Selfless Generosity

Think about times you have been generous but have not received a thank you. If you are like me, you may feel cheated, thinking I can’t believe you didn’t appreciate what I did for you or what I gave you. In those cases, the reward we get from being generous doesn’t come from the joy of making someone’s life easier or happier. It comes from the recognition we get from people noticing our benevolence. We are more focused on what we get back, than the process of giving.

According to Judson Brewer, there are three types of generosity:

1. “The Transactional Loop: Giving because our old, impulse-driven brain expects a dopamine hit back (expectation, praise, status, a reciprocal gift).
2. The Guilt Loop: Giving because we “should” or feel guilty when we don’t.
3. The Selfless Loop: Giving where the reward is instant, internal, and non-contingent”

That opened my eyes about my motivation for generosity. A friend sent me a link to order snacks for her classroom. My thought was I don’t want it sent to the school, I want to bring the snacks in with me. Oops, I was caught in the transactional loop. Often on retreat they ask for dana, a donation for the teacher. When I start calculating how much I “should” give, I see I’m caught in the guilt loop. When my grandson asks me to play with him, and I begin to play, the reward is instant. Even if I’m not thrilled with whatever we are playing, I feel good because my grandson is happy.

So, this holiday season, I thought it would be helpful to explore the different types of generosity, so we can clearly see where we are at, and where we want to go.

The Transactional Loop

This is the “Give to Get” model. I will give you this and you will thank me.  I will help you out and you will owe me a favor. I will do this for you, and you will like me. If I give a better gift then so and so, they will like me more. When we are in the transactional loop, we are keeping score.

We learn this transactional loop the same way we learn to crave sweets or social media “likes”: the Trigger -> Behavior -> Reward (T-B-R) Cycle. The trigger is the cue that you need to do something for someone or give something to someone. The behavior is the action or the gift. And the reward is usually an external payoff; a thank you or looking good in front of others. The problem is that the dopamine doesn’t fire for the good deed, it fires for the reward you get for doing the good deed. (Dopamine is a motivator, not a feel-good molecule.) We give-to-get in order to get an external reward for our behavior. Keep in mind, we have no control over assuring that external reward actually happens.

Sometimes we learn that giving is painful because the external reward fails to materialize, and that makes us less generous. But we're always hoping for a reward. It's like a slot machine. You don't always win, but you're hoping for that win. So, we keep hoping for that reward and we start clinging to it, I need to get that reward. I need to give something more. I need to do more for this person so that they will acknowledge me and tell me what a great person I am. Whereas I maybe could give them the whole world and they would never respond. But we cling and we kind of become addicted.

Anybody a people pleaser? Yeah, that's what we're doing when we're people pleasing. We're not necessarily doing things for people out of the goodness of our heart because we want to make their life happier or easier. We're doing it because we want them to like us. We want to look good to them. We want people to say, “Oh, you're such a wonderful person. You're so helpful.” But that doesn't always happen. As a matter of fact, people pleasing often backfires because they start just expecting you to do all that stuff. You're never going to get the reward you're looking for, no matter how much you do it. Because people just get acclimated to, oh yeah, Gloria will do that, no problem. Yeah, she did it again, great. You know, that's what we expect out of her. I'm trying and trying to get that external reward. And guess what? It's just not gonna come.

Reflection

Think of a time you gave something and didn’t receive the thanks or recognition you expected. What did that experience reveal about your motivation for giving?

The Guilt Loop

The “Give to avoid Guilt” model is based on the expectation that you give, whether you want to or not. Think about how you feel when you pass a homeless person and you don’t give. Or when you see the Salvation Army bell ringers as you walk into a store. Or you’re at the store and you're buying something and they say, do you want to round up? And you don't really want to round up, but you feel like you have to round up. So, you do and you don't feel very good about it. You feel like you're kind of taken advantage of. I feel the same thing when I go, and I pick up a carry out and they ask me to put a tip on there. And I’m like, really? I feel like I have to give a tip, but we didn't use to give tips for carry outs. Why are you forcing me to give something that I don't really want to give?

“How does the shame/guilt generosity feel? It shares some of the same qualities as the give-to-get generosity in terms of itchy, restless urgy, feel, yet also has a get me out of here quality to it. This is negative reinforcement because we’re doing something to avoid or lessen an unpleasant feeling or situation.” Judson Brewer

When a homeless person is panhandling, I can't wait until that light changes so I can drive on by and get rid of the itchy, restless, urgy feel. When we give out a guilt, just like when we give to get, the giving doesn't really feel that good. It is not very rewarding.

Often on retreat they ask for dana, a poly word meaning donation for the teacher. And when they do so, I start calculating: how many people there are here and how much should the teacher be getting and what percentage should I be giving? And that's kind of the guilt loop. You know, I have to give because that's what's expected at a retreat. But I'm not doing it just out of the goodness of my heart, I'm doing it because it's expected and I have to do it. I’m not thinking I really got something valuable from this teacher, and I want to show them my gratitude by being generous. Gratitude and generosity are really closely linked.

Reflection

What physical or emotional sensations tell you that you’re giving to avoid guilt rather than from generosity?

The Selfless Loop

With the first two types of generosity, we either want something in return, or we want to avoid something unpleasant. The alternative is giving with no strings attached. It is about the act of giving, not the outcome. We are not only letting go of the item we give, but we are also letting go of any expectation of an outcome. Why would we give and get nothing in return? Because the reward we feel when we focus on the act of giving is reliable and it feels good.

“Using the framework of reinforcement learning, the same way we break down food or smoking cravings, we’ll see that transactional and guilt-based generosity relies on a fragile, external dopamine signal. Selfless giving, however, uses an ancient system that generates a purer, more sustainable internal reward, potentially bypassing the craving cycle entirely.” Judson Brewer

How to we train ourselves to give selflessly? The same way we form or quit habits, the three-stage reward loop: Trigger, Behavior, Reward. The Anguttara Nikaya, an ancient text from the Pali Canon, describes the internal reward sequence of generosity: “The donor, before giving, is glad; while giving, his/her mind is inspired; and after giving, is gratified.”

The Trigger relates to before giving. Instead of trying to get or get rid of a feeling, the trigger is a feeling of love, appreciation, and just wanting to improve the life of another. The Behavior is we leaning into the act itself and not concerning ourselves with what we might get from our behavior. The Reward comes after giving. When we give selflessly, the behavior is our reward. The reward is reliable and instantaneous. We don’t have to depend on the receiver for the reward. When the generosity is genuine, not about us, it feels good. If you are not getting gladness, inspiration and gratification, your generosity may not be selfless. Your brain is still waiting for an external reward.

“When we are practicing generosity, and it does not bring happiness and joy, we should pay close attention to our motivations for giving...” Gil Fronsdal

While you are not looking for a reward with selfless generosity, you receive one.  And your brain learns from rewards. Once you discover how much better selfless giving feels, you’ll do it more and more. It eventually becomes a habit. The distinction in selfless giving is that you experience a reward without wanting one. So, you activate the “liking neurotransmitter system” instead of the “wanting one”. Thus, you enjoy giving, but you don’t crave the rewards that giving can bring.

To train our brains to favor the robust “generosity circuit” over the fragile craving loop, Judson Brewer says it begins with getting a taste of it. First, become aware of your intention. Notice whether you are looking for something in return or trying to avoid something unpleasant. Clearly seeing your intention loosens its grip if it is bitter and strengthens it if it is sweet.

Notice each time you're generous, are you looking for something in return? Are you trying to avoid something unpleasant? Simply being mindful whenever you give of what was your intention? What was your intention in holding the door? What was your intention of helping someone move? What was your intention of giving this gift? And if we constantly ask ourselves what our intention was, we'll start to see more clearly what's going on and we'll see where our generosity is really at.

Reflection:

How easy or difficult is it for you to identify your intention before giving? What clues help you notice which loop you’re in? How might your giving habits change if you consistently checked your intention before giving?

Second, practice gratitude. When we remind ourselves of all that we have, we see what we have to give. The second thing he says we need to do is practice gratitude. When we remind ourselves of all that we have, we see what we have to give. When we feel like we don't have enough, when we're in a feeling of scarcity, we're not going to give. Yes, there's a lot of people who are very poor who are willing to give to others, but they're just not caught in that feeling of scarcity. By practicing gratitude, we look and see what a great life we've had, we feel more abundance. And when we feel more abundance, we feel more open to giving.

“Gratitude... is the foundation of all generosity. I am generous when I believe that right now, right here, in this form and this place, I am myself being given what I need. Generosity requires that we relinquish something, and this is impossible if we are not glad for what we have. Otherwise, the giving hand closes into a fist and won’t let go.” Sallie Tisdale

 And third, the habit of selfless giving is formed through repetition. Practice small acts of giving without looking for a return over and over again. Practice random acts of kindness. Take the time to make eye contact and smile at strangers. Hold the door open.

If you start with just the little things, holding the door, smiling at someone, saying hello to someone, asking someone if they need help with packages, all these little things that we can do that we have the time to do and we have the ability to do, but a lot of times we just don't bother. But if we start doing them and we see that our actions that are improving the life of someone else really does make us feel good. So, we do that over and over and over. And every time we do it, we strengthen the neural connection of selfless giving. Remember, we've talked in the past about neural connections. Every time we give out a guilt, we strengthen the neural connection of giving out of guilt over and over until we finally say, I've had it, I'm not doing this anymore, washing my hands of it. But we've done it over and over and over until we finally are fed up with it.

If we're giving to get something, to get some kind of reward, we do it over and over. And every time we do it, we strengthen that neural pathway of, I've got to do things for people or they won't like me. And then we believe that. And that belief gets stronger and stronger the more we do it.

But if we just start with random acts of kindness, we're starting to strengthen the neural pathway of selfless giving. I'm just doing things to make people happy.

Reflection

What small, repeatable acts of generosity could you practice to build the “generosity circuit”?

 Remember, the more clearly you see your mind’s grasping for an external reward, the less attractive it becomes. Asking yourself, “Am I getting my reward?” feels unpleasant. And if you are trying to avoid guilt, there’s a contracted, clenched feeling to it.

“Your mission should you choose to accept it: Try one act of selfless giving today. Or throw caution to the wind and do more than one. Pay attention to the feeling before, during, and after. Did you feel the warm glow, the sweet taste of not needing anything in return? If not, investigate the motivation, and see what you can learn simply by exploring how rewarding the different types of generosity are. Find that hint of bitter so that you are less likely to add it to your own mix next time.” Judson Brewer