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Listen to the audio description while you read this page about Type 2 — The Giver:
more about the giver
The Giver is focused on fulfilling other peoples’ needs. They believe they’ll get love and connection in this way.
They usually give too much. But they seldom ask for what they want or need. So they get back too little — since others do not have a Giver’s ‘psychic’ ability to see needs. Eventually they break into anger, or just as easily, tears. They, and their partners, get overwhelmed by these emotional outbreaks.
A Giver puts so much energy into gaining connection by giving, that other people see this as too much, out of balance, possibly even manipulative. So others retreat — as the Giver pursues them. Under these conditions, a Giver can be viewed as overly needy or too dependent.
Most relationships encounter discrepancies between one partner wanting to be closer, and the other wanting space. The Giver usually suffers the lack of connection in this classic ‘connection vs. space’ dance. This leaves them particularly vulnerable to feeling rejected and the pain of loss. Their pursuit of connection often will push the other person to need even more space. This polarization process results in both partners suffering.
Personal growth for a Giver is to scale back their strong drive for giving — and reduce their dependency on connecting. Know that love does not depend on altering oneself to fit the needs of others. A Giver will grow if they practice setting boundaries and saying ‘no.’ By spending time alone, they learn to better sense their own needs — and how to fulfill these needs, themselves. A Giver also grows as they begin to directly ask others for what they want.
Lost essential quality: An experience of the essential truth that all needs are satisfied through a universal will, which is greater than that of the individual.
Compensating belief: You must give to receive. To be loved you must be needed.
Attention/coping strategy: Getting your own needs met by being needed and actively giving to others. Focusing attention on others’ needs and repressing your own.
Trap: Obtaining personal fulfillment through meeting other people’s needs.
Driving energy: Pride in being needed, even indispensable. Feeling you know what others need better than they do.
Avoidance: Disappointing people, becoming useless, being seen negatively by important others and being rejected.
Strengths: Generous, sensitive, helpful, energetic.
Paradox: Giving more to others does not bring freedom and fulfillment for yourself, and being cut off from an awareness of your own needs prevents you from obtaining the freedom and fulfillment you desire.
Path of development:
- Pay attention to personal needs and wants
- Learn to receive
- Nurture a separate self
- Develop independence and autonomy
Ultimate task: Realizing that love is not dependent on being needed, and developing a sense of humility that goes with not knowing what to give and being in need yourself.
The basic proposition:
You lost sight of the fundamental principle that everyone’s needs are equally and freely met. You came to believe instead that you must give to get, and to be loved, you must be needed. So you learned to fulfill your personal needs by being needed and by giving others what they want or need, with the hope that they would do the same for you. At the same time, you developed feelings of pride in being indispensable. Your attention naturally goes to others’ needs and desires.
The central issue for healing:
Twos must reclaim their freedom from the tyranny of a need-driven world that only approves of them, and loves them, if they fulfill the needs of others. Developing a separate self, then, becomes a difficult proposition. Since others’ needs and desires are endless, Givers never gain a sense of their own freedom from trying to fulfill them.
To gain freedom you must learn to give what is needed and no more, pay attention to your own needs, and receive from others. You must come to realize that, ultimately, your needs are met by a greater or universal will and that your self-worth does not depend upon being the agent of others’ fulfillment. Then you can give with the pure joy of giving for its own sake, freely and lovingly.
Six healing and growth commitments for Givers:
- Develop and maintain a separate, integrated self
- Practice releasing the pride of feeling indispensible
- Freely give and receive without pride and expectations
- Notice signs of your own repressed needs, paying special attention to any rising emotions as indicators than your needs aren’t being met
- Balance the active force that goes out to others’ needs with the receptive force that allows your needs to be met
- Spend time alone to develop your own interests and a sense of separate self
If the above personality type seems to fit you, we recommend you print out this page for easy reference. We also highly recommend that you listen to the audio description at the top of this page.