A look that is impossible to ignore
My dog Jack has a look that is impossible to ignore.
When he sees me eating, he looks at me with a mixture of pleading and tenderness that seems to say:
“Please, give me a little… just one bite. Look how cute I am.”
And sometimes I cannot resist.
Other times I can. But it’s not easy.
This doesn’t only happen with my dog.
It also happens with people.
Often I give even before someone asks me. Sometimes, just by sensing that someone might need something, I am already trying to offer it.
And although it may look like an act of kindness… it is not always that.
In many Gestalt therapy and personal growth processes, learning to observe why we give so much can open very deep questions about the way we relate to others.
When giving stops being a free act
Thinking that I know what the other person needs without them expressing it can actually be a subtle form of arrogance.
And if I also feel that I must give in order not to be rejected, then I am not being generous:
I am acting from fear.
This theme appears very often in therapeutic processes and in work on relationships.
Because giving can be an act of love…
or an unconscious strategy to secure the bond.
The trap of “generosity”
Recently I spoke with an older woman who financially supports her son, her daughter-in-law, and her daughter-in-law’s children.
She gives everything she has, even when it creates conflict with her partner, who disagrees with the situation.
From the outside it may look like a selfless act.
But the important question is another one:
What lies beneath that impulse to give?
Sometimes we give out of love.
Sometimes we give out of need.
And sometimes we give because we feel that if we don’t, we might lose the relationship.
What is behind your impulse to give?
I ask myself the same question.
In my childhood I learned — or interpreted — that if I was not useful, if I did not help, people might do without me.
No one said it exactly like that.
But that is how I understood it.
And that learning stays with us.
Then giving stops being a free act.
It becomes an unconscious strategy to avoid abandonment.
These patterns often appear in Gestalt therapy processes and in work on self-esteem and relationships.
Giving from fear or from freedom
The key question is this:
If you were not afraid of being abandoned, would you still be generous?
Maybe yes.
Maybe no.
What matters is that you can choose.
Because when you give from freedom, your generosity becomes authentic.
There is no debt.
No strategy.
No hidden condition.
Only a genuine act of giving.
A path toward freer relationships
Gestalt counselling helps you look honestly at what moves your decisions, your gestures, and even your silences.
Not to judge you.
But so that you can recover the freedom to choose from yourself, rather than from fear.
When that happens, relationships stop being sustained by need…
and begin to grow from presence and freedom.
If you feel that the time has come to live your relationships with more clarity and inner freedom, this process may support you.
