~* Are You Caretaking or Are You Being Loving? *~

"How do I know when I am caretaking and when I am being loving?"

We always get asked this question quite frequently. The answer lies in understanding our intent.

• Caretaking

Caretaking comes from the wounded self and the intent behind caretaking is to control. When you are caretaking, you are giving yourself up to do what someone else wants you to do in the hopes of having control over getting approval or avoiding disapproval or anger. When you are caretaking, you are taking responsibility for another person's feelings while ignoring your own. You are taking care of the other person's inner child while putting your Child in the closet. Frequently, you are doing for others what they need to be doing for themselves - which means that you are enabling them.

While it might look loving to be caretaking others, it is anything but loving. It is not loving to abandon yourself. It is not loving to give to get - giving with an agenda to get approval or avoid disapproval. It is not loving to enable others in not taking responsibility for themselves.

• Loving Behavior

Loving behavior toward others always comes from the loving Adult. When you are loving others, you are giving to them for the joy of giving to them. The intent behind the giving is to share your love. You don't need anything from the other person because you are already full of love from having taken loving care of yourself.

There is no agenda attached to loving behavior. How the other person responds is fine, because you don't need anything back, nor do you expect anything back. You are giving for the pure joy of giving and are further filled in the act of giving.

• Care-Giving

Care-giving is a particular form of loving behavior. You are care-giving when you are giving to another what that person needs and cannot do for himself or herself. When you are care-giving, sometimes you do things even though you don't feel like doing them, because you love or care about the other person's well-being. An example of care-giving is taking care of children, even when you have to get up in the middle of the night and don't want to. You are care-giving when you take care of an old person or a sick person - doing for them what they cannot do for themselves.

Sometimes care-giving gives you joy, and other times it is difficult, but it never has an agenda attached. You are being kind because it makes you feel good to be kind - not because you are trying to get something back from the other person.

Often question, "Isn't there a fine line between caring and caretaking?"

No, it is not a fine line at all. There is not a fine line between the intent to control and the intent to be loving to yourself and others. The confusion comes in because the action may be exactly the same. For example, you might make dinner for your partner for the pure joy of giving, or you might make dinner to get approval or avoid disapproval. While the action of making dinner is the same, the energy of it is totally different because the intent is totally different. Food made with love even tastes different than food made out of fear, guilt, or obligation.

When you give from the wounded self with the intent to control, you will eventually end up feeling resentful and used. When you give from the loving Adult with the intent to share your love, you will feel filled in the giving, regardless of how the other person responds.

- By Dr. Margaret Paul

~* Discerning The Loving Heart *~

How often have you had the experience of connecting with someone - a friend or a potential partner - who turns out to be an uncaring person? At first you think this is a really good person, and then down the line you discover that the person is self-centered, narcissistic, angry and uncaring. You wonder how you could be so wrong, and what can you do differently next time?

People have different levels of the willingness to feel others' feelings. Some of us deeply feel others' pain and joy, while other people don't. Some people can recall caring about others' pain and joy from a very young age, while other people remember being concerned mostly with their own feelings and needs.

The people who have chosen the deeper level of compassion are often the ones that become the caretakers, while the less compassionate people become the takers. Caretakers are people who have learned to take responsibility for others' feelings and well-being, while takers are people who expect others to take responsibility for their feelings and well-being and often blame others when they don't take on this responsibility.

If you are a compassionate person who easily feels others' feelings, you might find yourself drawn to people who are in pain. Your compassionate heart naturally wants to help those people who are in pain, not only out of caring, but also because their pain is painful to you. The problem is that this person might not care about your feelings as much as you care about his or hers.

So, how do you become discerning of who has a loving, caring and compassionate heart? The first step is to focus on developing as much compassion for your own feelings as you have for others. Often, very caring people leave themselves out, caring about others far more than they care about themselves. This leaves them vulnerable to becoming the caretaker for someone who just wants someone else to take care of them, and then gets angry when you don't do it "right." If you develop compassion for yourself, you will start to feel much more quickly when someone is not really caring about you. If you are just focused on another's feelings, you won't notice what you feel, and it is your own feelings that allow you to discern caring from a lack of caring.

The next step is to understand and accept that, no matter how caring you are to others, you have no control over how caring others are with you. You can't make someone be caring, and the more you take care of another's feelings and well-being while ignoring your own, the less caring the other will be. The other person becomes a mirror for your lack of caring about yourself.

The more you learn to take full, 100% responsibility for your own feelings, the more another's lack of caring will be intolerable to you. The more you are able to stay tuned into yourself and trust your own perceptions, the quicker you will discern a lack of caring in others. The more you accept your lack of control over getting others to be caring, the quicker you will let go of people who are intent on getting caring but not much concerned with giving it.

It really doesn't take long to discern the loving heart once you have compassion for yourself, trust your perceptions, and accept your lack of control over others. People betray their intention to either give love or to get it, or to give to get, with everything they say and do. With practice, you can learn to discern the loving heart very early in a relationship. If you want to stop recreating the same relationships over and over, then develop your power of discernment.

- By Dr. Margaret Paul