I care about you, that's why I want you to change, what you are doing is wrong, I can help you, you should do things otherwise, that person does not suit you. These and other phrases are part of our daily communication. We are constantly seeing people who make mistakes, who can completely ruin their lives and believe that it is our obligation, duty or mission to save them. We can start with the idea of talking to them and making them come to their senses, to acknowledge their mistake and tell them that "it is for their own good", but they seem to not understand what we are trying to say and instead they bother us.
And we have grown up having particular beliefs about how life should be lived, we have prejudices about the right and wrong way to live. We want to be people's saviors even if they don't want to be saved. We are taking responsibility for the life of the other even if he has NOT asked for it. We believe that we understand the problem of the other better than himself and therefore we try to solve it from our perspective of life.
All this necessarily leads us to suffering, since that other one often does not want to change, he feels in a comfort zone with that situation and does not see problems where we are seeing him. From this point of view, trying to help him becomes impossible, because who wants to change his comfort zone if he is not aware that he is in the middle of a mistake? No one can be helped while not asking for help . There are people who are not even interested in hearing our opinion but in the meantime we are wasting our energy and our life trying to change a reality that is not ours and that it is not for us to change.
We see other people who, although they know they are making a mistake, do not want to change, for fear or for whatever reason. So our fight is still an impossible company. And if they decide to change at some point, it will be under their views and not ours. Either way, we are interfering with the evolutionary process and bringing anxiety into our lives.
The problem is surely in us who do not assimilate the process of the other. In reality, everything we think and say may be right for our own lives but not for the other's. It's like going to buy a pair of shoes for someone else but trying them on our own feet; Even if they are the same size, they may not fit your particular feet. Everyone has traveled a different path that makes him see the experiences from a different point of view, we are not allowing him to learn the lesson that life has for him and above all we are being arrogant, believing that our way of life is correct and The other is not.
"Do not look at the straw in the eye of others, if not the beam in your own"
We are living so outside of us that we see each other's mistake but not ours. Maybe what we see in the other is something that is calling us to change within us. The other's mistake is a mirror of our own being. Ask ourselves, what is inside me so that I can see so much that I see outside? When there is a problem within us that we cannot face either because of fear, shame what we do is project it on the other. This is the way our unconscious mind defends itself as a way to maintain its stability. But in reality everything we see in others, whether good or bad, belongs to what exists within us. When we talk about the other we are talking more about ourselves than about the other person, we are showing our lacks and limitations. So before trying to help others, we must become aware that this situation that is affecting me outside is just a sign that something is not right within me.
It is in that moment of recognition of myself that the problem of the other ceases to bother me and I begin to make changes for my personal well-being. Maybe when I finish solving what affects me inside me I can see that what bothered me outside no longer has any effect on me, or that the other has seen my change and this has motivated him to change. When we heal ourselves, we heal others. When we try to heal others without having done so we generate discomfort in others and in myself.
The advices
Giving advice that has not been requested will only bring us problems and even if they ask us for advice, this will also put us in difficult situations. By giving advice we are looking at things from our point of view and not from the life story of the other . When we give advice, we are not in the shoes of the person who is living the situation, we are just trying to see the situation of the other person, no matter how empathetic we may be and even if we try to put ourselves in the Instead, the decision and the responsibility belong to the person who is living the situation and nobody else. The one who accepts the advice if it does not work for him suffers and the one who gives it if it works feels arrogant to believe that it is wise to fix the life of another, which produces a sense of disempowerment in the other. and it can generate a dependency.
If we really want to help someone, we can show you different perspectives of the situation so that the person can see and decide which is best for them. Although in many moments it is better to remain silent and allow the other to flow. Our western culture has taught us to keep ourselves in a constant noise that prevents our mind from taking a break to think clearly and calmly, to listen to the other from the silence without making judgments and in the same way we have become accustomed to not Listen to ourselves.
Think about the moment of your death and ask yourself if you were really happy during your life. If worrying about the problems of others and looking for a solution made your life more fruitful. Maybe the advice you gave was not taken into account and you did nothing to give yourself a better quality of life, to enjoy your time or to seek happiness, you were just trying to find out what was always inside of you.
Need for control
The need to help others may be related to our need to feel that we have control over the other. This only demonstrates my own emptiness and my inability to take responsibility for my own life. If I have control and power over me, I don't need to control another's life. The lack of self-esteem leads us to this type of situation. Believing that we DO NOT have the coping strategies necessary to handle adversities and therefore want people to act in a way that I know I can handle. Having control over the other gives us a sense of security, because we are afraid of the unexpected, because if we can predict the future we will know how to act against what is presented. Possibly something in my past that I couldn't control made me feel hurt and now I try to control others so they wouldn't hurt me. So the solution is not to get the other to act according to what I want but to heal my wounds so that I can be happy without knowing what people and the future hold for me.
The outside world is just a reflection of your inner world. If you want something to change outside you must start by changing inside.
Author: JP Ben-Avid
White Brotherhood Editor
