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As a Yogini and a karmic warrior, I really do see the beauty and the power in giving and being generous. And there's so much out there about how important giving is especially on the spiritual path. But there is a darker side to generosity that's a lot less talked about. So in today's episode, I'm going to address a common misconception that we should always be generous so stay tuned
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Hey there Yogi's and karmic warriors. Welcome to the karmic warrior podcast where we talk about living an extraordinary life by practicing time proven and tested teachings of yoga wisdom. So I am your host, Lisa Engles Witter.
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And the goal of this podcast is really very simple is just to make it really easier than ever before for anyone to find happiness and fulfillment in their everyday life by using wisdom teachings that have already been passed down and handed down for millennia. And to occasionally dispel any popular myths that there might be, especially in the new age, spirituality world, which hold us back without our even knowing. So before we get into our timely topic for today, I do want to make sure that you take a moment to grab a free report I created for you called karma demystified. And in this report, I cover one of the foundational principles in yoga, which is the law of karma. And really hidden in this principle is the secret to living a freer and fuller life. So you can download it for free at www dot karmic dash warrior.com. The link is in the description below this video. And in this report, I explained all about what karma is how it's created, and the process for clearing your karma so that you can step into the life that you were born to live. As we head into this holiday season, this season of giving, I thought it would be really good to talk about generosity. And, you know, not many people talk about the downsides of generosity, there's so much out there, you can read so much you can go anywhere, and everything is talking about especially this time of year, how good generosity the gift of giving, right. But the truth is that giving has this downside and, and I often see it in my clients as a feeling of exhaustion, honestly, just pure exhaustion. But there's also sometimes these feelings of anger and resentment and depression that come with giving. So I wanted to talk about this downside or the dark side of generosity. Again, all spiritual teachings tell us that giving is part of the spiritual path. But what's often forgotten is that those very same teachings talk just as much about how we need to give on that when we're on that spiritual path. In other words, it's not just random giving, we should be giving, giving, giving. No, the teachings tell us that there is a way to give a proper way to give when we're on the spiritual path. So what I want to look at are sort of these downsides of giving when we're not giving in, maybe you might want to say it the right way. But I don't I hesitate to say in the right way. These are just sort of more like some unconscious patterns that can be happening when we're giving that make us feel less than connected with those that we're giving to. So the first thing that I want to talk about is that always underlying are giving is some type of motive. And we need to be aware of what that motive is. Unfortunately, most people most of the time aren't asking their self. Why am I giving? What is the purpose right now for me to be giving or they have an answer in their head, like, Oh, I'm giving because I care about people or I'm giving because I want to help this person or people not realizing that that particular motive is a sort of a facade for something deeper underneath. So let me explain. Oftentimes, giving comes from a place of getting a need met getting one of our own needs met, we have unmet needs, and then we try to get our needs met, and what might those needs be? Well, they could be any type of need, it could be the need to be seen, the need to be loved, the need to be accepted, all of these are, are potentially unmet needs and motives forgiving, that can lead to less than desirable results that might say, just leading to a feeling of being dis connected, and to the feeling of being powerless. Now, let me give you a concrete example of this. Because in the world, in the circles that I run in and live in, in the spiritual community, there are a lot of spiritual healers, often I work with clients that are spiritual healers, or I have, sometimes I have clients that are in a health care field, like workers at workers, like nurses or doctors. And almost all the time, anybody who's in one of these professions would say, or would tell me or does tell me that I give, and I do what I do, because I care about people I want, I want to help people, it makes me feel good when I help people. So usually what happens, especially when people who are working in in one of these types of fields, the healing arts, medical field type of thing is we need to look at underlying needs. And often there is a need to give in order to make other feel other people feel good, so that we feel loved, so that we feel seen, so that we feel accepted. And this is very, very important. Now, when we give from a place of, of trying to meet an unmet need, often what happens is we give and we think that we're giving because we're being caring and being loving, but then when we don't get what we need in in turn, so we don't get the love or the acceptance or the approval that we need. It leads to feeling resentful, it leads to feeling angry, it leads to feeling depressed. So this is a sort of a litmus test around your giving. If you're giving from a place of trying to get an unmet need met.
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It often ends up in the experience of feeling anger or resentment when you don't get that need met. In other words, you're giving to someone and your unconscious unmet need is I need approval, I need love. And then you don't get that love. You don't get that approval from that person. And then you start to feel angry, you start to feel resentful. Well, I gave them this, and I did all of this, and they're so unappreciative of all that I've given to them. They don't even say thank you that that I've given them all of this stuff. So just check yourself on that are what is the motive underneath you're giving. Second, and this is directly tied to what I'm just just talking about is we need to look at whether we're being in servitude, or whether we're being in service when we are giving so what being in servitude means is essentially becoming a servant to another's dissatisfaction because you're looking for approval from that person and then they can then manipulate and keep you held a servant to them by withholding approval. So servitude happens when you're giving in order to counter act, some degree of power loss that you might have. In other words, you're looking for, again, approval you're looking for love, you might be looking for power or money in order to validate your giving, rather than your intention to give so When you're getting out of this place of power loss, your needs can actually be used against you, your unmet needs, I should say can be used against you as objects of manipulation, I'm going to say that again, because it's really important, completely relates to the motives that we were just talking about. So when you're giving out of a place of powerlessness or power loss, your unmet needs can be used against you as objects of manipulation. So those that you are seeking to give to what they do is they use your unmet need for their approval, or their validation or their money as a way to manipulate you and put you in servitude to them instead of being in service. And I think that a lot of people get stuck in this, they think they're being in service. But really, what's happening is they're in servitude. And when you're in servitude, you will feel a sense of power loss or powerlessness. So be aware of that this is one of the dark sides of giving, or the downsides of giving. Now, this last piece, here is really, really critical. And that is, to each of us really needs to know if our giving is coming from a sense of wholeness, or a sense of emptiness, that we're trying to fill something. So let me explain a little bit more what I mean. In yoga tradition, the singular most important goal of the spiritual path is self realization, knowing the truth of who you are, why is this the most important goal? Well, because most of us most of the time are living our lives, based on a misconception of who we really are. And that misconception of who we are, it leads to this feeling of being incomplete. When you don't know who you really are, it leads this feeling of being incomplete, like something is missing. So I need to pause here for a moment. And really make sure that I that you're clear on what I mean, when I say a misconception of who you are.
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So it's very easy to be able to give lip service and say, I know who I am. Right? I am the divine that lives in me through me as me that's in my world and in the spiritual world that I hang out in. People say that all the time I am one with the Divine I am okay. Well, that's great. I don't know if that's really true for you or not true for you. Or if you're just giving it lip service. So the point being, I'm saying, This can't be a concept to you. It's not a conceptual thing that you know who you are. It's a felt lived experience. And how do you know if you really do know who you are? This is a good question to be asking yourself, well, do I really know who I am? Well, how you know, is your actions will reflect the degree to which you know who you really are. And I'm going to leave it at that for right now. Because it's a huge topic that we could totally get into, but not for today. So let's go back this misconception of who you are leads to the feeling of being incomplete knothole something is missing. I have this nagging sense that I'm like, There's something else I can't quite put my finger on all of that. You've probably felt it before. And what this leads to is a desire. And this desire is a particular type of desire is the desire to do things that we think are going to make us feel whole and complete. And this includes giving. That's what the topic of our episode is all about. Giving, right? So if our giving is sourced in this fundamental misconception of who we are, for instance, we think that we are our stories we think that we are our ideas, we think that we are our beliefs, then it leads to these feelings that we've already talked about being exhausted, being overwhelmed, feeling resentful, and angry feeling Feeling depressed. All of these are symptoms of not knowing the truth of who you really are, and giving from a place of trying to get an unmet need met, as we've already talked about. So when we're giving from this place, it leads to this experience and a very true experience of power loss. And we want to, we don't want to be giving from that place, we don't want to be giving and giving and giving and letting it be an energy suck an energy drain, and losing our power, especially during this season of giving. So what is the solution to all of this, and the Bhagavad Gita has a really just beautiful, simple framework, I would say, for the nature of our giving and how to give. And what the Bhagavad Gita is tells us is that we need to be discerning in our giving. And so it tells us that we are giving should be offered freely from the heart to those who are worthy of our giving, at the right place, and at the right time. So let's just look at this one by one really quickly, briefly. Discernment in our giving, is everything we don't want to give to those who can't receive what we have to give, because that doesn't feel good, right? It's that other saying, I'm going to get it wrong, but I'm going to say it anyway. Right? Giving pearls to swine, we don't want to give the best of what we have to those who can't, who aren't ready, willing or capable of receiving what we have to give them. So you are responsible for being discerning, okay, I'm going to give to this person are they, you know, ready, willing and capable of receiving what I have to give to them. And then we have giving it the, the proper time in place. So we want to be sure that we're helping people at the appropriate time. Here's an example, if you're a parent, like I am, our kids are our adults, all adults now, but you know, every once in a while, there's that phone call of hey, I need some money.
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And as much as, as a parent, we want to give and support our children financially and give to them sometimes it's not the right type of giving to give them so we have to be discerning in this right. Is this the proper time to be giving our kids whatever they're asking for. So again, for all intents and purposes, using the example of financial aid, maybe. And this has certainly happened, in my experience, we've had to give our kids that the advice? Well, instead of money, maybe you need to budget your current money a little bit better, why don't you work on your budget for a few months, and then come back to us, and we'll see where you're at then in a few months, or go get a second job. You know, these are some of the things that might help and the type of giving might be advice might be more appropriate giving than financial giving. So being discerning in our giving is very, very important. It's going to save us a lot of energy, a lot of troubles and a lot of heartache, oftentimes. But also we need to be able to give according to our own ability. So we can't give what we don't have, whether it's physically mentally or emotionally, you know, if physically we can't give our time and money if we don't have time and money. I see this happen, though, over and over again, where you know, people will give away their services to other people. It's like why are you giving your services away for free when you don't even have money? Right now what you need is money. So you shouldn't be giving your services away. Maybe you should be thinking about giving something else rather than your services. So that's just an example that came off of the top of my head. But you get the idea. You can't give what you don't have physically you can't give what you don't have mentally sometimes there are people who want your attention want your Attention, want your attention, you don't have the attention to give them. And so you can't give your attention. Don't try to give them your attention, or they need you emotionally. They're emotionally needing your support or care, but you don't have those emotional resources right now. So you need to be honest with yourself, what can you give? Or are you trying to give what you don't have to give? If you're not capable of giving, in any particular moment, it's okay. It's okay to say, No, I can't give right now, put your boundaries Down, set your boundaries. Because the truth is that if you don't set those types of boundaries of boundaries, you're gonna hurt yourself in some way. And of course, when you hurt yourself, you're not being of service to other people. So you're actually not really giving, right? So what needs to happen is for you, if this is true for you to do the work to clean up and heal yourself, before you start to give.
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And then the third thing, and this is the penultimate, this is it. This is the number one thing that you need to do before you're giving to others. And that is to expand your understanding of who you really are, it all comes back to this you guys. And this is the path of the karmic warrior, we return over and over and over again to this theme of Self Realization. Because when you know who you truly are, things change in a big way. Remember earlier, when I said that I can tell really easily when someone doesn't know who they are. There's that litmus test because their actions are a direct reflection of the degree to which they know the truth of who they are. So when you know who you really are, things change in a very, very big and drastic way. When you know yourself as the divine that lives in you through you as you what happens is something quite incredible. And it's something that maybe pretty much all the time people will not be able to see from the outside, it will be undetected from the outside. But on the inside, I can tell you from my own experience, the feeling is that there's no longer this nagging sense that I'm not complete, that I'm not hole that I need to be searching to fill a void. And what happens then, is that very specifically, the desire that comes out of that knowing of the truth of who I am, is this desire to give the fullness of my being, and gift it to those who most need what I have to give. And this is completely different than the type of giving that's given, when we're coming from a misconception of who we are. Because now I actually have this desire to give. This desire to give is coming from a place of feeling whole and complete. And this desire to give is a very specific type of desire. It's the desire to express the fullness of my being, and to gift it very wisely and with discernment to those who most need the gift that I have to give not to everybody, only to those who most need the gift that I have to give. And then something really incredible happens is that giving in this way, leads to that feeling of being connected, it leads to the feeling of being energized, it leads to the experience of joyfulness, and it also leads to this experience to very interesting one, this experience of freedom. So wouldn't you love that for your giving season to be that it's possible, it's possible for everybody. So in closing as we enter into this season of giving, I invite you to give with your eyes wide open, reflect on the ways in which your giving might be coming from unmet needs, in even more fundamental right than that is to look at how you're giving might be coming from a misunderstanding of who you really are, and then do the work that you need to do in order to clean that up, because my deepest wish for you in this holiday season is that you're able to give in a way that leaves you feeling connected. And joyful, because that's what the giving season is all about, or is just what it's supposed to be about. So if for any reason you feel stuck, or need help with this, you know, this is something that a lot of people do feel stuck on. I do offer one on one counseling, which you can find out more about at WWW dot karmic dash warrior.com. Or if you have a therapist or you have a go to person, go get the help that you need. Go get the help that you need. Okay. All right. So, thank you so much for joining me in this episode. I'd
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love to know your thoughts. Leave a comment if you're watching on YouTube. And until next time, stay safe, stay healthy. Stay well and Namaste
Transcribed by https://otter.ai