July 9, 2024 • 34 mins
How much help is too much?
This question hits close to home for many of us. We all want to be there for our friends and family, but there comes a point where we need to step back.
Offering too much help can end up making them dependent on us, preventing them from learning to stand on their own.
It's all about finding that middle ground – being supportive without taking away their chance to learn and grow independently.
Today, let's explore the idea of figuring out when our help might be excessive, and whether it's causing any negative impacts on us or the person we're assisting. We've all been in situations where we give a lot without receiving the same in return. To handle this, we need to understand what genuine support truly means.
Always remember that there are times when you don't have to be the hero for everyone. Sometimes, it's important to take care of yourself first before reaching out to help others.
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
00:29 The Savior Complex
06:49 How do you know if you’re helping someone too much?
13:54 Are you helping them get better or make themselves feel better?
16:07 What you want for someone is not necessarily what they want
18:57 Are you invited to help?
21:18 Pathological altruism
26:38 What if helping is harming you?
30:00 True support
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If the help that you're giving actually makes them do
less for themselves, then there's something you need to think about.
Differentiating between constructive helping and dysfunctional help is really important.
I'm rather Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
(00:21):
for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you
to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
So me and one of my friends were having a
conversation yesterday, and she is such a sweet person. She's
a wonderful human being. She has this beautiful tendency to
really want to help people. And I had conversation with
her about someone that she is helping and has been
(00:45):
helping year after year, a person who doesn't really appreciate
or recognize the effort, who feels like they are owed it.
They have quite a like the mentality where they don't
really see it as effort, they see it as an expectation,
and it just basically hasn't been making her feel good
at all, and I've been seeing it progressively get worse,
(01:06):
and honestly, we have quite similar tendencies. And I've also
done this so much in my life. So I really
can feel and understand all the angles that she's going through,
and I can really see it from so many different perspectives.
This can often be defined as and I have definitely
diagnosed myself with this from a young age. After reflection
(01:28):
is called the savior complex. And so if you're someone
who's listening to this, thinking, oh my gosh, I've done this,
this is what I do regularly in my life. I've
had this pattern from a young age. Trust me, I
had the same reflection and all this time I thought
I was helping everybody, and I thought it was a
really good person. I was like, oh, I'm just an
agony on and I seem to be helping everybody, and
it just seems to be I seem to attract these
(01:49):
people in my life where I end up being the
savior and I'm like, oh, I am so amazing that
I do that for people. And then I realized had
this moment of reflection, this like light bulb moment. I
was like, I have a savior complex, Like this idea
that I have, I have this desperate need to save
(02:10):
other people. And it's probably because I was avoiding trying
to save myself, and it felt easier to like, oh,
that person is in need, let me help them. So
I feel like I'm being useful. So I feel like
I'm actually solving a problem, even though I'm not solving
my own problems. And apparently there's this tendency that you
end up seeking them out they don't seek you out. Well,
maybe a mutual thing. Actually you are inviting that into
(02:33):
your life and they are needing that, and so your
need and their need end up matching, and so it's
not you know, we're so used to being like I
just don't know why these people come into my life. No, girl,
you are inviting them into your life. And that's exactly
what I was doing. And by the way, all these
people were not bad. I loved helping so many of
my friends in that way, but it was more of
a reflection for me where I was like, oh, my gosh,
(02:55):
I'm not actually being this great person I thought I was.
What I'm actually doing is trying to avoid my problems
in saving other people, because that made me feel better
about my own issues, or not even better about it,
avoid it, but still make me feel like I was
working on something. There's such a difference between motivating and
inspiring versus trying to save someone nobody, and I mean this,
(03:17):
nobody can save another person. And this one's a hard
one to swallow. It's a hard one to really take in.
But to overcome the need to fix other people, you
need to start by fixing that need within yourself. It's
not about fixing the other person. It's all about you
and needing to fix whatever it is that's in you
(03:39):
that's wanting to fix other people. And I've really been
breaking that down over time. I'm still breaking it down. Honestly.
It can't say I've come to any major revelations except
for the fact that it was definitely my need to
be needed and to be liked, And honestly, actually I
had to come to a revelation. I think it just
stemmed from being a young child. You never felt like
(04:00):
I had many friends and was bullied and all of
that stuff, which I'm sure many of us have gone through.
But I didn't realize how it was manifesting in my
life now because I thought I'd gotten over it really
didn't feel like it affected me that much, and it
didn't in a like, Oh, I get sad about it
on a daily basis, but I think it created these
habits and patterns in me that made me always feel
(04:21):
like I need to do things for people for them
to love me or like me or be my friend.
Whether that was cooking for people, whether that was going
out of my way for them, whether that was saving them,
it all ended up. I think. I imagine it's from the
fact that I thought, oh, if people don't like me,
let me do things for them and then they will
like me. I've definitely gotten better at it now, definitely
(04:41):
been a become more of a no person, and even
if I'm not, I'm able to recognize it, which is
step one. But it is something I have to consciously
work on to make sure that I am not leaning
back into because if a pattern's been there for a while,
it's so easy to get back into it and not
notice because it's a bit more of a comfort zone
(05:02):
for me than being someone who does have boundaries, barriers
and tries not to fix people. I feel like it's
pretty obvious if you have savior complex. It's not complicated.
The signs are pretty clear. You feel good about yourself
when you're helping someone. You expend way more energy trying
to fix other people than you know how to fix yourself.
And I say there the two major ones. So if
(05:24):
both our ticks for you, then welcome to the club.
Oh and actually I know the third one. When you're
constantly trying to change people around you like that, if
you try to change them more than accept them, then
that is also a symptom of savior complex. Okay, I
feel like the symptoms or the characteristics of savior complex
(05:47):
are quite self explanatory, but let me break it down
for you just in case. And you know what, just
mentally in your mind do a ticnixt to the ones
that I say. You feel good about yourself when you're
helping people, You use more energy trying to fix others
and then fixing yourself. You're trying to change people more
than accepting them. You always need to find a solution,
(06:09):
forever looking for a solution to every problem for someone
you don't believe in just letting it be, no, I
will solve it. No, there is a solution. And let
me add in it's only me who can help. That's
a good one. It's only me who can solve this problem.
It's me who has to save them, and it's me
who has to fix this. So if you have a
(06:29):
tick next to maybe three or more of these welcome
to the club. You don't get a price, you don't
get a sticker, but you do get to be part
of this club that is forever trying to improve, change
and get better at this woo welcome people. And honestly,
(06:49):
I do find that women especially tend to do this.
It's really part of our feminine energy to be really
motherly and to be caring. And sometimes though that line
between help that is helpful and help that is not
helpful can feel quite blurry. And so it really got
me thinking this week about how much help is too much?
(07:12):
How do we know when to stop helping someone, and
why do we get this savior complex? Like where does
it really root from? So over years, as I've done
this with various people in my life, I've drawn the
line at this, if you're doing more than they are
to help themselves, If the effort you are putting in
to help someone is less than the effort that they
are putting in to help themselves, then that is probably
(07:36):
a sign that you are helping too much. And look,
we're not kids anymore. It's so different when it's a
mother child relationship. But when we're adults, we all have
this responsibility to ourself and to others to do our
part in our lives. But you can't expect someone else
to do all the work for you completely, So asking
for support is absolutely necessary. Asking for support is a
(07:58):
beautiful thing to do. Being able to be vulnerable and
asking for that help that is part and parcel of
living within a community and having a friendship. But a
person should not be expecting you to put in eighty
percent of the effort and for them to give twenty
percent when it is for them. So you really have
to reassess that balance of help that you are giving
(08:19):
and noticing if the help that you are giving is
far more than the help that this person is giving themselves.
So the first thing you have to start off by doing,
and that's what I did, was start to reassess the
help balance that existed between my relationships, my friendships with
friends and family and seeing if I am putting in
more effort to help them then they are putting in
(08:41):
for themselves. The second thing is the moment you start
to feel used, you start expecting something in return, or
you begin to feel quite bitter about the help that
you are giving, it's probably time to reevaluate what it
is that you are giving, and it's probably a sign
that you're pushing past your own capacity and your boundaries.
And that's okay. We need to have boundaries, We need
(09:03):
to be mindful of the capacity that we have to
be able to give to other people while still being
able to maintain ourself. And it actually doesn't even matter
whether in the other person's eyes they are or they
are not asking for too much, or whether their intention
is to use you or not, because really it's just
a sign to you that in those moments, if you
(09:24):
are feeling bitter, if you are looking for more reciprocation,
if you are feeling anger or resentment towards that person,
that is a sign to you that you have reached
your boundary or your limit and giving beyond that will
always end up resulting in this pain of frustration. So
see that as a symptom. Like whenever you end up
seeing these symptoms occur over and over again when you
(09:46):
are doing something for someone, see that as a symptom
or a sign that your body, in your mind is
telling you that you are pushing your boundary and you
may be beyond your limits. The thing is it starts
to really create this tension in your friendship or your
relationationship too, and so it's not good for you, it's
not good for them, and it's definitely not good for
the relationship that you're trying to build on. And this
(10:07):
applies whether it is time, energy, physical resources, a skill
that you have. It can relate to every single part
of life of how we are giving. There are so
many different ways that we can give to someone and
all of this applies to each one of them. The
third thing to take into consideration is if the help
that you're giving actually makes them do less for themselves,
(10:29):
then there's something you need to think about. Differentiating between
constructive helping and dysfunctional help is really important. So let
me fool you in. So. Constructive help is actually help
that promotes someone's growth and independence, independence being a really
crucial word here. It helps them to grow individually for
(10:51):
themselves in a way that you give them the help,
but it also allows them to figure it out for
themselves to build the root for themselves. Dysfunctional help is
what promotes dependency and need on you as a person,
and if you are taking the load off them. If
you're doing the worrying, you've got the anxiety for them,
(11:12):
you're planning out their life, you're helping them get to
where they want to be, You're doing all the little
steps in between that gets them there. When you're doing
that on behalf of someone else, it basically tells them
that they don't need to be invested in helping themselves
at all, Like they don't need to do the work
if you're doing it for them, what's the need. What's
the point of two people doing the same thing. And
(11:32):
so if that's repeated over and over again, where you
come in and you save the day and you make
it all better, you're actually stopping them from being able
to save themselves and create that drive and motivation inside
of themselves to do so. I actually remember when I
was younger. Me being the younger child, I kind of
got a free pass in a lot of ways, and
(11:53):
I became really lazy because I had my entire family
who were there ready to love for me, to care
for me, to look after me, but also to save
me when I needed, and I would I got into
the habit of leaving my homework till the last minute.
I would not study properly for my exams and my family.
My sister best say like she would always you know,
(12:15):
she would actually want to be the one to say,
you know, she can do it by herself, she can
get this done. And my parents would be like, no, no,
we have to help her naturally, as you do for
your child. You just want to be able to support
them and love them and give them that. But what
it made me realize is after a while of having
that over and over again, Like by the way my
(12:35):
sister would like stay up all night to help me
finish writing a piece of coursework or help me do
an assignment, my parents would do the same for me.
They just go above and beyond to help. They would
fix the problem that I had created for myself. So
they were always swooping in and doing that for me.
Now they were obviously doing it of love, but the
fact is it almost stopped me from one believing that
(12:57):
I can do it on my own, and two it
made me so lazy, and it made me keep repeating
that pattern over and over again because I never built
the route myself. I didn't complete the journey ever on
my own terms, in my own way, and so I
didn't build that road or route to success that I needed.
(13:17):
So sometimes the help is just not helping, and you
need to be able to step back, take a second,
have a look and see that if patterns are still repeating,
if behavior doesn't change in the person that you are helping,
and if they get back to the same habits even
after you've helped them, then they're not learning or doing
(13:38):
what they need to actually grow and be able to
create that for themselves. There's that quote, right, like the
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting a different result. And that is
exactly the same when it comes to people and our
mindset to the next thing is starting to ask yourself,
is my action helping them to get better? Or is
(13:59):
it making me feel better? Right? Like, is what I
am doing for them helping them get better? Or is
it making me feel better? Now? When I started asking
myself that question, it really like it just blew so
much up in me, Like I was like, way, I
really started questioning myself like am I actually doing this
(14:21):
to be a loving person? Or am I doing this
because it is feeding a part of me and almost
feeding a part of my ego that's allowing me to
feel useful and allowing me to feel superior in some way,
or allowing me to feel like I am beneficial in
this person's life. Right, it's giving me value of some sort.
And if your whole relationship is based on you helping
(14:42):
them and the thought of them not needing you in
that way doesn't make you happy for them, you should
really reevaluate that help because sometimes what happens is right,
you end up being so used to someone relying on
you it starts making you feel good. Then when they
start becoming independent, it threatens your value in their life
(15:03):
because if that's all you've been there for them for,
you don't think about what your other options are in
their life, Like who will you be in their life
if you are not playing this role and so really
taking a look at that, like am I helping them
because I want to help them succeed? Or am I
helping them because it's making me feel so much better
about myself? Because if we love someone, you should be
(15:26):
helping them so that they can be better. And if
them being better doesn't make you happier than them needing you,
then you're helping them for the wrong reasons. I'm going
to actually repeat that one more time just so it
sits in deep. If them being better doesn't make you
happier than them needing you, then you are helping them
for the wrong reasons. And I actually asked my friend
(15:47):
this yesterday when I was speaking to her. I said,
are you sure you're not doing it because you just
feel valuable in his life? Then you're finding some sort
of worth and value and how much he has needed
you all these years, and how you're that one person
that he goes to solve everything. I knew I needed
to ask for that because I noticed that pattern in
my life and I actually realized I was probably doing
(16:09):
it to avoid a lot of work that I needed
to do in my life. So by solving and working
on other people, it was a way of feeling false
like productive. Right, I felt productive. I felt like I
was resolving something. I felt useful, but I was doing
it in someone else. I was like, let me fix
them so I can avoid fixing myself. Creating these boundaries
(16:29):
and realizing that it doesn't take away from the love
or care that you have for them in any way.
If anything, it actually strengthens it. Because at first it
may be a bit of a shift right, They're like, wait,
why are you stopping this? This was your way of
showing love to me or showing care to me. Why
is that changing now? And yes, there may be a
period of time where you go through this uncomfortable shift
(16:52):
in friendship or in relationship and a different dynamic, but
it actually ends up allowing your bond to be stronger
because it's not based on need and it's based on want,
and you start doing things with the right intention and
that makes you feel so much better as well. We
also have to realize that's sometimes what you want for
someone is not necessarily what they want for themselves. And
(17:16):
I remember for me when I would help people or
give advice, I would say, the only reciprocation that I
want is for you to do this for yourself, for
you to commit to these things that make you better,
for you to take on my advice, Like I want
to help you, but I also want you to take
on what I'm saying because I know that you can
do this. And I do think that if someone asks
you for help, I do think there should be some
(17:37):
sort of accountability, especially if it's in resources. Let's say
someone asks you for money, or someone asks you for
aid in some way, right, you're investing your time, your energy,
your money, whatever it is, in them. And yes, I
think in reciprocation, someone should feel accountable to keep letting
you know that they are trying, They are trying to
be accountable to what they have asked you for. They
(17:57):
are working on themselves in that way. Continuing to bail
them out every single time they do something actually teaches
them that it's okay to disrespect you and break agreements
and that you'll still be there for them. And so
for your own sake, you should really be prepared for
whoever it is you're advising. You should be prepared that
that friend may not take your advice. That friend may
(18:19):
not do all those things that you help them set up,
because the fact is they may not be ready to
become that person, or they may not even want to
become that person or do the things that you are
telling them or advising them to do. So, if you
do want to give them advice, then do this for yourself.
Release the expectations you have or the attachment to the
expectations you have for what you expect in return from them,
(18:43):
because you're only going to end up being disappointment. The
more expectation you have, the more disappointed that you will
be if something doesn't go the way that you intended. Also,
you have to ask yourself, am I being invited to help?
Or am I inviting myself? And you won't invite yourself
to a party, So why do we invite ourselves other
people's lives? And that's a really important one because I
have this friend, like every time I go back to London,
(19:05):
not the friend I was talking to her before, but
another friend. There's so much stuff that she wants to
do in her life, and I really want to help
her get there, and I want to. I just wanted
to help her achieve because I see so much in
her that she wants to do, and I know that
she's also unhappy. You know, I see her after a
while and the first thing I'm saying is, so did
you do this? Did you do this that we talked
about last time? Let's set up a plan. Let me
(19:26):
help you if you want to. You know, if it's
let's say, getting to the gym, let me help you.
Let's you know, we can go together. If it's about
her work, I'll be like, let's set up a plan.
Let's set up a system to get you where you
want to be. And what I realized was she'd never
actually asked for my help. What I was doing was
inviting myself into her life to be able to help her.
But also that's a sign most like we have to
(19:48):
allow people to ask us when they want help. And yes,
sometimes you see someone struggling and so you offer it.
But a lot of the time, if you're constantly inviting
yourself in, it may be that they are not yet
ready to make those changes, and so it may be
necessary in the future when they ask, But what you're
doing right now may just be wasted because they don't
have the capacity to make those changes. So, whether it's
(20:11):
an old relationship, whether it's a new friendship that you're starting,
if you do notice those patterns in yourself and you're
noticing yourself creating foundations based on that, then it's something
that really start becoming aware of. I really think awareness
is the beginning of many many things in our life,
like to just become aware of where you stand in
people's lives, how the relationship is growing, and what your
(20:34):
place is in their life, and what your natural tendencies
are to do when someone is in need and if
you tend to Oh. This was another sign for me
from a really young age. My mom would be like,
you're such an agony, aren't like you always have all
your friends coming to you to solve their problems or whatever.
And at that time I would be like, no, Mom,
They're just my friends and they just need me. And
(20:54):
what I realized was sometimes when you become that person,
you actually end up attracting people into life who need that.
I think that's a really interesting sign. We always end
up being like, oh, I just seem to have those
people in my life, but actually, unfortunately, it may be
that we are inviting them into our life based on
what we are looking for in a friendship, like we
(21:15):
actually seek them out rather than them seeking us out.
And that's really important to remember too, that I think
there's a tendency to like blame that outside or blame
other people for things before we look internally at ourselves.
There's this term used in psychology called pathological altruism, and
it's a term that's used for when you attempt to
do good to support the well being of others, which
(21:38):
actually ends up resulting in unanticipated harm. So you may
set out to do good, but actually it ends up
as either harming that person, or maybe it ends up
harming you and causing damage to you. So we have
intention or effort to do good, but it results in
harm of some sort to the other person, physical, emotional, mental.
(21:58):
Another big sign that your help maybe doing more harm
than good is when you see no change after repeated
attempts to help someone. So I remember doing this over
and over again, where you keep giving the same speech,
you keep giving the same motivational encouragement, you keep sharing
the same pieces of advice over and over a game.
(22:19):
You give all the advice, maybe even all the resources
that the person needs, and for a short period of time,
maybe twenty four hours, maybe even a couple of days,
maybe even a week, the person seems to be in
better spirits, but then inevitably, a couple of days later,
they fall back into their same pattern, the same habits.
(22:39):
Life of the conversation didn't even happen. And it's true,
in that moment that person may have felt so much better.
But in that respect, what you end up doing I
remember reading it somewhere where it calls it the drug effect.
So your pep talks become little pick me ups that
provide this small brief relief, this temporary relief to the
person and brings them some sort of comfort, but it
(23:02):
actually ends up being counterproductive because it removes them from
this feeling of urgency to change, that push and that
drive to change because of the sad or angry or
upset state therein. And so sometimes these negative emotions that
they're feeling are the propeller or the push and the
drive to actually get the change going. So then if
(23:23):
you bring them back into this place of comfort, into
this place of feeling okay about their situation, that they
feel supported and okay, and you know what, maybe being
in this situation isn't actually that bad because I've got
someone who's constantly there to help me. It actually makes
them take a step back, It actually makes them less
motivated to create real change. So it may actually make
(23:46):
them feel more comfortable and make them feel better about
their situation and make you feel better because you've uplifted
that person in some way and you feel useful that
you've actually helped them. But in fact, what they may
actually need is the discomfort to spur on and activate
the change that's actually necessary. And so there's one thing
(24:06):
about creating temporary change, Like it's easy to make commitments
and stick to it for a day, stick to it
for two days. But there's a big difference between encouraging
someone to make a change for one or two days
because they think, oh, let me please this person, or
let me also try and like show that I can
do it. But actual change comes with consistency, and the
only way someone will get consistency is honestly by them
(24:29):
wanting to, by them creating those habits for themselves. You
can't create a habit for somebody else. It just doesn't
work because at the end of the day, when that person,
when you end up upsetting that person, when you end
up removing yourself from their life, when you end up leaving,
all that change goes with you. And so the change
has to and let me repeate that, the change has to,
(24:50):
the work has to, The habits have to come from
that person, not from you. There's this other theory in
psychology called learn helplessness, which says that repeatedly helping someone
without encouraging their independent problem solving can make that person
passive and overly reliant on others, so they end up
(25:10):
reducing their own effort and shift accountability to the helper.
And so that's exactly what's happened here, Like that's exactly
what happens every single time you over extend, you overhelp,
You put yourself into someone's life more than necessary, which
then makes them think, Hey, I'm just gonna, you know,
take my foot off the accelerator because somebody else is
pushing this car for me. So what's even the need
(25:33):
double energy wasted? Why am I going to put in
the effort if someone else's The problem with that is
as soon as you stop pushing, the car slows down
or stops moving, and it's not your car, so eventually
you will have to take your foot off the pedal
and they'll be left stranded in the middle of nowhere.
And so the problem is the person just doesn't learn
(25:53):
to handle disappointment. You end up saving them. They don't
learn how to be resourceful on their own, and so
you actually rob them of the chance to learn to
be as emotionally practically independent as they need to to
really have healthy mutual relationships with other people. Because as
soon as you start training that person to create those
habits with people, those habits will probably repeat in different
(26:16):
relationships or in different different places in their life, and
so they become dependent on people based on what they
can give them, rather than actually creating meaningful relationships with them.
I guess the lesson here is that real help empowers someone,
which is a huge sign that your help is actually working.
And harmful help enables someone to continue their negative patterns
(26:36):
and bad behavior. And you know what I was just
thinking about. We've been talking so much about how it
creates negative effect on them, but actually what about you? Like,
what about when helping someone else is actually harming you?
There have been times where I've thought giving up you know,
my needs, my opinions, my principles or values is the
solution to make someone else happy, Like, oh, you know,
(26:59):
my needs aren't as and my opinions aren't as important.
And to show that I love this person, to show
that I care for them, let me just bow out,
let me just mute what I feel, let me just
reduce my needs, let me just take away my opinions
to help them feel better about themselves. Or you know,
you're sacrificing yourself for another person's in inverted commas betterment.
(27:20):
So I guess the idea here is I'll give up me,
and I'll decrease my own importance or the value of
what I am giving for the sake of the larger course.
Like no, no, no, I'm not doing too much for you.
I'm not giving you too much. I'm not pouring too
much into you. Let me make you feel better by
telling you what I'm doing is okay, because it will
make you feel better about yourself when in reality you
(27:41):
probably are giving too much, probably are doing too much,
but you don't want to say that to make the
other person feel bad. I read someone that this mindset
can actually come from how we've seen others do it
when we're younger, or being taught from a young age
that when you make others happy, you feel good about yourself,
or giving in and helping others results in someone liking
you or doing something back for you, and so that
(28:04):
can happen from a young age. It's almost like if you
stop crying, Mommy will be happy. If you stop, If
you stop doing this annoying thing that I'm getting angry at,
Mommy will love you more, Daddy would love you more,
or you know, whether it's a relationship when you were
younger that you've been in those patterns really do stick
with you, and so trying to like also reflect on
(28:25):
where is this come from? Has this come from parents
when I was younger? Has this come from a really
young relationship that I created these patterns in? Where does
this actually stem from? Where's the route? Because usually finding
that out can really help you realize that maybe you
haven't worked through those things, which is causing you to
repeat those patterns now. And the problem is being a
(28:46):
resource in someone's life may make you feel useful, but
it's not fulfilling meaningful relationship. Consciously or subconsciously. You end
up becoming a resource and then they start to treat
you as that because you've created that really relationship, and
so being a resource is so much more of a
transactional relationship. It's like business, I'm going to provide for you.
(29:06):
I'm going to give you these things whenever you need me.
But what are you actually giving back? Like what's that
person actually providing in your life to fulfill you? And
it can't be that it makes you feel good to
give to them. I think that it ends up being
a broken cycle. And if we are people that like
feeling needed being useful in someone's life, can sometimes be
(29:27):
mistaken for someone valuing you in their life. I really
need you in my life. They'll say, I really need you.
What am I going to do? How am I going
to do this without you? I can't make these changes
without you. You're the reason I'm making these changes. And
so you end up feeling valued in their life. But
it's not value. It's often they just see you as
a resource. And so they are very two different things.
(29:48):
And make sure you understand that if in your mind,
if they're coming to you when they're in need and
you end up providing them the same resource over and
over again, you are a resource. You are not valued
in that relationship. And look at the the day. It
is so normal. It's such a normal human thing to
be a support system for one another. That is a
normal human thing to want to do. We give, we
(30:08):
get nourished from other people, other people nourish us. It's
a beautiful cycle in that. But reciprocation is necessary, and
when support ends up being the main part of the relationship,
it is time to reassess what that relationship really is.
So just remember real help empower someone to get on
their own feet and to do what they are trying
to do by themselves. You are supporting. You are not
(30:31):
the main character, and harmful help enables the person to
maybe make that change for a week or a day,
but it actually makes them reliant on you, and that
is not real help. That is harmful help. I also
think that it's such a beautiful thing to want to
help people, right, like we are all just human. Compassion
(30:54):
is so necessary, and all we want to do is serve.
It's part of our human nature to want to serve,
to give, and to love other people. But real change
only really occurs in someone when there's a shift in
their perspective, like in the way that they see themselves
and the world and the situation that they're in. And
no matter what someone does for you, unless you are
(31:16):
able to do it for yourself, it's almost just putting
a band aid on something, right, unless you are actually
helping someone to come to their own conclusions. Like that's
what I've actually realized. True support is right. True support
is not coming to someone's rescue and doing it for them,
even though that feels like the easier option, even though
(31:36):
it feels like you're doing you're taking a lot of
burden off them. You are but you're also taking away
their power to be able to do it themselves. And
I think that that's a really really important distinction to make.
Helping someone come to their own conclusions and empowering them
to help themselves is the biggest, bestest form of support.
(31:57):
And you know there will be times in your life
where you may have to put in a lot of
effort for someone, but you'll know if that pattern keeps
repeating that what you're doing doesn't help. Right, Like, there
may be a burst a time where someone really needs
all your focus, your attention, they've gone through something really horrible,
then you need to be there to support them. And
that's a different type of scenario to one where you
are noticing yourself having a repeated pattern of helping someone
(32:19):
over and over again, probably about the same thing. And
reflecting on ourselves before we see all the fault in
another person is always a better place to start for
a clear idea of what changes need to happen. So
I recommend honestly sitting down and just coming to the
like coming to a realization first realizing what relationships you
need to take a look at, and then reflecting on
(32:42):
the savior complex, Like, is that something that you have
if it's not and that's not the reason, then reflecting
on your boundaries and where you need to set them,
and then recognizing where does it feel a bit sour,
Where does it end up feeling a bit bitter to
what part, like what areas of my life do I
feel those feelings of resentment? Who do I feel them towards?
And what part am I giving too much on? Because
(33:04):
sometimes we can be really free with our energy and
our time, but maybe if someone asks for our physical resources,
we feel a little bit more resentful or we take
that more seriously. Or it could be that you're actually
really happy giving a lot of your resources. You have
abundance in your life, and so you're really happy with
giving things or money, but your time and your energy
(33:26):
are really important to you, and so creating boundaries in
specific areas they won't be the same with each thing,
and so notice which parts trigger you and create that
need to protect yourself. Anyway, I just wanted to share
on that topic because it was something I've been thinking
about so much this week, and I really think can
help to help your relationships get so much better, to
(33:48):
help you in your own mind and your own heart
to figure out areas that you need to improve on,
because we're all here to grow and to change, and
also recognize the weeds that we have in our heart
before we recognize the weeds and others. And just because
sometimes life just becomes things become so normal, right, like
we end up thinking things are so normal in our
(34:09):
life and when we take a second, like I only
started reflecting on this by having this conversation and advising
my friend, and I had to remember and I reflected
back on all the times I've also done that. So
sometimes having triggers of like conversations and hearing things like
this can really help you to enhance and reflect at
your own life. So I hope that was useful, and
I really do hope that some of these things were
(34:30):
good food for thought. But I also hope that this
conversation is going to be helpful for you to take
away and improve your life in some way and your relationships.
So thank you all so much for listening and sending
your so much love for this week.
If the help that you're giving actually makes them do
less for themselves, then there's something you need to think about.
Differentiating between constructive helping and dysfunctional help is really important.
I'm rather Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry,
we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space
(00:21):
for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you
to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together.
So me and one of my friends were having a
conversation yesterday, and she is such a sweet person. She's
a wonderful human being. She has this beautiful tendency to
really want to help people. And I had conversation with
her about someone that she is helping and has been
(00:45):
helping year after year, a person who doesn't really appreciate
or recognize the effort, who feels like they are owed it.
They have quite a like the mentality where they don't
really see it as effort, they see it as an expectation,
and it just basically hasn't been making her feel good
at all, and I've been seeing it progressively get worse,
(01:06):
and honestly, we have quite similar tendencies. And I've also
done this so much in my life. So I really
can feel and understand all the angles that she's going through,
and I can really see it from so many different perspectives.
This can often be defined as and I have definitely
diagnosed myself with this from a young age. After reflection
(01:28):
is called the savior complex. And so if you're someone
who's listening to this, thinking, oh my gosh, I've done this,
this is what I do regularly in my life. I've
had this pattern from a young age. Trust me, I
had the same reflection and all this time I thought
I was helping everybody, and I thought it was a
really good person. I was like, oh, I'm just an
agony on and I seem to be helping everybody, and
it just seems to be I seem to attract these
(01:49):
people in my life where I end up being the
savior and I'm like, oh, I am so amazing that
I do that for people. And then I realized had
this moment of reflection, this like light bulb moment. I
was like, I have a savior complex, Like this idea
that I have, I have this desperate need to save
(02:10):
other people. And it's probably because I was avoiding trying
to save myself, and it felt easier to like, oh,
that person is in need, let me help them. So
I feel like I'm being useful. So I feel like
I'm actually solving a problem, even though I'm not solving
my own problems. And apparently there's this tendency that you
end up seeking them out they don't seek you out. Well,
maybe a mutual thing. Actually you are inviting that into
(02:33):
your life and they are needing that, and so your
need and their need end up matching, and so it's
not you know, we're so used to being like I
just don't know why these people come into my life. No, girl,
you are inviting them into your life. And that's exactly
what I was doing. And by the way, all these
people were not bad. I loved helping so many of
my friends in that way, but it was more of
a reflection for me where I was like, oh, my gosh,
(02:55):
I'm not actually being this great person I thought I was.
What I'm actually doing is trying to avoid my problems
in saving other people, because that made me feel better
about my own issues, or not even better about it,
avoid it, but still make me feel like I was
working on something. There's such a difference between motivating and
inspiring versus trying to save someone nobody, and I mean this,
(03:17):
nobody can save another person. And this one's a hard
one to swallow. It's a hard one to really take in.
But to overcome the need to fix other people, you
need to start by fixing that need within yourself. It's
not about fixing the other person. It's all about you
and needing to fix whatever it is that's in you
(03:39):
that's wanting to fix other people. And I've really been
breaking that down over time. I'm still breaking it down. Honestly.
It can't say I've come to any major revelations except
for the fact that it was definitely my need to
be needed and to be liked, And honestly, actually I
had to come to a revelation. I think it just
stemmed from being a young child. You never felt like
(04:00):
I had many friends and was bullied and all of
that stuff, which I'm sure many of us have gone through.
But I didn't realize how it was manifesting in my
life now because I thought I'd gotten over it really
didn't feel like it affected me that much, and it
didn't in a like, Oh, I get sad about it
on a daily basis, but I think it created these
habits and patterns in me that made me always feel
(04:21):
like I need to do things for people for them
to love me or like me or be my friend.
Whether that was cooking for people, whether that was going
out of my way for them, whether that was saving them,
it all ended up. I think. I imagine it's from the
fact that I thought, oh, if people don't like me,
let me do things for them and then they will
like me. I've definitely gotten better at it now, definitely
(04:41):
been a become more of a no person, and even
if I'm not, I'm able to recognize it, which is
step one. But it is something I have to consciously
work on to make sure that I am not leaning
back into because if a pattern's been there for a while,
it's so easy to get back into it and not
notice because it's a bit more of a comfort zone
(05:02):
for me than being someone who does have boundaries, barriers
and tries not to fix people. I feel like it's
pretty obvious if you have savior complex. It's not complicated.
The signs are pretty clear. You feel good about yourself
when you're helping someone. You expend way more energy trying
to fix other people than you know how to fix yourself.
And I say there the two major ones. So if
(05:24):
both our ticks for you, then welcome to the club.
Oh and actually I know the third one. When you're
constantly trying to change people around you like that, if
you try to change them more than accept them, then
that is also a symptom of savior complex. Okay, I
feel like the symptoms or the characteristics of savior complex
(05:47):
are quite self explanatory, but let me break it down
for you just in case. And you know what, just
mentally in your mind do a ticnixt to the ones
that I say. You feel good about yourself when you're
helping people, You use more energy trying to fix others
and then fixing yourself. You're trying to change people more
than accepting them. You always need to find a solution,
(06:09):
forever looking for a solution to every problem for someone
you don't believe in just letting it be, no, I
will solve it. No, there is a solution. And let
me add in it's only me who can help. That's
a good one. It's only me who can solve this problem.
It's me who has to save them, and it's me
who has to fix this. So if you have a
(06:29):
tick next to maybe three or more of these welcome
to the club. You don't get a price, you don't
get a sticker, but you do get to be part
of this club that is forever trying to improve, change
and get better at this woo welcome people. And honestly,
(06:49):
I do find that women especially tend to do this.
It's really part of our feminine energy to be really
motherly and to be caring. And sometimes though that line
between help that is helpful and help that is not
helpful can feel quite blurry. And so it really got
me thinking this week about how much help is too much?
(07:12):
How do we know when to stop helping someone, and
why do we get this savior complex? Like where does
it really root from? So over years, as I've done
this with various people in my life, I've drawn the
line at this, if you're doing more than they are
to help themselves, If the effort you are putting in
to help someone is less than the effort that they
are putting in to help themselves, then that is probably
(07:36):
a sign that you are helping too much. And look,
we're not kids anymore. It's so different when it's a
mother child relationship. But when we're adults, we all have
this responsibility to ourself and to others to do our
part in our lives. But you can't expect someone else
to do all the work for you completely, So asking
for support is absolutely necessary. Asking for support is a
(07:58):
beautiful thing to do. Being able to be vulnerable and
asking for that help that is part and parcel of
living within a community and having a friendship. But a
person should not be expecting you to put in eighty
percent of the effort and for them to give twenty
percent when it is for them. So you really have
to reassess that balance of help that you are giving
(08:19):
and noticing if the help that you are giving is
far more than the help that this person is giving themselves.
So the first thing you have to start off by doing,
and that's what I did, was start to reassess the
help balance that existed between my relationships, my friendships with
friends and family and seeing if I am putting in
more effort to help them then they are putting in
(08:41):
for themselves. The second thing is the moment you start
to feel used, you start expecting something in return, or
you begin to feel quite bitter about the help that
you are giving, it's probably time to reevaluate what it
is that you are giving, and it's probably a sign
that you're pushing past your own capacity and your boundaries.
And that's okay. We need to have boundaries, We need
(09:03):
to be mindful of the capacity that we have to
be able to give to other people while still being
able to maintain ourself. And it actually doesn't even matter
whether in the other person's eyes they are or they
are not asking for too much, or whether their intention
is to use you or not, because really it's just
a sign to you that in those moments, if you
(09:24):
are feeling bitter, if you are looking for more reciprocation,
if you are feeling anger or resentment towards that person,
that is a sign to you that you have reached
your boundary or your limit and giving beyond that will
always end up resulting in this pain of frustration. So
see that as a symptom. Like whenever you end up
seeing these symptoms occur over and over again when you
(09:46):
are doing something for someone, see that as a symptom
or a sign that your body, in your mind is
telling you that you are pushing your boundary and you
may be beyond your limits. The thing is it starts
to really create this tension in your friendship or your
relationationship too, and so it's not good for you, it's
not good for them, and it's definitely not good for
the relationship that you're trying to build on. And this
(10:07):
applies whether it is time, energy, physical resources, a skill
that you have. It can relate to every single part
of life of how we are giving. There are so
many different ways that we can give to someone and
all of this applies to each one of them. The
third thing to take into consideration is if the help
that you're giving actually makes them do less for themselves,
(10:29):
then there's something you need to think about. Differentiating between
constructive helping and dysfunctional help is really important. So let
me fool you in. So. Constructive help is actually help
that promotes someone's growth and independence, independence being a really
crucial word here. It helps them to grow individually for
(10:51):
themselves in a way that you give them the help,
but it also allows them to figure it out for
themselves to build the root for themselves. Dysfunctional help is
what promotes dependency and need on you as a person,
and if you are taking the load off them. If
you're doing the worrying, you've got the anxiety for them,
(11:12):
you're planning out their life, you're helping them get to
where they want to be, You're doing all the little
steps in between that gets them there. When you're doing
that on behalf of someone else, it basically tells them
that they don't need to be invested in helping themselves
at all, Like they don't need to do the work
if you're doing it for them, what's the need. What's
the point of two people doing the same thing. And
(11:32):
so if that's repeated over and over again, where you
come in and you save the day and you make
it all better, you're actually stopping them from being able
to save themselves and create that drive and motivation inside
of themselves to do so. I actually remember when I
was younger. Me being the younger child, I kind of
got a free pass in a lot of ways, and
(11:53):
I became really lazy because I had my entire family
who were there ready to love for me, to care
for me, to look after me, but also to save
me when I needed, and I would I got into
the habit of leaving my homework till the last minute.
I would not study properly for my exams and my family.
My sister best say like she would always you know,
(12:15):
she would actually want to be the one to say,
you know, she can do it by herself, she can
get this done. And my parents would be like, no, no,
we have to help her naturally, as you do for
your child. You just want to be able to support
them and love them and give them that. But what
it made me realize is after a while of having
that over and over again, Like by the way my
(12:35):
sister would like stay up all night to help me
finish writing a piece of coursework or help me do
an assignment, my parents would do the same for me.
They just go above and beyond to help. They would
fix the problem that I had created for myself. So
they were always swooping in and doing that for me.
Now they were obviously doing it of love, but the
fact is it almost stopped me from one believing that
(12:57):
I can do it on my own, and two it
made me so lazy, and it made me keep repeating
that pattern over and over again because I never built
the route myself. I didn't complete the journey ever on
my own terms, in my own way, and so I
didn't build that road or route to success that I needed.
(13:17):
So sometimes the help is just not helping, and you
need to be able to step back, take a second,
have a look and see that if patterns are still repeating,
if behavior doesn't change in the person that you are helping,
and if they get back to the same habits even
after you've helped them, then they're not learning or doing
(13:38):
what they need to actually grow and be able to
create that for themselves. There's that quote, right, like the
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting a different result. And that is
exactly the same when it comes to people and our
mindset to the next thing is starting to ask yourself,
is my action helping them to get better? Or is
(13:59):
it making me feel better? Right? Like, is what I
am doing for them helping them get better? Or is
it making me feel better? Now? When I started asking
myself that question, it really like it just blew so
much up in me, Like I was like, way, I
really started questioning myself like am I actually doing this
(14:21):
to be a loving person? Or am I doing this
because it is feeding a part of me and almost
feeding a part of my ego that's allowing me to
feel useful and allowing me to feel superior in some way,
or allowing me to feel like I am beneficial in
this person's life. Right, it's giving me value of some sort.
And if your whole relationship is based on you helping
(14:42):
them and the thought of them not needing you in
that way doesn't make you happy for them, you should
really reevaluate that help because sometimes what happens is right,
you end up being so used to someone relying on
you it starts making you feel good. Then when they
start becoming independent, it threatens your value in their life
(15:03):
because if that's all you've been there for them for,
you don't think about what your other options are in
their life, Like who will you be in their life
if you are not playing this role and so really
taking a look at that, like am I helping them
because I want to help them succeed? Or am I
helping them because it's making me feel so much better
about myself? Because if we love someone, you should be
(15:26):
helping them so that they can be better. And if
them being better doesn't make you happier than them needing you,
then you're helping them for the wrong reasons. I'm going
to actually repeat that one more time just so it
sits in deep. If them being better doesn't make you
happier than them needing you, then you are helping them
for the wrong reasons. And I actually asked my friend
(15:47):
this yesterday when I was speaking to her. I said,
are you sure you're not doing it because you just
feel valuable in his life? Then you're finding some sort
of worth and value and how much he has needed
you all these years, and how you're that one person
that he goes to solve everything. I knew I needed
to ask for that because I noticed that pattern in
my life and I actually realized I was probably doing
(16:09):
it to avoid a lot of work that I needed
to do in my life. So by solving and working
on other people, it was a way of feeling false
like productive. Right, I felt productive. I felt like I
was resolving something. I felt useful, but I was doing
it in someone else. I was like, let me fix
them so I can avoid fixing myself. Creating these boundaries
(16:29):
and realizing that it doesn't take away from the love
or care that you have for them in any way.
If anything, it actually strengthens it. Because at first it
may be a bit of a shift right, They're like, wait,
why are you stopping this? This was your way of
showing love to me or showing care to me. Why
is that changing now? And yes, there may be a
period of time where you go through this uncomfortable shift
(16:52):
in friendship or in relationship and a different dynamic, but
it actually ends up allowing your bond to be stronger
because it's not based on need and it's based on want,
and you start doing things with the right intention and
that makes you feel so much better as well. We
also have to realize that's sometimes what you want for
someone is not necessarily what they want for themselves. And
(17:16):
I remember for me when I would help people or
give advice, I would say, the only reciprocation that I
want is for you to do this for yourself, for
you to commit to these things that make you better,
for you to take on my advice, Like I want
to help you, but I also want you to take
on what I'm saying because I know that you can
do this. And I do think that if someone asks
you for help, I do think there should be some
(17:37):
sort of accountability, especially if it's in resources. Let's say
someone asks you for money, or someone asks you for
aid in some way, right, you're investing your time, your energy,
your money, whatever it is, in them. And yes, I
think in reciprocation, someone should feel accountable to keep letting
you know that they are trying, They are trying to
be accountable to what they have asked you for. They
(17:57):
are working on themselves in that way. Continuing to bail
them out every single time they do something actually teaches
them that it's okay to disrespect you and break agreements
and that you'll still be there for them. And so
for your own sake, you should really be prepared for
whoever it is you're advising. You should be prepared that
that friend may not take your advice. That friend may
(18:19):
not do all those things that you help them set up,
because the fact is they may not be ready to
become that person, or they may not even want to
become that person or do the things that you are
telling them or advising them to do. So, if you
do want to give them advice, then do this for yourself.
Release the expectations you have or the attachment to the
expectations you have for what you expect in return from them,
(18:43):
because you're only going to end up being disappointment. The
more expectation you have, the more disappointed that you will
be if something doesn't go the way that you intended. Also,
you have to ask yourself, am I being invited to help?
Or am I inviting myself? And you won't invite yourself
to a party, So why do we invite ourselves other
people's lives? And that's a really important one because I
have this friend, like every time I go back to London,
(19:05):
not the friend I was talking to her before, but
another friend. There's so much stuff that she wants to
do in her life, and I really want to help
her get there, and I want to. I just wanted
to help her achieve because I see so much in
her that she wants to do, and I know that
she's also unhappy. You know, I see her after a
while and the first thing I'm saying is, so did
you do this? Did you do this that we talked
about last time? Let's set up a plan. Let me
(19:26):
help you if you want to. You know, if it's
let's say, getting to the gym, let me help you.
Let's you know, we can go together. If it's about
her work, I'll be like, let's set up a plan.
Let's set up a system to get you where you
want to be. And what I realized was she'd never
actually asked for my help. What I was doing was
inviting myself into her life to be able to help her.
But also that's a sign most like we have to
(19:48):
allow people to ask us when they want help. And yes,
sometimes you see someone struggling and so you offer it.
But a lot of the time, if you're constantly inviting
yourself in, it may be that they are not yet
ready to make those changes, and so it may be
necessary in the future when they ask, But what you're
doing right now may just be wasted because they don't
have the capacity to make those changes. So, whether it's
(20:11):
an old relationship, whether it's a new friendship that you're starting,
if you do notice those patterns in yourself and you're
noticing yourself creating foundations based on that, then it's something
that really start becoming aware of. I really think awareness
is the beginning of many many things in our life,
like to just become aware of where you stand in
people's lives, how the relationship is growing, and what your
(20:34):
place is in their life, and what your natural tendencies
are to do when someone is in need and if
you tend to Oh. This was another sign for me
from a really young age. My mom would be like,
you're such an agony, aren't like you always have all
your friends coming to you to solve their problems or whatever.
And at that time I would be like, no, Mom,
They're just my friends and they just need me. And
(20:54):
what I realized was sometimes when you become that person,
you actually end up attracting people into life who need that.
I think that's a really interesting sign. We always end
up being like, oh, I just seem to have those
people in my life, but actually, unfortunately, it may be
that we are inviting them into our life based on
what we are looking for in a friendship, like we
(21:15):
actually seek them out rather than them seeking us out.
And that's really important to remember too, that I think
there's a tendency to like blame that outside or blame
other people for things before we look internally at ourselves.
There's this term used in psychology called pathological altruism, and
it's a term that's used for when you attempt to
do good to support the well being of others, which
(21:38):
actually ends up resulting in unanticipated harm. So you may
set out to do good, but actually it ends up
as either harming that person, or maybe it ends up
harming you and causing damage to you. So we have
intention or effort to do good, but it results in
harm of some sort to the other person, physical, emotional, mental.
(21:58):
Another big sign that your help maybe doing more harm
than good is when you see no change after repeated
attempts to help someone. So I remember doing this over
and over again, where you keep giving the same speech,
you keep giving the same motivational encouragement, you keep sharing
the same pieces of advice over and over a game.
(22:19):
You give all the advice, maybe even all the resources
that the person needs, and for a short period of time,
maybe twenty four hours, maybe even a couple of days,
maybe even a week, the person seems to be in
better spirits, but then inevitably, a couple of days later,
they fall back into their same pattern, the same habits.
(22:39):
Life of the conversation didn't even happen. And it's true,
in that moment that person may have felt so much better.
But in that respect, what you end up doing I
remember reading it somewhere where it calls it the drug effect.
So your pep talks become little pick me ups that
provide this small brief relief, this temporary relief to the
person and brings them some sort of comfort, but it
(23:02):
actually ends up being counterproductive because it removes them from
this feeling of urgency to change, that push and that
drive to change because of the sad or angry or
upset state therein. And so sometimes these negative emotions that
they're feeling are the propeller or the push and the
drive to actually get the change going. So then if
(23:23):
you bring them back into this place of comfort, into
this place of feeling okay about their situation, that they
feel supported and okay, and you know what, maybe being
in this situation isn't actually that bad because I've got
someone who's constantly there to help me. It actually makes
them take a step back, It actually makes them less
motivated to create real change. So it may actually make
(23:46):
them feel more comfortable and make them feel better about
their situation and make you feel better because you've uplifted
that person in some way and you feel useful that
you've actually helped them. But in fact, what they may
actually need is the discomfort to spur on and activate
the change that's actually necessary. And so there's one thing
(24:06):
about creating temporary change, Like it's easy to make commitments
and stick to it for a day, stick to it
for two days. But there's a big difference between encouraging
someone to make a change for one or two days
because they think, oh, let me please this person, or
let me also try and like show that I can
do it. But actual change comes with consistency, and the
only way someone will get consistency is honestly by them
(24:29):
wanting to, by them creating those habits for themselves. You
can't create a habit for somebody else. It just doesn't
work because at the end of the day, when that person,
when you end up upsetting that person, when you end
up removing yourself from their life, when you end up leaving,
all that change goes with you. And so the change
has to and let me repeate that, the change has to,
(24:50):
the work has to, The habits have to come from
that person, not from you. There's this other theory in
psychology called learn helplessness, which says that repeatedly helping someone
without encouraging their independent problem solving can make that person
passive and overly reliant on others, so they end up
(25:10):
reducing their own effort and shift accountability to the helper.
And so that's exactly what's happened here, Like that's exactly
what happens every single time you over extend, you overhelp,
You put yourself into someone's life more than necessary, which
then makes them think, Hey, I'm just gonna, you know,
take my foot off the accelerator because somebody else is
pushing this car for me. So what's even the need
(25:33):
double energy wasted? Why am I going to put in
the effort if someone else's The problem with that is
as soon as you stop pushing, the car slows down
or stops moving, and it's not your car, so eventually
you will have to take your foot off the pedal
and they'll be left stranded in the middle of nowhere.
And so the problem is the person just doesn't learn
(25:53):
to handle disappointment. You end up saving them. They don't
learn how to be resourceful on their own, and so
you actually rob them of the chance to learn to
be as emotionally practically independent as they need to to
really have healthy mutual relationships with other people. Because as
soon as you start training that person to create those
habits with people, those habits will probably repeat in different
(26:16):
relationships or in different different places in their life, and
so they become dependent on people based on what they
can give them, rather than actually creating meaningful relationships with them.
I guess the lesson here is that real help empowers someone,
which is a huge sign that your help is actually working.
And harmful help enables someone to continue their negative patterns
(26:36):
and bad behavior. And you know what I was just
thinking about. We've been talking so much about how it
creates negative effect on them, but actually what about you? Like,
what about when helping someone else is actually harming you?
There have been times where I've thought giving up you know,
my needs, my opinions, my principles or values is the
solution to make someone else happy, Like, oh, you know,
(26:59):
my needs aren't as and my opinions aren't as important.
And to show that I love this person, to show
that I care for them, let me just bow out,
let me just mute what I feel, let me just
reduce my needs, let me just take away my opinions
to help them feel better about themselves. Or you know,
you're sacrificing yourself for another person's in inverted commas betterment.
(27:20):
So I guess the idea here is I'll give up me,
and I'll decrease my own importance or the value of
what I am giving for the sake of the larger course.
Like no, no, no, I'm not doing too much for you.
I'm not giving you too much. I'm not pouring too
much into you. Let me make you feel better by
telling you what I'm doing is okay, because it will
make you feel better about yourself when in reality you
(27:41):
probably are giving too much, probably are doing too much,
but you don't want to say that to make the
other person feel bad. I read someone that this mindset
can actually come from how we've seen others do it
when we're younger, or being taught from a young age
that when you make others happy, you feel good about yourself,
or giving in and helping others results in someone liking
you or doing something back for you, and so that
(28:04):
can happen from a young age. It's almost like if you
stop crying, Mommy will be happy. If you stop, If
you stop doing this annoying thing that I'm getting angry at,
Mommy will love you more, Daddy would love you more,
or you know, whether it's a relationship when you were
younger that you've been in those patterns really do stick
with you, and so trying to like also reflect on
(28:25):
where is this come from? Has this come from parents
when I was younger? Has this come from a really
young relationship that I created these patterns in? Where does
this actually stem from? Where's the route? Because usually finding
that out can really help you realize that maybe you
haven't worked through those things, which is causing you to
repeat those patterns now. And the problem is being a
(28:46):
resource in someone's life may make you feel useful, but
it's not fulfilling meaningful relationship. Consciously or subconsciously. You end
up becoming a resource and then they start to treat
you as that because you've created that really relationship, and
so being a resource is so much more of a
transactional relationship. It's like business, I'm going to provide for you.
(29:06):
I'm going to give you these things whenever you need me.
But what are you actually giving back? Like what's that
person actually providing in your life to fulfill you? And
it can't be that it makes you feel good to
give to them. I think that it ends up being
a broken cycle. And if we are people that like
feeling needed being useful in someone's life, can sometimes be
(29:27):
mistaken for someone valuing you in their life. I really
need you in my life. They'll say, I really need you.
What am I going to do? How am I going
to do this without you? I can't make these changes
without you. You're the reason I'm making these changes. And
so you end up feeling valued in their life. But
it's not value. It's often they just see you as
a resource. And so they are very two different things.
(29:48):
And make sure you understand that if in your mind,
if they're coming to you when they're in need and
you end up providing them the same resource over and
over again, you are a resource. You are not valued
in that relationship. And look at the the day. It
is so normal. It's such a normal human thing to
be a support system for one another. That is a
normal human thing to want to do. We give, we
(30:08):
get nourished from other people, other people nourish us. It's
a beautiful cycle in that. But reciprocation is necessary, and
when support ends up being the main part of the relationship,
it is time to reassess what that relationship really is.
So just remember real help empower someone to get on
their own feet and to do what they are trying
to do by themselves. You are supporting. You are not
(30:31):
the main character, and harmful help enables the person to
maybe make that change for a week or a day,
but it actually makes them reliant on you, and that
is not real help. That is harmful help. I also
think that it's such a beautiful thing to want to
help people, right, like we are all just human. Compassion
(30:54):
is so necessary, and all we want to do is serve.
It's part of our human nature to want to serve,
to give, and to love other people. But real change
only really occurs in someone when there's a shift in
their perspective, like in the way that they see themselves
and the world and the situation that they're in. And
no matter what someone does for you, unless you are
(31:16):
able to do it for yourself, it's almost just putting
a band aid on something, right, unless you are actually
helping someone to come to their own conclusions. Like that's
what I've actually realized. True support is right. True support
is not coming to someone's rescue and doing it for them,
even though that feels like the easier option, even though
(31:36):
it feels like you're doing you're taking a lot of
burden off them. You are but you're also taking away
their power to be able to do it themselves. And
I think that that's a really really important distinction to make.
Helping someone come to their own conclusions and empowering them
to help themselves is the biggest, bestest form of support.
(31:57):
And you know there will be times in your life
where you may have to put in a lot of
effort for someone, but you'll know if that pattern keeps
repeating that what you're doing doesn't help. Right, Like, there
may be a burst a time where someone really needs
all your focus, your attention, they've gone through something really horrible,
then you need to be there to support them. And
that's a different type of scenario to one where you
are noticing yourself having a repeated pattern of helping someone
(32:19):
over and over again, probably about the same thing. And
reflecting on ourselves before we see all the fault in
another person is always a better place to start for
a clear idea of what changes need to happen. So
I recommend honestly sitting down and just coming to the
like coming to a realization first realizing what relationships you
need to take a look at, and then reflecting on
(32:42):
the savior complex, Like, is that something that you have
if it's not and that's not the reason, then reflecting
on your boundaries and where you need to set them,
and then recognizing where does it feel a bit sour,
Where does it end up feeling a bit bitter to
what part, like what areas of my life do I
feel those feelings of resentment? Who do I feel them towards?
And what part am I giving too much on? Because
(33:04):
sometimes we can be really free with our energy and
our time, but maybe if someone asks for our physical resources,
we feel a little bit more resentful or we take
that more seriously. Or it could be that you're actually
really happy giving a lot of your resources. You have
abundance in your life, and so you're really happy with
giving things or money, but your time and your energy
(33:26):
are really important to you, and so creating boundaries in
specific areas they won't be the same with each thing,
and so notice which parts trigger you and create that
need to protect yourself. Anyway, I just wanted to share
on that topic because it was something I've been thinking
about so much this week, and I really think can
help to help your relationships get so much better, to
(33:48):
help you in your own mind and your own heart
to figure out areas that you need to improve on,
because we're all here to grow and to change, and
also recognize the weeds that we have in our heart
before we recognize the weeds and others. And just because
sometimes life just becomes things become so normal, right, like
we end up thinking things are so normal in our
(34:09):
life and when we take a second, like I only
started reflecting on this by having this conversation and advising
my friend, and I had to remember and I reflected
back on all the times I've also done that. So
sometimes having triggers of like conversations and hearing things like
this can really help you to enhance and reflect at
your own life. So I hope that was useful, and
I really do hope that some of these things were
(34:30):
good food for thought. But I also hope that this
conversation is going to be helpful for you to take
away and improve your life in some way and your relationships.
So thank you all so much for listening and sending
your so much love for this week.
Host
Radhi Devlukia
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