When Helping Hurts: The Archetypes of Giving and Receiving, Part 5

Accepting the Gift that Hurts

Given all this complexity, and all the potential for giving and receiving to force us to come to grips with shadow, it’s understandable that people try various ways to manage this situation, or avoid it altogether.  Coming to grips with shadow is almost always painful, and we humans generally try to avoid pain, even when the avoidance leads to greater pain.  I call this talk “Accepting the Gift that Hurts,” because it is about how people attempt, usually unsuccessfully, to avoid accepting such gifts, or avoid making such gifts.  But the key is acceptance, for both the giver and the receiver.  But first, let’s talk about those typical ways we try to avoid the hurt.

The first strategy is to avoid giving to anyone, and to avoid asking for help entirely.  In the words of Shakespeare:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Is this desirable, much less possible?  Jung teaches us that we cannot repress shadow and pretend that it will simply go away.  I have come to see that shadow is a sort of impurity or unprocessed stuff of life, and the events of our time here on earth are meant to process it, to purify it, bringing us to greater consciousness and peace.  Wherever there is shadow, life will provide an opportunity for us to confront it, understand it in a deeper way, heal the pain around it, and become more whole as a result.  If you choose to avoid giving and receiving, it is likely you will end up avoiding most intimate relationships, because they almost always come to some kind of giving and receiving.  But shadow will still find a way to break through.

A less drastic avoidance strategy is to very tightly contain the giving and the receiving. Typically, ego dominates in this type of strategy, and with ego comes control and judgment.  A person says, “I will only give if I can do so anonymously.”  Or, “I will only help those who help themselves.  I will not be exploited.”  I think you can see that these strategies are meant to prevent the shadowy consequences of giving and receiving.  If we know the person too well, we may be disappointed that they did no show the gratitude we hoped.  If we hold the receiver at a distance, we will not be drawn into their shadow.  This is the difference between writing a check to Save the Children and bringing an orphan into your house to live with you.  It is shadow encounter at an entirely different level of magnitude.  Even then, sometimes, the shadow intercedes.  I have an interesting anecdote.  Last year, I began sponsoring a child in the Philippines, through Save the Children.  Pretty safe giving, you might suppose.  But within a few months, they starting sending me items written by the child, and they were filled with Christian content.  For instance, in answer to a question about what music she likes, this little girl wrote, “Christian hymns.”  This raised all sorts of shadowy issues for me.  Is part of my donation going to religiously indoctrinate this girl?  What sort of judgment would she have of me, if she knew who I really was – a left-leaning, homosexual who mostly scorns traditional religion?  I did not renew my sponsorship, but I feel slightly guilty about it.

Let’s reflect a bit on the phrase “helping those who help themselves.” On some level, this is saying that you only help people who are relatively capable and self-sufficient, just in need of a bit of temporary support.  But what about all the people who just aren’t equipped to help themselves; they are too weighed down by their trauma, by their complexes, to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  We fear that level of shadow, not just in them, but in ourselves, and so we avoid it.

A similar strategy involves minimizing the gift, thereby minimizing the level of hurt that might come from it.  For instance, we may try to limit the gift to just a monetary amount, and set up a payment plan, so it is more of a loan.  Sometimes that actually does work, but in my experience, it just sets up a drama that comes later, when the payments are skipped, or the checks bounce.  It is NEVER just about the money, because money is a tremendous carrier of expectation, shame, and shadow.  Arguments about money almost inevitably turn into arguments about control, worthiness, shame, and fear.

So many strategies to avoid the shadow and potential hurt that comes from giving and receiving.   And so many ways to fail in such strategies.  Why might that be so?  I believe it comes back to the individual model of giving and receiving.  Whenever you find yourself in a situation where you are drawn to give, or drawn to receive, a drama is about to be enacted, and it is a drama with meaning and purpose.  It is a drama that has at least the potential for something that has been unconscious to become more conscious, in both the receiver and the giver.  That meaning, that purpose, will not be foiled by the mere acts of the ego.  It has the force of the Self, and of individuation, behind it.

It seems to me that the key quality of the individual model of giving and receiving is acceptance.  And I don’t mean just the superficial aspect of acceptance, meaning that an offer of help is accepted.  I mean that BOTH the giver and the receiver practice a radical form of acceptance of EVERYTHING that proceeds from their relationship.  What do I mean by acceptance?  Do I mean a sort of fatalism, a resignation to the futility of it all?  Absolutely not.  I would like to quote from Steven Hayes, a modern psychologist who has studied acceptance:

The goal is to open yourself to the vitality of the moment and to move more effectively toward what you value . . . By assuming the stance of willingness and acceptance you can open all the blinds and windows in your house and allow life to flow through; you let fresh air and light enter into what was previously closed and dark.  To be willing and accepting means to be able to walk through the swamps of your difficult history when the swamps are directly on the path that goes in a direction you care about.  To be willing and accepting means noticing that you are the sky, not the clouds, the ocean, not the waves.  It means noticing that you are large enough to contain all of your experiences, just as the sky can contain any cloud and the ocean any wave.” (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, page 45)

Dr. Hayes is not a Jungian, but there is a lot of Jungian philosophy in what he has written.  It is about trying to keep the largest possible context for whatever happens in our lives, in this case being a giver or a receiver.  The ego will always try to reduce it to the lowest denominator – did I get scammed, was I violated, should I demand justice, am I properly appreciated, what do I owe, what is owed back to me.  By redirecting it to the larger context the questions change dramatically, “What has been brought to the surface by what I have experienced?  How can I take that lead and process it into gold?”

I would like to end with a quote from an online book called Living the Generous Life:

Reflections on Giving and Receiving which was funded by the Fetzer Institute and edited by Wayne Muller and Megan Scribner:

If generosity is fundamentally relational, then the giving/receiving relationship is prey to all the challenges and obstacles inherent in any human relationship. Jealousy, dependency, power struggles, and deception can all infect the purity of an honest, easy kindness.

Any or all of these familiar human foibles can create a corrosive dilemma that impedes the authentic flow of generosity. Fear and dependency create scarcity in the giver, and lack of
empowerment in the receiver. What kinds of giving challenge both giver and receiver to be more open, honest, and authentic as they strive together to grow a relationship that is beneficial to both?

It is useful to remember that the act of giving begins on the inside. The rhythm of honest kindness arises out of an honest heart. If we are to be truly kind, we must be truly awake to our motivations, our fears, our strengths, and our gifts. In other words, we must first become the gift that we would give.
(p. 8, available at http://www.fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/resources/attachment/2012-07-12/generous_life.pdf)

When Helping Hurts: The Archetypes of Giving and Receiving Part 4

Part 4 -- The Full Context of Giving and Receiving

For the sake of simplicity, we have talked about the simplest context for giving and receiving, namely, one giver and one receiver.  But in real life, that is almost never the context.  There are significant others surrounding the giver and the receiver, contributing to the complexity of the situation.

In terms of the six-way diagram, imagine a situation where there is a committed couple who have decided to jointly provide help to a receiver. There is a six-way relationship already in place for this couple – their egos are in relationship, and so are their unconscious factors.  They are projecting some part of their anima or animus on each other, and they are projecting some part of shadow onto each other.  Now insert the receiver of the gift.  This will alter the balance of the couple’s relationship.  For example, each of them will probably shift part of their anima/animus and shadow onto the receiver, instead of on each other.  This is the basis of jealousy.  Or one of  members of the couple may project anima onto the receiver, while the other member of the couple projects shadow.  The conversation goes something like this:  “I think things are going very well.  John really seems to appreciate the help we are providing”  “Really?  Are you serious?  I think John is a manipulative schemer.  You only feel that way about John because he is seducing you.  Maybe you actually love John more than you love me.”

It is just as complicated, and potentially destabilizing, when there is a single giver and multiple receivers.  Suppose Sally decides to help John and Chris.  Now it is John and Chris having the conversation about Sally’s motives for giving, Sally’s preferential treatment of John or of Chris, all sorts of motives ascribed to Sally, and so on.  Complexity layered upon complexity.

It can be particularly disturbing to be a friend, spouse, or other significant other observing the six  problematic patterns of receiving.  You can see clearly that your friend is offering help only because he equates giving with loving, and gratitude with being loved.  You are seriously concerned that he is being manipulated.  What do you do about it?  If you interject yourself into this kind of projection, you do so at your own peril.  You sense that perhaps your spouse is living vicariously by giving lavishly and becoming obsessed with the details of the life of the receiver of help.  Again, what do you do?  And, of course, what does it mean about your relationship with your friend or spouse if they seem to be neglecting you in favor of this other person?  Or is that you just projecting your insecurities about yourself into the situation?  Again, complexity layered upon complexity.

The five patterns of giving can also apply to giving and receiving involving multiple people.  Suppose two givers , Carl and Jack are giving to Pauline.  Carl is basically “book keeping” in his orientation, while Jack has another pattern going on, like substituting or manipulative.  Carl, the “book keeper,” wants the relationship with Pauline to balance out, if not immediately, in the foreseeable future.  But, Jack sees it very differently. Jack feels guilty that he can’t give Pauline the perfect fathering she really wants, so he keeps giving Pauline money.  It can’t balance out, no matter how much money he gives Pauline, because it is a substitution model, and money is an inadequate substitute for a loving father.  Or, Pauline is manipulating Jack’s shadow around sexuality.  Jack has sexual feelings toward Pauline, which he can’t really admit, even to himself.  Pauline senses this and manipulates Jack into one sacrifice after another, while Carl looks on, seeing it all very clearly, but reticent to point it out to Jack – from a book keeping point of view, it will only balances out if Jack actually has sex with Pauline, but that feels too much like prostitution.  See  how complicated it can get.

Again, the individuation model is the Jungian ideal, even when there are multiple receivers and or multiple givers.  But just as the individuation model is extremely difficult and rare where there is only one giver and one receiver, it is only more so where there are multiple people involved. The individuation model asks all of the parties to see it as mutual engagement in a drama.  They acknowledge that each of them has a shadow and it is involved in how the giving and receiving will happen – they give due regard to the multiple, overlapping six-way relationships going on.  They know that this drama, like all dramas, has the potential to show each all of them who they really are.  This is perhaps the most important outcome of all.  For the individuation model to actually work, a few things must be true.  All of the parties must be willing to be vulnerable, to admit that they have shadowy motives of which they themselves are only partially aware.  All of the parties must be capable of self reflection and of conscious analysis of what is going on.  The power shadow must be made conscious – in fact, the receiver or receivers might be the more powerful parties, if revelation of shadow and light of consciousness are the criteria.

When Helping Hurts: The Archetypes of Giving and Receiving Part 3

The Role of the Receiver

This week, we will explore in more depth one of the roles in the drama of giving and receiving, the role of the receiver.

To begin with, let’s explore the theme of need, which translates into something lacking, into a longing for something that is not present.  Using Maslow’s hierarchy, the basic needs seem pretty straightforward.  I am hungry, cold, tired, at risk of physical harm.  If I cannot satisfy these needs on my own, I reach out to someone who has food, shelter, and protection to offer.  As we go higher in the hierarchy, the picture becomes more complicated.  I long to be loved, not just by anyone, but by the one who truly knows me, with whom the feelings are mutual.  I want to feel welcomed and a part of something bigger than myself, but not just by any group, by a group I can honor and value. To feel accomplished, I long for validation by someone whose opinion I respect.  And, at the ultimate level, I long to achieve my fullest potential, and that is not something that can be given to me by any other person.

Jungians add some depth to this analysis of need.  According to Jung, we have all experienced a original sense of profound and pervasive unity.  We have all known what it felt like to be completely at peace and welcome, without need.  Jung called this “immersion in the Self,” and it is difficult to say when it occurred. Perhaps it is a dim memory of life in the womb, where nothing had to be requested, and all was given without limitation.  But that ends very abruptly, perhaps with that first swat on the butt, the harsh light of the delivery room, the first feeling of open air on the skin.  At any case, profound unity is very quickly shattered as we become beings that are limited in time and space.

According to Jungian theory, we transfer that longing for the full satisfaction of need onto our flesh and blood mothers.  To an infant, one’s mother does seem like an all-powerful being who can satisfy every need, if only he or she is willing to do so.  But no matter how well a flesh and blood person tries to meet the needs of an infant, she or he will fall short. In that dimly remembered paradise, I didn’t have to scream out to let you know I was hungry; the magical umbilicus took care of that.  What went wrong?  This is traumatic, even when handled well; the world may not, in fact, take care of my needs.  Where does that leave me?  The traumas harden into complexes, and the patterns of ourselves as receivers and givers are set, to be lived out for much if not all of the rest of our lives.

Going back to our six-way diagram, any time a giver is playing out a drama with a receiver, the giver is experiencing the receiver’s shadow around unfilled need.  Somewhere down deep is a disappointed infant, a neglected toddler, and a unsatisfied child that learned, mostly from his or her parents, what it meant to need something and how to go about meeting that need.  And those original patterns will almost inevitably re-emerge and have to be dealt with.

As with the role of the giver, there are uncountable variations on this theme.  Today I will share just a few.  I am presenting these as distinct patterns just for the purpose of discussion and analysis.  In fact, most of us do all of these, at nearly the same time.  Some of us rely on one or two more than the others.  None of us do only one.  But, in every case,

1)   The transactional model

Developmental theorists have noted how quickly babies learn how to enter into transactions with their mothers.  It is largely unconscious, but it is still transactional.  An infant learns that, by cooing a certain way, he can get picked up and cuddled.  There is a time to coo and a time to scream, and the infant picks up on these patterns.  That lays the foundation for a transactional attitude toward getting needs met.

Basically, a transactional model says:  I have something you want, you have something I want, let’s do an exchange.  There is an assumption here that each party feels they have something of value to offer to the other party.  This is the foundation for a market-based economy.

The problem arises when those higher level needs on Maslow’s hierarchy present themselves.  Is love really a transaction?  If you have to buy it, literally or figuratively, is it really love?  What looks like mutual caring from one angle can look like mutual usury from another angle.  This can lead to a very jaundiced view of human life.  And it can lead to a very destructive kind of perfectionism.  You can fundamentally doubt the worth of what you are offering and work endlessly to make it absolutely perfect, in the magical belief that if what you offer is perfect, you will experience absolute bliss.  If I perfectly match what you demand, you will love me – or so says the lie we tell ourselves.  Unfortunately, when our needs are not satisfied, we perfectionists lay the blame on our remaining imperfection, and work just a bit harder.

And if you are trying to transact yourself into individuation, you will soon discover that it is impossible. You can’t buy it from a guru, can’t do something to convince the unconscious to enlighten you.

2)   The manipulative model

In the manipulative model, the receiver makes use of the shadow of the giver to get what is needed or wanted.  Referring back to last week’s talk, suppose the giver longs for love and equates gratitude with being loved.  A manipulative receiver knows how to express gratitude in just the right loving way to keep the giving going.  Or, suppose a giver wants to magically recreate her childhood, making it all go right this time; a manipulative receiver will be a willing participant in this dramatic re-enactment, so long as it ends up with the receiver also getting his needs met.  Or, suppose the giver wants some “vicarious living” through the life of the receiver; the manipulative receiver can be very accommodating on this request.  In short, the receiver either consciously or unconsciously cues in on the shadow of the giver and uses it to satisfy unmet needs.

 The truly manipulative receiver can play this to the hilt.  Many times, a giver sees potential in the receiver.  The manipulative receiver knows that, to keep this going, he must fail once in a while and get bailed out to keep the giver feeling heroic.  He needs to show progress toward the giver’s dream for him, but never quite get there.

Even at its best, manipulation is a form of lying.  It has much of the same down side as the transactional model.  If I need to lie and connive to get what I need, what does that make me?  And how do I lie and connive my way into true love, much less individuation?  It can’t be done.

There is a subtype of the manipulative model that bears mentioning.  I call it “aggressive victimhood.”  The script goes something like this:  My life is miserable, and no one has ever done anything to help, they have only hurt me. Try to help, and I will let you know if it is working, but I have my doubts.  Particularly if the giver is of the “rescuing” variety, sure that a heroic rescue of a desperate receiver will win life-long gratitude if not love, this is a highly effective manipulation.

The manipulative model is an excellent illustration of how the power shadow operates.  In the regular giving and receiving relationship, the giver has the power and the receiver is less powerful.  In the manipulative model, the power dynamic is reversed – the receiver gets the upper hand and plays it masterfully.  Sometimes, the receiver takes on the manipulative model in reaction to the controlling attitude of the giver; it is, in that sense, a way to balance out the power dynamics.

3)   The substitute model

The script for the drama of the substitute model goes like this:  What I really need and long for is ______________, but if I can’t have that, please give me more _________________.  This is a bargain almost certain to fail, and it is actually the basis of much that we would call addiction and compulsion.  What I want is love, but if I can’t have that, give me sex.  What I want is self esteem, but if I can’t have that, at least take care of my financial security.  What I want is an escape from the oppression of my complexes, but if I can’t have that, at least get high with me.  There are endless variations, all of which pull up shadow, frustration, disappointment, excess, and eventual rejection.

4)   The withdrawn model

A very interesting variation on the receiver models is what I call the withdrawn model.  Essentially, a person withdraws into himself or herself, never directly expressing any needs, desires, or vulnerabilities.  You might think this might leave them unattractive to people willing to give, but that is not always the case. 

In one sense, the withdrawn model has much in common with the manipulative model.  For some givers, a withdrawn receiver is a challenge, provoking ever-higher levels of giving.  The morose teenager is a fine example here.  The morose teenager is unimpressed with anything offered or given to him or her.  His dark mood is unrelenting.  The giving parent searches for any sign of having “guessed right” about what would please the morose teenager.  The slightest sign of gratitude is celebrated as a major victory for the giver.

In a different sense, people fall into the withdrawn model when they sincerely believe that, if they express any need, they will find out how little they are loved, how little they matter to the people around them.  Rather than take the risk of asking for anything, they would rather pretend that they have no dreams, no needs, and no desires.

A third variation of the withdrawn model is particularly popular among those who are spiritually inclined.  These people label needs or desires as spiritual hindrances, and they claim to have evolved past such mundane things as needs and wants.  Indeed, it is possible to become so transcendent that needs become very minimal.  But that is not the same thing as being driven by disappointment and resentment – “if no one will give to me, I will give up my needs.  That will show them!” 

5)   The individuation model

In the individuation model of receiving, both the giver and the receiver acknowledge that they are engaged in a drama.  They acknowledge that each of them has a shadow and it is involved in how the giving and receiving will happen – they give due regard to the six-way relationship.  They know that this drama, like all dramas, has the potential to show each of them who they really are.  This is perhaps the most important outcome of all.  For the individuation model to actually work, a few things must be true.  Both parties must be willing to be vulnerable, to admit that they have shadowy motives of which they themselves are only partially aware.  Both parties must be capable of self reflection and of conscious analysis of what is going on.  The power shadow must be made conscious – in fact, the receiver might be the more powerful party, if revelation of shadow and light of consciousness are the criteria.

Is such a thing possible?  I can’t say I have ever experienced it fully, but I have had tantalizing tastes of it, so I hold out hope and faith.  At least it can be aspirational, as compared to the other models.