling like we are supposed to fix everything. Empaths often have a lot of compassion and they will feel like it is their obligation to give and to help people change and transform and over love those that are sabotaging themselves or those who are disruptive in their own lives.
Make sure that you find balance and boundaries if you are an over-giver, I want you to know you deserve to be loved too and there is a way out of all this madness. There is a way into self care where you can find your balance, where you can say no to the over-giver in you and yes to the balance of giving with love, compassion, kindness and deep respect for yourself.
Lisa
xo
