Helping or Rescuing

I could see what people needed in order to heal. Or I thought I could. And I believed that if I simply told them, they would heal.

It almost never worked.

What I got wrong

What I did not take into account was whether the person was ready. Or whether they even saw a need to change.

So apart from it never working, it left me frustrated with myself. I would go away convinced I had said it the wrong way, and that all I needed was a different approach, a better choice of words, one more try.

The words were never the problem.

Reaching out to people to heal them, uninvited, almost never works. And it leaves you both feeling less than you did before.

That is the difference between helping and rescuing, as plainly as I can put it. Helping answers a request. Rescuing goes in without one.

The need does not go away

My deep need to heal has stayed with me, all these years later.

My approach is very different now.

I wait for people to ask.

There are times I will say that I can help, if they would like help. I never go beyond that offer unless they ask to be helped.

When they do ask, I offer some tools to begin their healing.

Then I wait, and watch, and see what effort they put into those tools.

If they make no effort, it simply means they are not really motivated to heal yet. And that is their right. It is their life.

If they make a strong effort, I come back with the same energy and help them.

That is the whole method. Offer once. Wait to be asked. Give tools. Match the effort.

Why waiting is the kind thing

Think about it this way. You cannot help someone with a drug addiction unless and until they make the strong effort to walk away from the drugs themselves. Most people accept that. Most people forget that the same is true of anyone holding on to one of life's challenges.

People stay in pain longer than they should, and usually the reason is fear of the unknown. Better the devil you know. The pain they have has a shape, and the life on the other side of it does not yet. You can describe that other side as clearly as you like. Until they are ready to walk toward it, they will stay where they are, and your description becomes one more thing pushing at them. The Fear page goes further into why the unknown looms so large.

There is a respect question in this as well. Respect for others is a fundamental part of spirituality.

Someone coming to you for healing does not mean they are ready to hear everything you pick up about them. When I sense something confronting, I ask before I say it. Something like: I am picking up a lot of information, some of it may be confronting for you, would you like me to share it with you?

If they say yes, it often opens a floodgate. If they say no, I hold on to what I picked up. Chances are they will ask me at some later point. Some people live with a lot of fear, and facing that stuff before they are prepared for it can cause them unnecessary issues. The Asking Permission page covers this more fully.

What rescuing costs you

We as humans will go out of our way to help those around us, often to our own detriment. Which makes no sense when you think about it.

Society teaches us to give. It teaches almost nothing about looking after yourself. So people give and give until they are in crisis themselves and reaching out in desperation before they drown. Then it can take years to recover, if they recover at all.

None of that makes sense from any point of view.

You cannot give to others if you flatten your own battery. So the first work is loving yourself, so that you give to yourself before you give to anyone else. I am not talking about being selfish. I am talking about balance. When you look after you first, your battery stays topped up, and then you can give unconditionally, because there is something there to give.

There is an energy side to this too. Empaths and healers who come away drained are giving away their own energy, and the person they are with feels better at their expense. Your energy is meant for you. You are not a battery charger for other people.

That drain usually comes from connecting through the heart, because the heart is where our caring and love come from, so it is where most of us connect from without thinking. It also opens you to taking on their negativity, so you come away drained and burdened by what is going on in their life. The Healing Through the Crown page and the Body Energy page show you how to stop the leak.

You cannot finish someone else

Some of us spend years trying to complete another person. We pour ourselves in, hoping that if we love them enough, fix them enough, wait long enough, they will finally be whole, and so will we.

You cannot complete someone else's circle. You can only complete your own.

That is the heart of the Full Circle and Half Circle Relationships page. The work of becoming whole belongs to the person who has to do it.

Then there is the banana. You cannot bite into a banana and be angry that it is not an apple. A lot of rescuing is trying to see an apple in someone we know deep down is a banana, waiting for them to become the person we can see they could be. They are who they are. What you get to choose is who you share your energy with.

What helping looks like

None of this means walking past people.

Most of the people around you are not in a great place, and society teaches them to pretend they are. Ask someone how they are and you get "Good, and you?", because that is the unwritten rule.

So ask again, and mean it. Something like: how do you really feel? I care about you, and I hope you feel safe enough to tell me what is going on inside you.

Then listen. Make that person your whole focus, with the intent of learning about them as a human being. Ask questions to understand their feelings. Tell them back what you heard, so they know they have been heard: this is what I have understood from what you said, is that right?

Sometimes all a person needs is someone to listen, and a hug.

That is helping. You opened a door, and they chose to walk through it.

Listening like this also kick starts your empathic abilities, which the Empathy page picks up.

Something to sit with

Who are you trying to rescue right now?

Did they ask?

And how full is your own battery while you do it?

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.

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