Archive for the ‘personal needs’ Tag
I may have been more confusing than clarifying in my Response #4. So I want a re-do (wish I could do that in life!).
I had very little understanding of legitimate relational boundaries for most of my life. If two of us had conflicting needs, I thought I was responsible to deny my own and “consider others as more important than myself.” Anything less was selfishness. I also believed I was given more resources by God than others (after all, I came from McQuilkin stock, a line of highly honored preachers, missionaries, and college presidents), so the greater burden should rest on me. This was the scaffolding for serious self-neglect.
If I starved myself to feed the hungry, I would die quickly, but when I starved myself emotionally, there was no such forced resolution… I kept living, breathing, and relating. No matter how much I gave, I felt I was not giving enough. So I pushed myself further and further until I nearly killed myself in India. Self preservation was not in my DNA. After all, I subscribed to the motto, “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
If I had the resources, and another had a need, I was obligated to meet that need. I thought the only morally legitimate way to deny helping Bob was to help Bill instead. To use my resources on myself was simply selfish. It was not a true need of mine. Christ was all I needed, and instead of receiving what he wished to give me, I became simply the channel for his giving to others, a teflon heart towards God’s grace. I didn’t realize what harm I did myself and others by working out of a serious personal deficit. I did not understand how healthy relationships worked.
Of course, the more I expected of myself, the more I expected of others… not as much as I would give, but still a fairly high standard. When they did not give what they were “able” to give (in my estimate), I judged them as unspiritual, uncommitted, and selfish, and I resented having to make up for their slack. Denying myself everything for others only worked if they denied things for me.
I was blind to the distinction between healthy and unhealthy giving. That difference might best be illustrated with actual gifts, the kind with wrapping paper and bows. 
There is quite a long list of unwritten, unspoken guidelines that must be followed in our society if we wish to be an acceptable member. The one with more money may spend more; the amount of money or time spent is a reflection of how much the recipient is valued; gratitude must be expressed (whether or not the gift was a true expression of love), often in writing; and the list goes on. We speak of a ‘gift exchange,’ a social arrangement which prescribes rules and follows social norms to avoid anyone giving too much or too little. But the original meaning of “gift” (Charis in Greek) suggests something freely given out of love without thought of return. Otherwise we are really talking about trading, a legitimate financial arrangement, but one that follows law, not love.
As long as everyone follows group expectations in an exchange, this arrangement works swimmingly, but once we try to move towards a gracious approach, one that does not include payback, the old rules do not apply. If I must give everything to everyone without consideration for reciprocation, then I am in serious trouble if others do not do the same. All my resources (whether time, money, emotional reserves, energy, etc.) will sooner or later be exhausted, and then I have nothing for myself or for others. Without receiving adequate “reimbursement,” the system fails. The path of grace seems unworkable unless everyone else is equally “gracious.” Instead of being responsible for my own upkeep, they become responsible for me, and I for them. I am at the mercy of the goodness of others… if they are not good enough, I cannot survive. This sounds to me suspiciously like co-dependence rather than interdependence. Am I not ultimately responsible for myself?
Elisabeth speaks for many of us when she worries that making room for someone’s quirks could encourage the attitude, “God made me this way so just accept it even though it is inconveniencing or hurting you.” That is one of the guiding principles that shaped the way I related to others most of my life, and it still pulls strongly on my emotions. This will take two posts to discuss even briefly because I want to start with my own experience and perspective and then offer the comparative view of my wife.
I grew up believing very strongly that I was responsible for others’ responses to me. If someone felt hurt or inconvenienced by my actions, I should change my behavior. Either I had done something wrong and should apologize and change myself to prevent this in the future, or they were mistaken and I should explain to them how they had misunderstood my intentions (or a combination of the two). Their negative feelings indicted me, and I was responsible to relieve them and to then live in such a way that I caused them no more inconvenience or hurt.
I think this entanglement of responsibilities is common among children who respond to parental displeasure by being compliant and who determine their own lovability based on the feedback they receive for their behavior. If my mom or dad is angry, it is my fault, and I must fix it. I think our parents’ generation generally believed this, and those of us raised in religious homes believed this was also a true reflection of God’s attitude towards us. One of the downsides of this perspective is that I hold others responsible for my feelings as well. You take care of my feelings and I take care of yours. You take care of my needs and I take care of yours.
Relational Balancing Act
It sounds very considerate, and I suppose it may be, but in my case, instead of a free and loving choice, it was grounded in fear and relational obligation. I could not survive in forgoing my own needs for the sake of others’ needs if they did not reciprocate, so if there was no parity, I had to pressure others to meet my needs. If I were inconveniencing or hurting someone, I was under moral obligation to change, and if I did not like what they were doing, they had to change.
Of course, the entire system broke down if others did not meet my needs. When I eat out with a friend, the payment shuffle at the end is a bit embarrassing. Supposing my friend will reciprocate the next time, I decide to pick up the tab. But he doesn’t return the favor. I decide to do it again as a good example that shows him clearly how he is falling behind in the balance of hospitality. By the third unreciprocated meal, I start feeling resentment and make mild side comments or light jokes to bring his attention to the situation. If he simply does not work by this system of fair trade, then our relationship is in trouble. I will feel that he is selfish and uncaring.
When I decide what to wear, what to say, where to go, how to behave, I automatically assume others’ needs are preeminent. This does not primarily come from a place of health or freedom or generosity, but from a fear that they will justifiably think badly of me or resent me if I do not care about them. I find it very hard to think well of myself if others think badly of me (in this case because I am being “uncaring”). On the other hand, if others seem to ignore my needs, I feel that my needs don’t really count, I am not worthy of receiving their care. So I am trapped in this world of reciprocation based on fear of losing my worth as a person.
My fear of others “taking advantage of me,” requiring me to do more lifting in the relationship than they do, is not simply that I will run out of energy and resources. It is a much more basic fear—that my very worth as a person is seriously at risk. Of course, I never think it out so clearly and objectively as this, but simply react from deep-seated emotions, often jumping right past the fear (which makes me feel vulnerable) into the reactive and manipulative anger of self-defense, “Don’t you care about me?!”
Some say that compromise is at the root of any good marriage, but what if either or both partners feel an arrangement is unfair, unbalanced. Picture the impact on the relationship if this imbalance is not simply an inconvenience, but a threat to the spouse’s very worth as a person. That is a picture of Kimberly and me as we stepped into a committed relationship.
Elisabeth’s comment raises at least four additional issues in my mind. The most apparent one, I think, is the distinction between enabling (as AA uses the term) and supporting. When people take too little responsibility for themselves, offering blanket assistance may not be the most helpful thing to do for them. We need to take this into consideration so that we do not inadvertently hurt or weaken others by our aid (such as parents do when they over-protect their children).
When folks are in need, love calls us to discern how best to serve them. It seems to me, the better we know someone, the better we can identify his or her true needs (so perhaps the best way to serve them is to get to know them). The difficulty lies in determining whether the crutch I offer will aid or hinder healing, and I have many potential problems in sorting out this quandary.
I tend to expect of others what I expect of myself, but this is a dangerous measure. Each of us has unique struggles and strengths, clarity and confusion, emotional surplus and shortage, speed of growth in different areas. If I don’t even know my own heart well, how can I presume to know another’s? I tend to expect too much of folks (and others’ tend to expect too little of them). Without realizing it, I tend to help or deny help to others for the wrong reasons (because it feels good to be needed, because I am proud of my abilities, because I feel obligated, because I resent the inconvenience, because I am suspicious of their motives). I rarely if ever respond out of pure love.
How can I tell when folks are being negligent, failing to do what they can easily do, or whether they are in genuine need of a hand up? Without even deciding that question, I know of a number of vital ways we can support others. We can accept them for who they are, we can feel and express empathy for their sense of need, we can listen and ask questions, we can offer encouragement and insight from our own similar experiences, we can be honest about our hopes and concerns regarding them and the strengths and weaknesses we bring to the table. I have discovered in relationship to my wife that what I need more than anything else is someone to understand and accept me as I am. It is far more important than the help they do or do not give me.
The Comfort of Caring Hands
I am often amazed at how long it takes me to come to a realization or understanding. If someone offers me an idea that does not fit into my present worldview, I cannot use it, and often do not understand it. When we started dating, Kimberly shared concepts that sounded like Chinese to me. They just made no sense to me at all.
Last night she suggested something that I have heard from others, “If there are tasks that need to be done, and you don’t want to do them, you can push yourself in a way that validates and supports your needs and feelings—do the task for yourself instead of against yourself. Do it for the benefit it will bring you.”
Yes, I have heard this before, I agree, but I have a problem. If it is only me affected by my decision, that is easy enough to do, but if others and their feelings and needs are also involved, I feel obligated to push myself regardless of what I want. That is, I can’t both listen to their needs and my needs when there is competition (and I downgrade most of my ‘needs’ to simply ‘desires,’ so their needs outrank mine).
But just this morning I started to reconsider Kimberly’s words. The problem is not pushing myself to do something I don’t want to do, but the thoughts that support that choice. To motivate myself, I resort to willpower based on obligation. This has always “worked” for me, that is, I complete the task. But I can only do so by disregarding my own feelings. Might there be a way to support my feelings and motivate myself apart from obligation?
It is very hard for me to practice this because my sense of duty trumps every other motivation by sheer weight of ingrained thought patterns. I do onerous things always and only because I “have” to do them. I have no choice. I thought the problem was in the choosing, but perhaps the problem is in the approach to choosing, the why and how of the decision rather than the what.
I realize now that this is the first glimmer of insight in a very long process, years of remaking my outlook, hundreds of attempts at applying it. I used to think that God’s grace should be gotten fully in one go and applied everywhere, like paint to a door. I slowly came to realize that I can only apply the grace of God to those wounds that I first identify. I can’t coat the door with WD40 and expect the unidentified squeak to stop. I have to locate the rusty hinge and spray a concentrated stream.
Of course, grace is at work helping me to identify my issues, but it works on its own schedule, not mine. I would like to know all my misguided beliefs now and focus all my time and energy into “fixing” them as quickly as I can. This would work no better than a first-grader studying night and day so he can graduate from college in two years. God is far more understanding and patient with my shortcomings than I am. I imagine he would like to tell me, “Slow down. Go easy on yourself. Even 50 years is not enough time to make all the positive changes I plan for you.” Oddly enough, for me to be more godly, I need to be more understanding and patient with myself; I need to receive this grace he offers me. Who would have guessed?
Kimberly and I talked last night, trying to sort through my feelings. As I discussed my sense of failure in India, I realized that wasn’t really the major issue. I have focused for ten years to overcome the lie that my worth depends on what I do or don’t do, and I’ve found a large degree of freedom. But if it was not about failure, what was troubling me so deeply?
New thoughts began swirling around in my brain. Like a child trying to work out a puzzle, I kept shuffling the pieces to make sense of these vague notions. At last I told Kimberly that I would have to let it marinate for now.
This morning I started stacking and restacking my blocks of feelings and speculations in conversation with Kimberly, trying to find the pattern that fit. A center of concern began to take shape, an issue I have not focused on, but one that has deep roots from early childhood—the idea that my needs don’t matter. Only one thing matters—doing more for God at whatever cost to myself. And if my needs don’t matter, then I don’t matter.
This priority on service meant that everyone else’s needs were more important than my own, and therefore my needs must always be sacrificed. In essence, self-care was selfishness unless it was clearly required to keep the machine functioning to do its job. Caring for myself physically and spiritually was only legitimate as an intermediate goal, a means to the end of serving others (and emotional needs were merely desires, not true needs).
This became an inescapable trap. When I met my own need, I felt ashamed for my selfishness. When I rejected my own need to help others, I strengthened my belief that my need (and therefore I myself) was of little worth. Either way, shame won. I could not find a way to break free. After India, I kept trying different ministries to see if I could find one in which I found fulfillment and peace, where there was less competition between my own needs and the needs of others. But I crated the real issue around with me from place to place. I now realize I have a lot of work ahead to unravel the emotional knots.
This Catch-22 has played out, not only in my occupation, but in all my relationships. When Kimberly and I moved into our new home, the “master bedroom” was a loft open to the living room below. I promised Kimberly I would build a bedroom there, a foolish start to a marriage! Unfortunately, I have very poor skills in estimating the time a job will take to complete.
As the work dragged on, keeping the house a mess, I began to lose enthusiasm and Kimberly began to lose heart. I didn’t want her to suffer, so I prevailed on myself to keep working hour after hour. Since I was now working out of obligation (the obligation of love, as I saw it) and not a creative pleasure, the job became more and more loathsome, and I had to whip myself harder. I felt shame when I didn’t work on it, but my own needs were rejected when I did work on it, and that sharpened my sense of worthlessness at a deeper level. I have always struggled with this belief that the task, especially the God-given task, is more important than I am.
We tried to talk it through many times. Kimberly suggested that we pay someone to finish it, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay out that kind of money, especially for something I could do myself (another issue of mine). We finally decided how much of the bedroom she needed complete before we could move in, and this gave us a foreseeable end. But the work had long since broken down my sense of worth. I couldn’t bring myself to do any wood work, which I love, for the next two years. And the closet still does not have doors.
This same scenario has played out often in many situations, and I could find no way to resolve the problem—should I push through or not push through? Neither worked. Calcutta was the point when my determined willpower finally crushed my spirit. I kept driving myself throughout four years of deep depression until it started to hurt others, and then I benched myself. I did not resolve the dilemma, I just took myself out of the game. And now it seems I am pulling my uniform back on and the feelings are all too familiar.
More personal reflections to follow.
There is quite a long list of unwritten, unspoken guidelines that must be followed in our society if we wish to be an acceptable member. The one with more money may spend more; the amount of money or time spent is a reflection of how much the recipient is valued; gratitude must be expressed (whether or not the gift was a true expression of love), often in writing; and the list goes on. We speak of a ‘gift exchange,’ a social arrangement which prescribes rules and follows social norms to avoid anyone giving too much or too little. But the original meaning of “gift” (Charis in Greek) suggests something freely given out of love without thought of return. Otherwise we are really talking about trading, a legitimate financial arrangement, but one that follows law, not love.
As long as everyone follows group expectations in an exchange, this arrangement works swimmingly, but once we try to move towards a gracious approach, one that does not include payback, the old rules do not apply. If I must give everything to everyone without consideration for reciprocation, then I am in serious trouble if others do not do the same. All my resources (whether time, money, emotional reserves, energy, etc.) will sooner or later be exhausted, and then I have nothing for myself or for others. Without receiving adequate “reimbursement,” the system fails. The path of grace seems unworkable unless everyone else is equally “gracious.” Instead of being responsible for my own upkeep, they become responsible for me, and I for them. I am at the mercy of the goodness of others… if they are not good enough, I cannot survive. This sounds to me suspiciously like co-dependence rather than interdependence. Am I not ultimately responsible for myself?
Janathan Grace Reflections 