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EXERCISE 1: Choose Your Values
Do you have a tendency to stay too long with someone who is not right for you? Or do you tend to discard someone quickly before really giving him a chance? Are you blinded by chemistry and not paying attention to compatibility of values?
Try this exercise to find out.
What are the values that matter to you? Review the list below and on the next page and circle your top ten. Once you’re clear on your values, you have a good starting point for the values you want in a partner.
Which are the ten values that are most important to you?
Achievement/Accomplishment:
advancement
building something
challenge
competence
competition
creating beauty
creating change
creating information
efficiency
entrepreneurship
excellence
expertise
innovation
Justice:
autonomy
democracy
diversity
equality
fairness
leadership
teamwork
Courage:
adventure
authenticity
excitement/risk
honesty
independence
perseverance
self-expression
self-respect
tenacity
zest
Positive Emotion:
fun
gratitude
joy
leisure
play
Safety:
financial security
physical security
stability
Humanity:
altruism
belonging to a group
care
collaboration
compassion
connection
cooperation
country
family
freedom
friendships
helping others
kindness
listening
love
social intelligence
Status:
fame
getting recognition
influencing people
sophistication
wealth
Temperance:
balance
conscientiousness
eco-consciousness
forgiveness
harmony
health
humility
integrity
order
physical activity
prudence
respect
responsibility
self-regulation
tradition
Transcendence:
awe
faith
hope
humor
inspiration
serenity
spirituality
time in nature
wonder
Wisdom:
arts
creativity
curiosity
decision-making
decisiveness
discernment
exploring/research
love of learning
meaningful work
perspective
self-awareness
self-development
self-realization
Write down those top ten values that are important to you in column one of the worksheet opposite. In the next column, rate yourself from 0 (not at all) to 10 (fully expressed in this value) according to where you think you score in terms of these values. Now, in chronological order, assess the last three relationships or love interests you’ve had and rate how they score according to these values.
How do your past partners score in comparison to you? Are you scoring above 70 yourself? If not, is it realistic for you to want a partner who scores 100 when you yourself are not there? For example, if you value generosity but you yourself are calculative, have a tit-for-tat approach, and live in a scarcity mindset, is it realistic or fair that you expect your partner to be generous when you are not?
Is each partner getting closer to your values or further from them? If you’ve typically been a slave to chemistry, the next time you evaluate if you want to invest in a romantic partner, cross-check with this list. If you find that he is scoring low on compatibility, save yourself the months (if not years) of a relationship that will eventually combust.
VALUE ME NAME NAME NAME
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
SCORE
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EXERCISE 2: Identifying Healthy Love
Now, take stock of what unhealthy love relating is. (It’s not love because it was never love in the first place.) If you’re reading this book, it’s likely because you’ve had a history of unhealthy connections; hence, you now know that what you thought was love wasn’t. Next, write down a list of what healthy love and support feels like. If you don’t have romantic examples from your life, see if you can find examples of feeling love from friends or family members. Let’s take a look at Sheena’s list. Sheena came to Renew Breakup Bootcamp months after her divorce from an emotionally abusive man was finalized.
Sheena’s List
UNHEALTHY RELATING IS:
Emotional unavailability
Verbal abuse
Criticism of every aspect of my life
Calculative—taking note of every transaction (including $2.75 for the subway)
Controlling (for example, I was not allowed to use “his knife” and had to buy my own for cooking)
Not being prioritized
When asked to write her list for healthy love, she wasn’t able to come up with anything based on actual experience. She had no idea what healthy love was because she had not experienced it from her parents or romantic partners.
As a starting point, Sheena reflected on how love and support felt like when she was with her most trusted friends. She was then able to craft a list of her ideas of what healthy love could look like.
HEALTHY LOVE IS:
Patience
Boundaries are respected
Honesty
Kindness
Open and direct communication
Compromise
Stability
Showing up and being supportive
Sheena had to start from ground zero, piecing together what healthy love looks like, since most of what she’s experienced romantically has been the opposite.
Now it’s your turn.
Unhealthy Relating Is:
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Healthy Love Is:
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Start here. Embrace the difference on a cerebral level so that you can start recognizing healthy love on an experiential level. With awareness as the first step, the second step is to stop choosing people who show signs of emotional dysfunction.
As you continue adjusting your chemistry compass and choose partners who are healthier, you may run into another hurdle. You might meet someone whom you have both chemistry and compatibility with, but then face a blockage that renders you unable to receive his love. And it happens to the most giving of us.
NOT ALL GIVING IS CREATED EQUAL
Do you identify as being a giver? Have you had a tendency to overgive? When I ask this question at Renew, the entire room raises their hand. I get it—many of us have been socialized to nurture, to give, and to give some more. We take pride in being a giver. But what if I told you that your overgiving is actually a disguised form of taking?
There are different motivations for giving. Sure, the gift m
ay appear the same on the outside, but it is the root of the gift that creates the energy. What motivates your desire to give?
Do you give from a place of insecurity, where you’re overcompensating to earn validation?
Do you give from a place of scarcity, constantly running through the mental calculation of what the recipient owes you?
Do you give from a place of manipulation, where the reason for your giving is personal gain? The gift indebts someone to you or gives you power or control over someone. You may even withhold love as a way to punish.
Do you give from a place of abundance? You give out of love. Regardless of how the other person receives it—and even if you don’t get credit—you give without expectations and without keeping tabs.
If the root of your giving is insecurity, scarcity, or personal gain, you are not truly giving—you are withdrawing energy from the recipient of your “gift.” This is a selfish act, not a giving act. We’ve all been guilty of giving from an impure place at some point, and often this is done unconsciously due to lack of awareness. It’s important that you start recognizing the real intention behind your giving. If it’s not coming from a pure place, take a pause and reassess if you should move forward with your “gift.”
You may have been on the flip side of impure intentions. Have you ever received a compliment, a favor, or a gift and felt uneasy, sensing that something was off? Instead of experiencing joy, you felt a sinking feeling in your gut? Or anxiety? This might have been a case where the person who was giving to you was not well-intentioned, and you subconsciously sensed it. That person appeared to be giving to you but was actually taking your energy because their intentions were impure.
HI, MY NAME IS AMY, AND I’M AN OVERGIVER
For the majority of my life, I prided myself on being a giver. Whether it was at work, with friends, or with romantic partners, I was generous to a fault and then ended up resenting those to whom I gave. I would conclude that people were “taking” too much from me and be left feeling exhausted and disappointed. But in most cases I was not actually giving—I was overcompensating.
Whenever I started to develop feelings for someone, I’d put my foot to the gas pedal on giving. I’d cook him multicourse dinners, pack him snack bags, and buy him thoughtful gifts. It didn’t matter to me that the person never asked me to do these things, nor wanted them for that matter. I had so much love to give and I just wanted to give it! But all this giving had the opposite effect on my desired outcome of creating more connection. Either he’d start to pull away, or I’d start to feel resentful that my efforts weren’t being reciprocated and anxious at the growing imbalance. One guy with whom I dived into nurturing girlfriend mode by week two of dating told me, “I appreciate how loving you are, but I didn’t earn any of this.” I didn’t stop to reflect on his words and instead got defensive.
At the time I didn’t realize that I wasn’t giving because I had “so much love to give.” It was because, at my core, I believed that I was lovable only if I was useful. I didn’t feel that I was enough, so love was something that needed to be earned.
Today, as a recovering overgiver, I still need to pause before I fall into my old habits. There are times when someone does something nice for me and I immediately want to balance it out or even one-up what they just did for me. In those moments, I make sure I check in with my intentions to see what the root of my giving is, and many times I’ve had to stop myself from giving.
I’M A GIVER AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO
It’s a lot easier to play the victim and blame someone else for your emotional experience. In the case of overgiving, you might resent others for not being appreciative or reciprocating. But remember, you appointed yourself to this role.
To illustrate this idea visually during a session at Renew, I ask for a volunteer. Miki, a forty-five-year-old single mother from Miami, willingly accepts and comes to the front of the room. I ask Miki to hold an empty glass. Holding a pitcher of water, I ask her if she is thirsty. Miki says no. I ask again, offering her water. Confused, she answers no a second time. I then pour water into her glass and keep pouring until the water overflows, spilling all over the floor.
“What are you doing?! Stop!” she shrieks.
“Well, I have all this water, and I want to give it to you. Even though you didn’t want it, and your cup could only hold so much water, I had all this water that I wanted to give, so I kept pouring.”
The room erupts in laughter.
“How often do we do this in our daily lives?” I ask the room. “We give to someone who may not even want what we are offering. But we have so much to give! We give even if the person doesn’t want what we have, isn’t ready to receive it, or doesn’t have the capacity to handle it.”
The room is quiet. The women sit with stunned looks on their faces. I hear murmurs of “Oh my god, that’s exactly what I do.”
Miki confides that at first she didn’t understand what I was doing. But as a prideful overgiver, the visual demonstration made her think about how often in her life she overextended herself, often without stopping to reflect if the person she was giving to even wanted what she was offering.
THE RECEIVING EQUATION
Now that we’ve covered giving, let’s look at the other side of the equation: receiving. Check any that apply:
I am uncomfortable counting on others to meet my needs.
I do not ask for anything from anyone.
I feel shame around having needs or being needy.
When I’m presented with a gift (psychological, spiritual, or physical), I don’t feel comfortable accepting, because I am afraid I will be indebted to the person or I doubt their intentions for giving to me.
I feel resentful of others for taking too much from me.
I feel that my tank is often empty from tending to the needs of everyone else.
• I find myself overinvesting in relationships.
If someone gives to me, I feel the need to balance it out immediately or give even more back.
I’m uncomfortable when someone compliments me.
If you answered yes to any of these scenarios, it’s possible you have a blockage in receiving and subconscious defense mechanisms that prevent you from receiving openly.
Giving and receiving are part of the same circuit—polarities of the same continuum. You can’t have one without the other. You may have the belief that it’s generous to give, and it is, but you also need to add the belief that it’s generous to receive. If you do not receive, you rob someone else’s ability to complete the circuit and the flow between you two stops.
One of the reasons you may have difficulty receiving is because you may be confusing receiving with taking. There’s a negative connotation to being a taker, one you don’t want to be associated with. It’s important you understand the difference between the two.
Takers “take” without any intention of giving in return—well, unless there’s something in it for them.
Receivers, on the other hand, don’t have agendas or think in a transactional way. Instead, they understand the energy flow that happens between two people when giving and receiving occurs, with a consciousness established in abundance and love, not lack. A person receiving accepts what’s being given because she believes she is worthy of receiving.
Some additional explanations as to why you may be resistant to receiving:
You want to control. As we discussed, to receive means to become vulnerable, and vulnerability can trigger fear. Being in the giving position offers a feeling of control (you’re the one doing the favors, you’re the one taking care, you’re the one proving how indispensable you are). By refusing to receive, you think you’re maintaining a power position, which might feed your ego, but not your soul.
Deep down, you don’t feel worthy of love. Your logical mind knows that you want and deserve love, but you have a subconscious belief that you are unworthy. This may materialize in the form of sabotaging healthy relationships and clinging to people
who reinforce your feelings of unworthiness. Whether someone is giving you a compliment, a gift, or a loving act of kindness, you can’t absorb it. You may develop the ability to fake gratitude, but deep down, you don’t feel deserving of the love and support or the gift. You may gloss over it, deflect it, or reject it.
It’s a defense mechanism to keep yourself from getting too intimate with someone. For a relationship to deepen, there needs to be a connection, and for there to be a connection, there needs to be a flow of both giving and receiving. Think of it like a circuit: if you’re only giving or only receiving, you’re short-circuiting the connection. When you block receiving, you block connection, which keeps you from getting close and intimate with someone. If you find yourself having a hard time receiving, ask yourself if the root of it is because you’re actually afraid of letting someone get too close to you.
GIVING AND RECEIVING ARE PART OF THE SAME CIRCUIT—POLARITIES OF THE SAME CONTINUUM. YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER.
HOW TO START RECEIVING LOVE IN ITS MANY FORMS
You’re not going to swing from being an overgiver to an openhearted receiver in an instant. If you haven’t been able to receive for most of your life, you’re going to need to build your muscles for receiving. The good news is you can practice . . . and it’s fun!
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EXERCISE: Start by Accepting Compliments
When someone compliments you, do you deflect, downplay, disagree, or minimize? For example, if someone says, “I love your outfit!” do you respond with “Oh, this old thing? Got it on sale.” Or if someone provides positive feedback: “You were great in that presentation today!” do you reply, “Ugh, really? I was so nervous and rushed through the opening.”