Helping People Who Don’t Want Your Help
“I just think you should listen to this podcast. It’ll help you.”
That’s what I said a few days ago to someone close to me. I seem to say that kind of thing all the time, to everyone. I’m a helper, a sharer of information. I see your raw potential and I want to help you get there.
The problem with that? Most people don’t actually want your help. They don’t want to be told how they can be better. What about the people who complain to you? Don’t they want to be better? Still probably not. Some people have just learned the habit of complaining, or they like the attention they get from it.
Plus, implying someone could do some work on themselves makes it sound like they aren’t good enough as they are. And it’s a lot of work to make yourself better. People don’t want to do work. And the people closest to you especially don’t want your help. They want you to love them for who they are now. When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like too much to ask huh?
And yet I keep doing it.
Growing and learning is great. It’s a huge part of life. It’s my belief that we all come to earth with lessons to learn. Specific challenges designed to trigger us over and over until we learn to move past the lesson. I’m passionate about growing and evolving. That’s part of why I want to help others.
But it’s not the only reason.
Learning lessons is personal. It’s hard. You have to see, on your own, that there’s even a lesson to be learned. That’s before you can even get started on the work. Then you’ll fail the lesson at least a few times before you realize it was a lesson. And then slowly, you’ll start to catch on sooner. Once at the end, then again in the middle, and eventually you’ll start to catch it before it happens. But even at that point, you might still fail the lesson. Or you’ll finally get it right, only to slip back into old patterns the next time.
The lessons don’t stop because you got it right once. The universe wants to make sure you really learned. You’ll be tested again to make sure.
Change is hard work.
That’s why people only change for themselves, and only when they really want it. When they can’t look away from it anymore and it’s driving them crazy. They can see what they’re doing. They see themselves repeating it and it begins to eat at them. That’s when they change.
Not when their wife leaves. Not when their kids stop talking to them. Not even when it makes them sick sometimes. Only when they can see it, and they really want to change it for themselves. Only then will they try to fix it.
Have you guessed another reason I can’t stop trying to help others learn their lessons? Because that’s my lesson. Well, one of them anyway.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been repeating this pattern. It started as a child with my parents. (There’s a theory that we pick our parents for the purpose of helping us learn our lessons but that’s for another day). But as a child, I’d constantly beg my parents to change, to get sober, to get their acts together, to leave the abusive spouse, be smarter, be better, be more. I was a demanding little thing. I tried to rationalize with them. I tried to guilt them. I tried to bargain with them. None of it worked. And each time I felt this sick, sad feeling in my gut. This disappointment. This gross, dark feeling.
But I would keep repeating this pattern with everyone I know, for decades more. Try to force my help on them, and then feel that sick feeling of disappointment when it didn’t work.
I finally started realizing it after my mom died. There’s nothing quite like eternal sleep to wake you up. I realized a lot of things from going through that. I saw that I had constantly been trying to change her, getting mad at her for not changing, and then refusing to have a relationship with the version of her that wouldn’t comply with my demands.
I could say so much more about that (and do in my book linked below), but for the sake of this topic, I’ll move on. I started to see that she wasn’t the only person I did this with. I did it with my dad before he died, with boyfriends, girlfriends, coworkers, and even my kids. I did this with everyone!
Helping people isn’t a bad thing.
We all have specific talents and we should share them with the world. But we have to know when to share them. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of cooking a big, warm, delicious meal. The meal is nutritious. It tastes amazing. But if you stand outside an all-you-can-eat buffet and try to force it on people, they aren’t going to eat it. They’ll think you’re crazy. They just stuffed themselves and they can’t eat another bite. It doesn’t even sound good. The thought makes their stomach upset. You will feed no one that way. And that’s how I’ve been trying to feed everyone.
But, if you take that same meal, and you give it to someone who’s hungry, someone who can’t cook or can’t afford it right now, they’ll eat it. Not only will they eat it, they’ll taste it. They feel warmed by it. They’ll be nourished by it.
The gift of the meal is beautiful and it can feed people. But you have to feed the hungry, the people who want to eat.
The gift of helping is beautiful. It can change lives. But only if you help the people that want your help.
For years I’ve been doing this and didn’t know. Now I know, and I’m still struggling with it. I’m at the point where sometimes I catch myself before I do it, and sometimes I still don’t see it until after. It would be easy to get discouraged by that. To get mad at myself because I “just can’t seem to get this”. But the truth is, I’m doing much better than I was. I’m thankful I’m getting better at this.
Yes, it’s taking a long time. But there’s no deadline. We all learn as we go, at the fastest rate we can. You can’t even be conscious of it until you are. And by then you’ve probably had decades to solidify those patterns. Years and years of patterns to unravel and unlearn. That won’t be fixed in a week. It may not even be fixed in a year.
So give yourself some grace. Just keep trying and keep noticing. I promise that if you can just do that, you’ll improve.
I’m still learning.
It’s helpful for me to remember what’s getting better as I get better. Why I’m doing this. As I stop trying to force my help on others, I stop feeling that sick feeling. Do you know what I feel when I help someone who wants my help? I feel like magic. I feel like my whole body and soul are lit up. I think I was searching for that feeling. To use my gift. To feel the blessing of blessing others. It just took me a while to figure out how to use the gift.
You know what else is different? The people around me. It’s less pressure. I can feel the pressure reduced. Before I would put so much pressure on everyone. They knew I loved them, but I was going to pressure the hell out of them anyway. Now I hope they feel like I love them as they are in this moment. I love them, and I trust them to wake up to their own lessons in their own time and do their own work.
How prideful of me to think I knew what was best for them. I’m not in control of divine timing. God knows much more than I do about that. And honestly, I don’t want that kind of responsibility. I’m building an atmosphere of trust. I trust them to be who they are and if something needs to change it’s because they think it needs to be changed.
I want the people around me to feel loved. To feel good enough. I didn’t realize they weren’t feeling that before.
That’s why I’ll keep working on this until I really learn it. I will surrender control of others and trust them to figure it out. And I will use my gifts to help the people that want it. It will spark joy for me instead of disappointment. And everyone around me will benefit from this change.
Whatever your lesson is, just know that it’ll get easier. Keep working. It’s worth all this effort. Plus if you don’t learn the lesson in this lifetime, some say you’ll have to repeat it again in the next. And I don’t know about you, but going through this from the start sounds like a no-thanks for me. Haha.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you know someone that’s struggling with this lesson, or another one, please share this with them. I’m not force-feeding my blogs on anyone. But I do write them to help the people searching for it.
If you want to check out the Podcast I co-host, go here:
Growing Up for Adults on Spotify
For my favorite books, and health and wellness products, go here:
And check out the books I authored here:
How to Be Friends with Your Ex
Thanks so much for reading today. I love you and want all the best for you.
