more than seeing....

a rough start of a thought....
bear with me, i'm still unraveling it.
involving giving and seeing.

i was raised to be a giver.
absolutely nothing wrong with being a giver.
it's a great thing.
but i think rarely is it taught how to be a healthy giver.
how to give without giving yourself away.
how to give to yourself too.

that stuff usually tends to be self taught later in life to people raised to be givers.
to givers that have figured out they've given their lives away. then there's usually
pretty good incentive to learn the healthy way.

and while giving is great and important and good and don't stop....just keep it healthy,
there's something involved in the actual act of giving that i'm looking at in a new way.

it's the 'seeing.'

part of being a giver is seeing the other person you're giving to.
you have to see they're having a hard time, or in need of something.
you have to see they want some sort of comfort or company or support.

they go hand in hand.
and it's really a gift you get by accident just by trying to be a good giver.

thing is......just as there's a healthy way to give that you end up teaching yourself later...
it occurred to me this morning that there's a healthy way to see. and maybe that's
not being taught early on either.

a really unhealthy way that can create so many unwanted strings is judging what you see.
oh, you see and you give....but you judge thru it.
your way is the better way, your way is the more whatever way.
your way is right. their way is wrong. but you'll give to them cause you're kind.

ohmygosh.
how icky is that?

and how sneaky is that?
it's the kinda thing that sneaks right up on you.

what got me thinking about it was witnessing it.
just standing back and watching it in someone.
i saw how insidious it can be.
and what it can do to a person and their entire life.

and realizing that i have to really really watch it. because it's sneaky stuff.
it's never put out there clearly as judging.
the one doing the judging would say they were never judging.
they'd be astonished you thought so.
them? they were above that. oh no. they're not judging.
they were too kind and understanding for that.
and they'd never even know they were doing it.
while they did it in spades every day of their life.

ohmygosh.

so this got me thinking about judging people. and how that's way more awful
than i thought. i mean, i thought it was just arrogant, and not cool and icky.

but this morning, i realized how judging people can actually change your entire life.
it can isolate you, it can trick you into believing things that aren't real. and it can
totally totally stunt you.

it sounds so silly, but i got this concept this morning - healthy stuff (like giving and
seeing in a healthy way) grows you and makes you become more.
unhealthy stuff (like giving and seeing in an unhealthy way) isolates you and stunts you.

a basic concept i don't ever want to forget.