QA222 QUESTION: I feel very inadequate when somebody comes to me for help. My mind gets very blocked and I seem to lose all insight into what’s going on. At the same time, I’m becoming aware of my own inability to really receive and to accept what others give me. I’m very needy and I want people to give to me, but ultimately I resent the giving that I get from other people.

ANSWER: I would say, at this particular juncture, the key for you is your pride – the pride that you want to be really the best and that you want to be superior. The moment that you look at that pride and feel and accept it and see it for what it is, you will see that it fits both aspects – the receiving as well as the giving.

In your giving, there is a very strong feeling that you want to prove your superiority, and it is exactly that which blocks the channel from where the real inspiration flows – the channel of your higher self. For the higher self cannot function with that pride. By the same token, that pride also prohibits the receiving. Because when you receive, you would feel in a position where you are not superior, where you are not in control, where you are not on top of the situation.

It feels almost as if you were humiliated when someone gives something to you. That sense of humiliation comes from the frame of reference of the pride. If there would not be that pride, you would not feel humiliated in receiving. You could be open.

Now, I would advise here that you work on that specifically in groups; that you allow others to give you; that you feel yourself the recipient; that you experience the sense of humiliation and you experience the pride. As this happens, you can then test it, so to speak, to give up that pride, to let the apparent humiliation happen and then see where you come out of it.

Then you can go to the other side, where you can feel yourself giving. Each time there is an opportunity, make the commitment, “I do not want to give for my glory. I want to truly give for the sake of the other person, even if my adequacy or my intelligence or my capacity will never be recognized.” The moment you will make that commitment, something will happen that will open your channel and you will be able to focus.

The more you experiment in that way, on both sides, the more will you center yourself and gain the real security that is lacking, that is absent in you. Because it is absent, you take on a defense of pridefulness. But it is exactly that pride that also prohibits true security and self-esteem.

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