The Fake Giver

Just when you think you've figured life out, whap! You get slapped up-side the face with a new one--least that's how my life seems to be... I've learned that there is yet another type of person in the world who will trip you up on your way to your life of bliss, and that is THE FAKE GIVER.

The Fake Giver is one who pretends to be a giver, much like the malignant narcissist who flatters during the idealization stage. The Fake Giver pretends to be on your side, like they care about you, like they have empathy, like they have mounds of generosity in their soul, only to grab everything back like a stingy miser once they have you fooled.

The Fake Giver hooks you with the pretense that they care about you. If you're a giver like me, you are prey to people who will use and abuse you using covert tactics where they dangle the carrot of promised return in front of your face. Unfortunately, the return never comes and if you're naive to these types, you may end up with a negative balance of your own self esteem and removed from the path towards your highest good.

The hook is the way The Fake Giver pretends, fawns over you, offers you a ride, likes one of your photos on Facebook, sends you flowers, helps you move, calls every day... These actions are trust points that weaken your defenses and leave you open as easy prey for the unscrupulous pretenders out there.

Just being generous is not enough to prove one to be a Fake Giver. It's hard to decipher who is real and who has an agenda to steal your mojo.

• Overly enamored with you early on in relationship - If it's too good to be true, it usually is.
• Gives and then pulls back - This is intermittent reinforcement. 
• Says things to get you to fall in love with them.
• Gives you products to entice you to purchase something.
• Pretends to be your friend, but has secret agenda.
• Makes offers to make themselves look good, while knowing that you would never accept.
• Buys you gifts or does selfless things for you without your reciprocation. (won't last)

Intermittent reinforcement is a powerful manipulative tactic that is used by The Fake Giver to gain control over his or her victim. They give, give, withdraw, give, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, give, withdraw. This process makes engaging with them more like a slot machine in Las Vegas than a human to human interaction. You never know what you're going to get. It's human nature to "protest" or turn toward those who turn away, especially when you're in a close relationship. That's how our attachment system is wired. This is the starting point of addiction--addiction to takers and other toxic types.

The Fake Giver uses your love, kindness, compassion, empathy and neediness against you. He or she hooks you with intermittent reinforcement and other manipulative techniques. Before you know it, you find yourself obsessed with gaining the attention of one of these selfish weasels. Learn to recognize the Fake Giver. Start by confronting the lies during the emotional abuse grooming process (early on) to prevent being taken off track.

Let Go of Control

One of life's greatest challenges is reaching the place where you know, with your whole being, that Spirit is supporting and guiding you toward the highest good of your soul. When you know this, you finally let go of control - you let go and let God. This is challenging because the ego wounded self does not want to let go of control, and will take every opportunity to undermine your knowingness. Awareness of this inner battle is essential to healing.

~ InnerBonding

A codependent person is one who has a need to control everything and everyone around them. Codependency is a disease that is fostered by our society. Underlying the maladaption is the belief that you can't trust life; that you can't trust anything... that you must work hard to make people like you, to hide who you really are, to keep from getting hurt. The internal message of codependency is that you are not enough--you must do a bunch of extra stuff to get your needs met. What happens is you end up with a tangled mess. It makes a person indirect, controlling and manipulative.

I used to be a controlling type of person. I didn't think I was. It didn't seem like I was controlling. Back then I thought controlling was when you tell other people what to do, but that's not always the best sign of a controlling person. A controlling person can be passive or outright. It's all about how you view your effectiveness in life. Whether you believe you are enough just being you, or that you are inherently flawed.

Examples of Codependent Control

• Removing a friend from your life because your crush thinks she's pretty.
• Buying a friend expensive gifts, giving them stuff or paying for everything.
• Talking behind someone's back about an offense rather than confronting directly.
• Settling for a guy you don't respect in order to be in a relationship.
• Spending time scheming to prevent some connection from happening between others.
• Denying your own need to be respected by hiding some truth about yourself.
• Being friends with someone you don't like in order to get near another person.
• Spending energy concocting ways to get another person to like you. 
• Having an agenda of any kind in relationship.
• Being friends with someone to learn secrets to advance yourself. 
• Enabling a drug addict or alcoholic in their addiction.
• Playing the martyr.  
• Being upset when someone doesn't like you or isn't into you.
• Hanging onto someone who is not hanging onto you.
• Being in love with an unavailable person. 
• Hiding who you really are out of fear others won't like you.
• Not liking another person because he or she is friends with someone you don't like.
• Trying to get your girlfriends or mate not to like someone because you don't like them. 
• Sacrificing your values to make money or advance yourself socially. 
• Excluding others from your life out of fear that he/she may take what's yours.
• Being suspicious of the motives of others.
• Thinking that the world is out to get you so you better "get yours" however you can. 
• Punishing someone to get them way they're supposed to act.
• Acting fake in order to fit into a group.
• Pretending not to like another person just to fit in.
• Not telling your hair stylist that you dislike your color so as not to make her upset. 
• Feeling worthless because another person doesn't recognize your fabulousness. 
• Spending too much time worrying about how another person feels when you've set a boundary for yourself.
• Doing things to make people like you.

What are some other ways of controlling behavior? Manipulation? How have you used these tactics to control outcomes in your life? How have others used these tactics to control you?

REALITY CHECK: You can't control anybody or anything. Thinking that you can is mere delusion.


Today I am healed from the bulk of my codependency issues. Along with the healing has come a naturalness and beingness that is more spontaneous and less fake. I do things today in real time instead of out of a false self or wounded ego self that's trying to hide who I really am. Today I know that I cannot control outcomes and anything I can control is not something I want anyway. My worth doesn't come from other people and what other people do is none of my business.

Loving yourself involves light, easy action that ebbs and flows spontaneously in the moment; it doesn't cling tightly to anything outside, but simply enjoys all that comes and goes. Loving yourself means that you accept reality for what it is, and you trust yourself to handle all that happens with grace, class and finesse. You know that everything in life is for your highest good. You go with the flow. You no longer need to hang onto people, places or things in order to give yourself value.

Facing the fact that I was actually controlling and manipulative was hard. Nobody wants to admit that about themselves. But like Dr. Margaret says above, letting go of control is essential to healing. You don't have to orchestrate situations. Just live spontaneously. Let go and let God. 

Connection

The problem is that we cannot authentically connect with another unless we are connected with our authentic selves. If we are not defining ourselves from within, then we consistently attempt to define ourselves eternally, by doing whatever we can to have control over getting love, approval, attention, sex, agreement, and so on. We confuse true connection with the momentary good feeling that comes from getting what we want from another. We think that relating to another from the wounded ego part of ourselves and getting what we want to feel externally validated is connection. It is not.

Connection with another is a mutual experience of sharing our authentic selves with each other and each receiving caring, understanding, and support - the mutual feeling of being received and cherished for who we each really are. It is truly one of the highest experiences in life. But this wonderful experience is not possible unless we are both able to share as our authentic selves. It is only when we are deeply connected with our own feelings, our own thoughts, and our own inner knowing/spiritual guidance that we can authentically share ourselves. 


Dr. Margaret Paul

Fear or Love?

"Notice if your feelings & actions are coming from thoughts of fear or of love."
~ Dr. Margaret Paul 

If your actions are coming from a place of fear, then examine closely. you are likely feeling the need to control the perception that other people have of you. If you're operating from a place of fear, you are like an empty void, sucking up all that is around you. Fear is a place of need, a place of emptiness, hopelessness and insecurity. What are you afraid of? Examine:

• Afraid the truth will come out that you are not worthy of love, that you are not enough?
• Afraid that your relationship will end because there is no way you can ever be happy?
• Afraid that your loved one will leave you?
• Afraid you will be exposed in your weakness?

And if any of these fears form the core of your thoughts and feelings, you will have distinctly different actions and interactions than if you come from a place of love. What's more, you will likely end up getting the very thing you feared--rejection from the other person. This is because fear breeds rejection. Fear is the ultimate rejection of self; it is a lack of faith in your own efficacy in life. Fear breeds what it tries to hedge.

Fear Takes

Another issue alluded to above is the need to control. When you are in fear, instead of operating out of the purity and wholeness of love, you end up trying to control outcomes. This control takes on various manipulative forms. This control wreaks havoc on your relationships because it is indirect, non-authentic and a mask of who you really are and how you really feel. A person who is in fear may pretend to be super-strong, get super-angry, withdraw and/or hold affection. Fear causes you to engage indirectly, and may cause you to seek reassurance in those around you--the black hole effect.

Love Gives

But when you come from a place of love, it is a different story. Love offers up itself in truth and beauty. Love is not trying to GET anything in return--I learned this from Dr. Margaret Paul's teachings. Love doesn't need approval, doesn't need to make excuses for itself, doesn't need anything. Love is the opposite of fear because fear takes but love gives. Fear hides but love uncovers.

The key is being mindful during your interactions. Asking the right questions at the right moments can help you figure out where you're heart is and allow you to adjust your positioning in order to protect your precious relationships. Remember: Love builds, encourages and gives; fear destroys, rejects and takes.

Which will you choose this day?
 

Jenna R.

Power & Control Wheel

Control vs. Loving Action

Today, put two sticky notes wherever you are that say: "What am I trying to control or avoid?" and "What is the loving action toward myself - what is in my highest good?" Whenever you feel any stress, ask these questions and allow the answers to come through you from your higher Self.
Are you aware of how you treat yourself that causes some of your stress?

Dr. Margaret Paul, Inner Bonding

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This week, be on the lookout for the overt and subtle ways you try to control your feelings and control others feelings and actions. Take all judgment off being controlling so you can learn. How do you avoid your feelings? How do you try to get others to like you or do what you want? While the wounded self believes controlling bring safety, it actually causes much distress within yourself and within relationships, so noticing it gives you the opportunity to be loving to yourself and others rather than controlling.  

Dr. Margaret Paul, Inner Bonding

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Anger at others is often a projection of some way you are not taking loving care of yourself. Use your anger to learn, not to avoid.

 

Dr. Margaret Paul, Inner Bonding

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