Offering Vs Agreeing
There is an energetic difference between offering to do something for someone and agreeing out of obligation. Offering is the same as opening yourself to share your time, talents, and joy of sharing a loving gift while agreeing is an obligatory action you make to appease another's vision, which is theirs to fulfill, yet leaving yourself depleted and often projecting frustration. You have a choice.
Transcript
Today's episode is about the difference between offering to do something versus agreeing to do something.
So stay tuned.
Welcome back to the Shift Today with Alison podcast.
My name is Alison Schuhazi,
And it's so nice to be back.
I'm sitting here recording some episodes when it's nice and quiet at my office.
And I'm really excited about this one.
This one might actually hit pretty hard.
So buckle up,
Right?
This is when I'm going to get honest and truthful.
And hopefully,
It will kind of put you in the right place.
And I'm going to peel back some layers for you to see how you feel about this.
So recently,
A friend of mine is retiring from the United States Air Force.
And I'm very excited for him because it's opening up a whole new chapter,
Right,
Of adventure,
Of discovery.
I'm a big fan of change.
I love change.
I know not everybody does.
But through conversations with him,
He was telling us all the different things that goes into arranging a retirement,
Right?
And anyway,
One of the pieces to the puzzle for his retirement celebration is a video looking back the history really of his life and his history in the military.
And he was stressing about putting this video together.
And I'm like,
Well,
Why are you even doing the video?
Well,
Everybody does it.
And it really came out that he really would like to have a video.
And I love to do videos.
I love technology.
I love all the things.
I love to learn about it.
Just there's something in the process that just brings me a lot of joy.
And I thought,
Well,
Let me do your video.
I would love to do the video.
I just think that would be a blast.
I could contribute to his retirement.
I could contribute a gift to my friend,
Right?
Today,
In today's world,
I feel like we have so many gifts.
And I love,
I love to be a gift giver.
But this is a gift that keeps on giving,
Right?
And this is something that he's really wanting.
So to me,
I'm like,
Ooh,
This just would be amazing to provide.
Today I was sitting there,
And I was writing in my journal.
So I'm going to read something to you that I wrote this morning.
I wrote,
There is an energetic difference between offering to do something for someone and agreeing out of obligation.
Oh,
That's just a statement.
But wow,
When I wrote that,
When that hit me this morning,
I'm sitting outside listening to the birds.
And I thought,
Wow,
Where is this coming from?
And then I continued to write and I wrote,
Offering is the same as opening yourself to share your time,
Talents and joy.
Your joy of sharing a loving offering gift,
Right?
So this is something that's loving and offering.
Agreeing is an obligatory action you make to appease another's vision,
Which is theirs to fulfill.
Yet leaving yourself depleted,
And often projecting frustration.
Oh,
And it's typically frustration towards the person that you've agreed to do something for,
Right?
Wow.
And I've done this myself.
I have done this more times than I can tell you,
I have offered many,
Many times to do things that I absolutely have enjoyed doing.
And then there are moments where I can look back on my life now.
And I don't,
I don't do it nearly what I used to,
Where I would agree to do something for someone.
And it would just create knots in my body,
It would create horrible illusionary thoughts.
Illusionary thoughts of this person should be doing this,
This person should be,
They might be thinking this,
This might happen,
Blah,
Blah,
Blah,
All that with a crap and clutter that happens in the mind,
Right?
So why do we continue to agree?
Why is it such a habit for us to continue to agree to do things that we don't enjoy?
We don't want to participate in,
We don't want to create for someone else.
We are allowed to say no to things.
But a lot of times there's guilt,
There's family guilt,
There's self guilt,
There's guilt for our kids,
Our guilt for our community,
Whatever it is,
Right?
But we do have a choice.
We have a choice in what we do.
There was a time I remember when we first moved here to Little Rock.
I didn't know a lot of people,
My kids were just starting elementary school,
One was in preschool,
One was in elementary school.
And there was no PTO and I chose to help start the PTO at our school.
And I was meeting new women and I was,
You know,
Making new friends and doing the thing.
And it was so fun at the beginning,
Right?
Because we're all on the same purpose of creating something beautiful.
And I wanted to,
I offered to help.
This wasn't something I felt obligated to do.
I really wanted to help.
Number one,
I wanted to meet new people.
Number two,
I wanted to be involved with the school to see what it was all about,
Where my kids were spending the majority of their day.
And I just,
I love service.
I love volunteering.
It's just in my blood.
I've always,
Always enjoyed doing it.
So as the time goes on and the years goes on,
And then you get to know personalities and all of that,
It's really interesting.
In my mind,
In the background,
I would be talking to some of my girlfriends.
And they're like,
Oh,
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
It's not going to be good.
It never ends well.
It's just never been a good situation.
I'm thinking,
Well,
I'm having a great situation.
I'm having a great experience.
Until I wasn't.
And then when the experience shifted,
Shifted into a place of obligation,
I kept agreeing.
I kept and continued to say yes to things that I didn't agree and I didn't want to participate.
And it was hard.
And I did push back.
I'm not one just to roll over.
I did push back on many decisions and directions and certain tasks.
But when it became painful,
And it was this pit in my stomach,
And then I would put things off and everything would turn into a last minute hurrah.
And I was constantly picking up pieces for other people who continued to drop the ball.
And I would project,
I would project my frustration,
A lot of it to my husband and a lot of it to my girlfriends who told me not to get involved in this.
And then I woke up one morning and I thought,
I don't have to do this.
This is something that I've agreed to do.
So I'm going to go back and read what I just read you earlier.
Because it was no longer an offering.
It was an agreement.
It was I was agreeing.
So I'm going to read this again to you.
There's an energetic difference between offering to do something for someone and agreeing out of obligation.
Offering is the same as opening yourself to share your time,
Talents and joy.
The joy of sharing a loving offering gift.
And agreeing is an obligatory action you take to appease another's vision,
Which is theirs to fulfill,
Yet leaving yourself depleted and often projecting frustration.
How often do you do that?
Are you doing it at work?
Are you picking up the slack for somebody else?
Are you doing it within your family and offering to host family obligations for someone else when they can do it at their house?
Are you agreeing to be part of an organization just because you feel it's the right thing to do,
But inside it doesn't feel good?
Are you agreeing to do things for your kids that don't feel good to you,
But you think,
Well,
I need to do it for them?
Or are you becoming a mentor and teaching others to do things that feel good for them?
Where does the agreeing and the offering shift for you?
Where I am in my life now,
I love to offer.
I offer when my tank is full,
When I'm excited,
When I do not have any expectations of an outcome.
There's a definite difference.
So before just for today,
Before you say yes to something,
Ask yourself,
Am I offering to do this out of love?
Because it brings me joy.
And I am doing it with the most beautiful intention,
Not needing anything in return.
Or am I agreeing to do this out of obligation?
Because if I don't do it,
No one else will.
The choice is yours.
The choice is yours also to shift today into a greater tomorrow.
Talk to you later.
