When “Being Good “ Becomes Too Much: Unlearning the Over-Giving Reflex

By Julie Lam

We were sitting in another staff meeting. The same voices filled the air, the same few carrying the conversation while others stayed quiet or looked down at their notes, half-thinking about the next class they had to prepare. The hum of busyness was familiar; so was the sense that, once again, the meeting would end with decisions made by the same handful of people. I remember glancing around the table and realizing that, although I was the leader, I felt utterly alone.

I had built the school in Hong Kong more than three decades ago with love, vision, and a fierce desire to create something whole for children. But over the years, my way of leading had slowly shaped itself around one unspoken rule: keep everyone happy. I thought harmony meant success. If someone felt unheard or frustrated, I took it personally. Their discomfort felt like my failure. So I worked harder at being kind, being understanding, being good.

It took me a long time to see that this constant effort to appear good had quietly separated me from the very people I wanted to serve. It was a kind of goodness that required control—a careful managing of emotions and outcomes. I wasn’t being false; I was being careful. But in all that care, something vital was missing: aliveness.

The shift began quietly through a question that kept tugging at me after difficult conversations: Why do some leave me nourished while others leave me depleted? I started noticing what was happening inside me as I listened—how I leaned forward to agree, how my shoulders tensed when I disagreed, how my mind raced ahead to craft the right response. Sometimes I wasn’t really hearing the other person at all; I was listening for how I might fix, smooth, or protect.

That noticing changed everything. I began experimenting with what it would feel like to simply receive someone’s words without trying to manage them. To stay with the discomfort of not knowing. To breathe instead of respond.

When I brought this into our staff meetings, it was awkward at first. We agreed that each person would have a few minutes to speak without interruption. The rest of us would just listen. The silence that followed each person’s words felt heavy, uncertain. I could feel the pull in myself—to comment, to reassure, to make it easier. But I stayed with it.

Then, something unexpected happened. The room began to soften. People who rarely spoke started to share. Others began to listen with genuine interest rather than defensiveness. The energy changed from guarded to curious. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t trying to steer the outcome. I was part of something unfolding on its own.

What I felt in those meetings is hard to describe. It was as if the air itself became clearer. Without anyone pushing or fixing, new ideas seemed to arise naturally—from the space between us. I started to sense that this is what community can be when honesty is safe and no one is rushing to be right.

I can only speak from my own experience, but the more I practiced this kind of listening, the less alone I felt. The need to hold everything together eased. The weight I’d been carrying—of making sure everyone was happy—began to dissolve. 

I saw how my over-giving, my striving to be seen as good, had been a form of control. It looked like care, but underneath it was fear: fear of conflict, fear of not being liked, fear of being misunderstood.

When I let that go, even a little, I began to feel more connected—not because everything became easy, but because it became real. There was space for difference, for emotion, for silence. I found that when I listened without needing to prove or protect, others often relaxed too. Something wiser than any of us seemed to guide the conversation.

I don’t see this as a formula or method, just an ongoing practice—a way of being that still surprises me. I don’t always get it right. Some days I still catch myself trying to manage the moment. But each time I remember to pause, to notice my breath, to listen for what another is truly trying to express beneath their words, I feel that same quiet clarity return.

I’ve come to believe that when honest sharing is allowed to breathe inside a community, inspiration naturally follows. What lives between us becomes a kind of collective wisdom—something no one person could have planned. It’s humbling, and also hopeful.

I’ve also come to see how this links to the over-giving reflex. For years I gave from unconscious fear—fear of not being enough, of being misunderstood, of letting someone down. But when we stop giving from that old conditioning, something softer opens. We begin to receive—ourselves, others, the moment. From that grounded fullness, giving becomes natural again. It’s no longer a performance of care but an exchange of authenticity.

More than anything, people don’t need our perfection; they crave our realness. Our presence. When we bring that, the well we draw from doesn’t run dry—it overflows. And everyone, including us, is nourished.

In that shared aliveness, we discover a deeper sense of freedom—one that keeps unfolding long after the words have ended, empowering each of us to bring more of who we are into the world.

Julie Lam is the creator of The Connected Presence Pathway and author of From the Heart of Childhood: Reclaiming Presence for Connection (available on Amazon) . A leader, parent, and grandmother, she shares the wisdom of listening and presence as pathways to more compassionate leadership and deeper human connection.

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www.julie-lam.com

@thejulielam