The Cup or the Cart?
Two very different ways to serve
They drive three hours to sit with a friend in crisis and doesn’t think twice.
She adds free sessions “just because” and holds space for a client’s breakdown at 11pm and calls it part of the work.
He hasn’t paid himself a real salary in two years, but he’ll Venmo a colleague who’s struggling before the coffee gets cold.
I know them.
I have been them.
And here’s what I want to say — not to scold, not to diagnose, but to witness:
That capacity? That devotion? That genuine concern for other people’s wellbeing?
It’s extraordinary.
And it got weaponized
Your giving is not the problem. The giving is, in many cases, the most alive part of you — the part that recognized a long time ago that your gifts were meant to move through you and into the world, not to sit still and accumulate.
The system didn’t create your generosity.
It found it, identified it as a liability to your sovereignty, and put it to work — for free.
But here’s what makes me excited to get out of bed every morning….
There’s a version of you that gives because the cup is overflowing. Because the work flows from genuine abundance. Because service is a soul contract, not a survival strategy. Because you have poured so deeply into yourself — financially, emotionally, energetically — that overflow becomes ordinary and you get to serve from the saucer.
But there’s the other version most of us learned.
The one where giving is the price of being loved.
Of being safe.
Of proving you’re one of the good ones who isn’t in it for the money.
The cup overflows with joy.
The cart carries the weight of expectation.
The tragedy is that from the outside, they look identical.
Same actions. Same warmth. Same love.
Completely different nervous systems.
Completely different bank accounts.
This is why Martyr Math is so insidious. It doesn’t feel like self-destruction. It feels like devotion. It feels like integrity. It feels, sometimes, like the holiest thing you do.
Until the work you love starts to feel like a sentence you’re serving.
Until you’re three sessions deep into a package you undercharged for, and the client is thriving, and you are quietly disappearing.
That’s Martyr Math. Running exactly as designed. On your time, in your body, at your expense.
So how do you know which one you’re in?
Not by the action. By the sensation.
Overflow feels like: Thank you, more please!. Expectation feels like: the ask was never spoken but I heard it anyway.
Overflow feels like: my generosity is an expression of my abundance. Expectation feels like: the story I tell myself about what kind of person I am.
The question to ask yourself — in your body, before you quote the rate or add the session or absorb the cost — is not “should I give this?” It’s: “Is this cup or is this cart?”
Your body knows. It knew before you finished reading that sentence.
Here’s what the cup makes possible:
The same generosity. The same devotion. The same capacity for care.
But now rooted in surplus instead of sacrifice. From a full cup, not a heavy load.
That’s what serving from the saucer actually means.
Not that you wait until you’re perfect or completely unburdened.
Not that you become someone who gives less or loves smaller.
But that you stop bleeding out and calling it holy.
The difference is not your values. Not your character. Not even your capacity for care.
The difference is whether your cup is full.
And building the business that actually resources you, that funds the giving instead of financing it with your depletion, is not a betrayal of your generosity.
That’s the whole equation. Full cup. Overflowing saucer. Generosity that doesn’t cost you the thing that makes you generous.
Tomorrow we follow the money. Specifically yours — and where it went without a fair exchange.
Reflection Questions
What is one place in your business where you are financing your generosity with your own depletion?
What would your giving look like if your business fully funded it?
When did service become a survival strategy — and what would it feel like in your body to make it a soul contract again?
Daily Affirmations
I know the sensation of overflow. I build my business to thrive there.
I see myself fully funded, fully devoted, serving from a saucer that never runs dry.
I speak my real number, my real need, my real capacity — fully, cleanly, and with sovereign certainty.
I love so fully from surplus that my generosity becomes its own kind of wealth.
I expand into the funded version of myself — resourced, devoted, and alive.
I trust the saucer. I trust the overflow. I trust that filling myself first is the work.
I am the signal. My fullness is the frequency. My giving flows from here.
PS. Profit is Protest and so is refusing to call your self-abandonment holy. The generous heart in you was never the problem. The underfunded container it was poured into was the problem. Stop pushing the cart. Fill the cup. Let it spill from there.
Whew. Hearing you talk about Martyr Math has me recognizing it more and more. Thank you. Also, these affirmations! ❤️🔥