This is exactly what makes you such a delightful partner and person to live with, @RickThrivingNow!
What you describe here feels like a Real Skill to me, that nourishes mutual thriving in so many ways… easy to see in family life, but it also goes with the work we do with our clients and in community.
As one of my mentors reminds us often:
“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
When we notice what Resources we have that are uplifting us, helping us heal and thrive, and we share those with others, the whole community feels better.
Mutual generosity is a radically different dynamic than one of competition.
I know that when I keep that in mind, and see what each of us is needing in a given moment (or through the day), it’s much easier to support ALL of our needs getting met, knowing that we’ll all feel better and have more Resource available to continue to nurture our well-Being (as well as our well-Doing, which is best when rooted in well-Being first!).
For instance, I know some families where there’s kind of a competition to be sure that individuals get their needs met – which seems to come from the assumption that others won’t tend to their needs if they don’t aggressively advocate for them themselves… And, from an assumption that there’s a limited amount of Resource available, that one person’s needs “must” be sacrificed to meet another’s, and there’s not enough time/energy to go around… which may seem true, when lacking in Real Skills to replenish their energetic and emotional Resources.
What I’ve noticed is that the better each family member gets at Real Skills, the easier all of family life (& the rest of life!) feels – and, my underlying belief now is that there IS enough energy available to meet all of our needs, which is relaxing in itself, and then tends to prove to be true!
But, if I get depleted, it’s harder to remember that… and that’s when Mutual Generosity is so helpful: I can trust that our needs can all be met, and it gets easier to ask for what I need as we make our agreements, as well as to offer my support to others, since it’s coming from a full (and consistently, consciously re-filling) cup.
Then I feel like I “win” and have enough energy to help others “win” too, which means we all win! Hooray for We-Space!