Empathic people in my experience naturally want to give to others. Due to our sensitivity we know how it can feel to be hurt or suffer or have many unmet needs even if we are not always aware of the later because in our childhood parents refused to recognise or affirm these and asked us to revolve around theirs instead. So therefore we enter many relationships with a lot of emotional stuff, pain and fears that can then provide the motivation for helping or act as food for feeling we get loved or appreciated. Some in psychological circles call this narcissistic supply. Some of us learn that if we do things for others or make them feel more comfortable by not being ourselves or sacrificing some parts of us we will be more approved of and accepted.
The sad thing in this situation is that we sometimes abandon ourselves or our true needs and feelings and secretly may feel lots of guilt, shame, fear or resentment. We may even tend to get sick and develop auto immune problems from over caring so learning about our true motivations, history and fears will help us with our boundary issues in my experience.
The following insights come from Chapter 5 of Cloud and Townsend’s book on Boundaries I have been quoting from in a series of recent posts. In this chapter they use the example of a client called Stan who says he ‘loves too much”, but on further investigation what Stan is doing is not always loving for himself if it makes him unhappy for true love leads us to peace and contentment not resentment, anger, exhaustion or fear.
In fact in the course of this therapy Stan realised that fear was actually one of his prime motivators,
fear that he would lose love and that other people would get angry at him. These false motives and others keep us from setting boundaries
Listed below are some of the fear motivators which cause us to over run our boundaries.
1. Fear of loss of love, or abandonment = giving to get love and when love does not follow feeling angry or abandoned.
2. Fear of other’s anger. Because of old hurts or parents who got angry we may not be able to stand anger if it was associated with loss of love in childhood.
3. Fear of loneliness. giving again, to win “love” and end lonelieness.
4. Fear of losing the ‘good one’ inside. This occurs when we think we must always make others happy or else we are ‘bad’ or ‘mean’ when actually the other person’s happiness may not be our responsibility entirely.
5. Guilt. If we feel inherently flawed inside we may give to feel better about ourselves. Again, we may feel ‘bad’ or suffer unearned guilt if we say no and practice self care.
6. Payback. Giving because we feel we owe it to the other person because of something they have done for us or because others have manipulated us by saying we have more than they do or owe them something.
7. Approval. Giving in a kind of symbiotic parental relationship with someone you are attached to, in order to win love.
8. Overidentification with the others loss. This I think is the primary one for empathic people, especially those of us who may have known loss or pain, its good to give out of an open heart but if we are just trying to make the person feel better out of this identification it may at times be counterproductive if their suffering may actually be something they need to go through in order to grow or learn.
Giving from an open loving heart is never wrong, if it comes from a state of freedom and not obligation, it is one of the highest forms of human kindness, but when giving drains us or makes us anxious, overburdened, depressed or joyless its a good time to take a cold hard look at what our true motivations are.
Examine what your fears are, ask for help in overcoming them, this is what we practice in Steps 6 and 7 of 12 Step recovery. Fear is not necessarily a ‘defect of character’ its a human attribute that is a huge motivator and one we need to be very aware of and become skilful at dealing with if we wish to find greater peace, serenity and happiness in our own lives.
Emerging From The Dark Night 