Description
Many of us seem to be fixers or pleasers by nature. Wanting to help others is a good thing, wanting to help too much isn’t. The reason is that inadvertently we send the other person a painful message, “I don’t have any confidence in you”. This explains why the person we think we are trying to help reacts defensively to our efforts. The person trying to help often sees him/herself as a protector while the other person sees the “helper” as a controller. Although your motivation to help may be noble, the issue is not whether the person needs help or not, but whether the person believes s/he needs help or not. You can tell by their reaction. If you offer help and you get a defensive reaction they didn’t think they needed help. But if you offer help and they are grateful they did think they needed help.
We can help people, but not everyone about everything. Even Jesus didn’t heal everyone when He was on Earth.
Hopefully this card will be a quick “reality check” for you. In some cases such as health and safety it will be your responsibility to do all you can to “fix” the situation. However in many situations you may realize that you are stressing over something that is not your responsibility to fix. Sometimes, difficult as it may be, we have to let people learn something for themselves, even if it does sting a bit.
Use this card to…
- Help identify what are and are not your responsibilities
- Clarify your boundaries in a given situation with various individuals.
- Be able to lessen your stress by “letting go”
- Challenge your motives
- Lessen your obsessing on something that isn’t your responsibility
