The presentation of the “roadblocks on the path to surrender as a way of life” would not be complete without introducing the third one: helping others in a way that blurs the boundaries between us and them.
For people with spiritual values and sensitive hearts, this may turn out to be not only the greatest but also the most unconscious obstacle to a life led with ease and joy. I know there are so many confusing beliefs regarding helping others, so I am pleased to share what Pamela Kribbe has written below:
“There is one more false god I want to mention that probably takes precedence in your everyday life. This is the pity for your friends, the sharing of the burden with your dearest beings by suffering together with them.
Now you might ask: how could this be an idol? Am I not expected to connect with others, especially those dear to my heart, and help them if I can? What I am talking about is your tendency to connect with the people around you so deeply that, immersed in their pain, their problems, and negative emotions, you lose contact with your own essence and inner peace.
This kind of pity and shared suffering is not your duty, it is not helpful for the other person, and it does not speak to the truth of who you are.
Much of what you call “high sensitivity” is being so open to the energy of other people that it takes away your own. Your empathy (i.e., the ability to feel the moods and emotions of others) in this case is ineffectively balanced by the insight that the negative energies of the other person belong to them, not to you. You do not realize clearly enough that this negativity plays a very important role in the other person’s life and that you can illuminate them through your compassion and understanding, but it serves no one if you suffer with them.
Of course, you would like to see your dear ones leading happy and fulfilling lives (regardless of whether it is a spouse, child, parent, or friend). Perhaps you would like them to feel good and for their problems to be solved. Always remember, however, that the problems they have are their own creations. Problems with relationships, with money, with health, psychological disorders… they all reflect deeply situated conflicts with the soul.
Somewhere deep down, people would like to experience these problems so they can achieve clarity about something. To you, it may look like they are victims, especially if they spin in circles again and again. But often this means they still want to experience some aspects better, and that they are not yet open to your help.
If you try to help them regardless, you will easily become pushy and controlling and will deplete your own source of strength. After which you will exhaust yourself and give up on surrender as a way of life.
By giving too much or inappropriately, you waste energy and bind yourself with chains to the one you are helping. This makes you dependent on the other person for your own well-being. Your emotional energies mix, and this is one of the main reasons for the loss of strength, vitality, and awareness. Few things can drain your energy as easily as a constant sense of duty, guilt, and responsibility for someone else.
To be truly helpful to someone else means that you put your energy into the service of the solution to the problem, not into the problem itself. To do this, you do not need to make yourself small, but exactly the opposite—big. The more awareness and independence you radiate, the more you embody the “energy of the solution” and the more you can mean something to someone else without exhausting yourself.
If you suffer together with them, you only confirm the problem.”
— Pamela Kribbe, Heart Centered Living – Messages Inspired by Christ Consciousness, pp. 22-24
There are quite a few posts on this site about the topic of helping others. This is just another one. But even if it repeats what has been said in previous ones, it does not worry me, because we apply knowledge in practice only when we understand—when we truly understand. And for understanding to happen, we sometimes need to go through many repetitions. Personally, I have rich experience in this regard—not only as a person whose profession involves helping others but also as someone who has been in the role of the recipient of help. Therefore, at this stage of my life, there is no doubt for me that proper helping cannot lead to good results if clear boundaries between the two parties in the relationship are lacking.
I also know that people sometimes really need to stay in the cycle of suffering a little longer than they themselves say or than I, as their helper, would like, but this is also completely in the order of things. What looks like “getting stuck” from the outside becomes clear at a later stage to have been internal ripening. I realized that some people are not interested in quick solutions because they want to go through longer and more roundabout paths to see more and experience more.
And although helping is complex, it is simple at its core because it is based on two basic things: (1) respect for the other’s fate and (2) trust in the other’s personal resources. If these two are missing, what Pamela Kribbe calls a “roadblock” happens, and in the language of psychotherapy—taking on someone else’s responsibility and entering someone else’s territory. And this is not good for either side.
I know this not only from the therapist’s side but also from the other side—as a participant in therapeutic work groups. Every time, I have been infuriated if, while showing my weakness to others, another participant rushed to calm, advise, and comfort me. Even if my reactions are overly strong (I have an Aries ascendant), I believe that any person who respects their inner feelings would not feel good about the intrusion of someone else who devalues them by starting to advise and help helpfully. I truly believe that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and that the most dangerous people are those who fail to realize their internal reasons for why they cannot stand still at the sight of another’s suffering.
Therefore, if it is difficult for you to stand still, with respect and trust toward the other when you see their pain, do not rush to save them, but first ask yourself what is wrong with you. This means something about yourself and your own pain. Also, examine what the healthy boundaries of responsibility are between you and them. At lower levels of mental health (where there are no clear boundaries), people tend to care for their own well-being by first caring for the well-being of the person they are connected to. They believe they can feel good only if the other person feels good first.
But this kind of helping is selfish because it means: “I want you to be well so that I can be well.” Interestingly, these people believe it is exactly the opposite—that it is selfish if they can feel well even when the other is suffering. And because they believe it, they enter others’ territories and start directing others’ “movies.” From such a blending of boundaries, in the long run, things become increasingly confused and intertwined, and in the system of relationships, there is no longer a person who embodies the principle of the solution through themselves. Everyone involved is now unwell.
I truly believe that each of us is responsible for the management of our own planet. Of course, this does not mean that if someone asks for our help, we should not give it. It also does not mean that we should become psychopaths, devoid of empathy. It is about giving, but as an act of free choice and goodwill, and most importantly, if we do not believe that “an aspect of the Divine is helpless without us” (Neale Donald Walsch).
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
