I have been slowly discovering a theme that has re-occurred my entire life, one that I have never seen so clearly up until now. I wonder if any of you others might benefit from my thoughts on a deep-seated need to “save” others.
One of my own common themes is the desire to try and help those that don’t really want my help. This seems to come from a deep-seated need to feel “useful” at all times, plus a natural ability to see flaws in others much more clearly than those in myself.
Even in some of my own most desperate moments, when my personal survival was at stake, I have reached out to others to try and “help” them. As they successfully thwarted my efforts, I still stubbornly demanded to be there for them.
I hope you all see the stupidity and arrogance in my efforts. The assumption that I know better than them what needs to happen right now in their lives, especially at a time when my own life is falling apart, is silly. At times it felt like I could only redeem my own life by saving theirs.
It is not as if I did not know that no one can ever really save another’s life. We all must find the strength within to go on living. We must decide for ourselves what our life is worth to us. These can be transformative moments, when our lives do truly change. We may realize on a much deeper level that we want to stay here and try to make a difference.
As I look back over my life, I witness a number of occasions when my stubborn need to “fix” someone else, has actually been my own well-disguised cry for help. These attempts were so well-disguised that I couldn’t even see it myself. It was only when the person I wanted so desperately to help, rejected all of my efforts, that I was then confronted with my own depression, loneliness and anguish. I was forced to look at myself in a new way, and things didn’t look good!
This realization has presented a new kind of freedom to me. I will not ever again try to “help” or “fix” anyone who obviously does not want my assistance. I will love myself instead, and put my energy into those endeavors that improve my own quality of life on many different levels. I will assist only those that love and support me and my efforts in the world, and try to keep myself and those around me as happy and healthy as possible.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
L.L.
I recall a quote from my divorce recovery days “the greatest gift you can give your children is a healthy you”
Save the World, one Soul at a time.
I’ll start with mine.
Brad
In Buddhism it’s called ‘Idiot Compassion’ because you are not giving compassion to the one most in need of it, yourself. Instead you attempt to give what others do not want and resent being offered, help where none is needed.
Think many of us have fallen into this trap, I used to call it ‘rescuing’. Funny thing happened when I stopped trying to rescue others, they found someone else to rescue them. Interesting how that worked:)