Is It Better to Give than to Receive?

Photo by Kira auf der Heide

Rethinking

Being raised with a strong Christian background, something I heard so often is that it is better to give than to receive. This can’t be a bad thing, right? When I give, I feel great. Have you heard that giving is more selfish than selfless? I have heard that many times in my life as well. I can understand that interpretation for sure because of how great it feels to give; to watch others be so happy and thankful when I am giving to them in one way or another.

I love everything that this song evokes inside of me. It kind of takes me on a journey of my life in a lot of ways. My internal guidance system was silenced over and over by me because at times when I would talk to someone I trusted about something that felt off or not right, I was often told that I was crazy or overreacting. So, as time went on, I stopped talking about those things to most everyone. Something that the Mormon church taught me was that if I followed the plan the way they have formulated it, I can live forever with those that I love the most; my family. I subscribed to their teachings for years.

After I chose to part ways with that religion, I was so angry because I felt like a fool; like a puppet on a string in their play. I have always been a quite strong-willed person. I didn’t always conform completely, but mostly I did. I tended to be on the strong-willed side of a rule follower. If the rule made sense to me, I was compelled to follow it.

Daring to Try Another Way

After I chose to walk away and I got rid of some of the anger I had around the lies and manipulations that I had become aware of, I began to dip my toe into the water of exploring my spirituality again. Something that has always been strong inside of me is that I craved connection with God. I wanted to be loved and accepted by God. I didn’t want to be a disappointment to my Creator. I had developed a repulsion about praying to God because I didn’t want to foster the teachings of my lifelong religion inside of me anymore. So, I started just talking to God like I would a person here. This was very hard for me because the way I had been taught was that God was a harsh task master and would punish me for stepping out of line. God demanded to be respected in all ways and if I didn’t, I would be punished and cut off from His Love.

Talking to God the way I do anyone else was very uncomfortable at first. There was this part of me that was so afraid that I really was going to be damned to hell for eternity like I was taught I would be since I willingly revoked my membership in that church. However, the more I practiced doing this, the better I felt. I wanted to believe that God loved me unconditionally and so I chose to begin daring to believe this and it changed everything for me.

As memories came to my mind, I looked at each one in a different way. One by one, I got to really look at each one and see what I was meant to learn from it. I began to recognize that I always allowed my inner guidance system to guide me. Back then, I was just willing to suffer for longer periods of time before I would speak up or choose to make a different choice that would serve me better.

I really love this song; for me, it reminds me of how I lived in such confusion for most of my life. This was largely because I was so inundated with what was acceptable and what was not from all different sides. When I went against the grain, I felt twisted and confused at first. The more I practice the things that feel right to me inside, the more comfortable they become.

More Clarity

The one thing that I struggled with was welcoming people into my life that were willing to take from me giving little to nothing in return. It always ended up getting to the same place; feeling like the life was being sucked out of me. I would talk to them about what I needed or wanted from them and that always turned into a never-ending pleading from both of us: them being upset with me that I was changing the rules and telling me that I didn’t care about them and me trying to get them to understand that I could not continue to sustain an unhealthily balanced relationship.

After therapy, I finally understood that because I had such a strong desire and even compulsion to give, I attracted taker after taker into my life. The root issue was my issues of not feeling worthy. So, there I was, seeing that it was time for me to practice receiving. This has not been easy for me. My kids had frustration with me over this. They would come to me and ask me if they could get me something that they wanted to and every time I would immediately tell them all the reasons they shouldn’t. Then, there they were, reminding me that I said I wanted to do better about receiving.

So now, I personally do not believe that it is better to give than receive. I believe that each are equally important. I have found for myself that now that I have learned how to better receive, I have been blessed with a greater sense of balance in my life. When it gets hard for me, I think of how great I feel in those moments of giving and remember that when others give to me, they get to experience that same great feeling for themselves.

What I love most about this song is the reminder that hope is not always easy to embrace when times are tough; when we are going through those dark and difficult times. However, for me, when I keep my eye on that tiny spark of light that is there in those dark times, it gets bigger and brighter. That is what hope is to me. I learned the hard way that when I didn’t think things could get any worse they always did. I was drowning in those things, blaming myself. I can get really creative in finding reasons why all the bad things that have happened to those I love are my fault. It took me daring to hope that things could get better before they did. Just like I learned that things could always get worse; in that same instant, I had hope that they could always get better too and they do for me.