Letting people "fail"

Letting people “fail”

Many people love to help others, especially if the others are people close to them such as family, spouse, children, and best friends.  Helping can be the soft side of being controlling.  Yikes !! What does this mean?  If someone has not asked for help, you stepping in is playing “god” in his/her world. A fact of “helping” known both to mainstream psychology as well as spirituality is that if someone does not ask for help, s/he will not be able to listen to or hear any advice given.  In fact, with Spiritual Readings, if a person cannot think to ask certain questions, s/he will not be able to understand the Guidance given by a Reader determined to control a challenge a person will be, or currently is, facing. Remember this is a short article, and does not address ALL the details of the subject matter discussed. These articles are like reading Wikipedia on Shakespeare rather than reading the original materials yourself. For more details or training, contact Dr. Marie at MarieFeuer.Org)  

A majority of new-age and spiritual “healers” have unhealed codependent and egocentric issues. These are folks who feel the need to “help” others in order to feel needed, useful. They need constant accolades in order to justify their existence, keep their own pain at bay. It is their alcohol, or heroin. They are addicted to helping others, unasked, in order to make themselves feel good, and worse, don’t even know they are doing that. How many Readings have I done where someone in tears wants to “serve Spirit” and then gets furious when I suggest that perhaps Spirit wants them to be a good office worker, or janitor etc.  Usually these folks have “powerful” spirit animals too, like eagle, bear, wolf. Never ant, earthworm, or sparrow…. Lol.   Ego ego ego.  Want to really consider what is like to be a servant of Spirit? Read the Kin of Ata by Dorothy Bryant. 

Decades ago an Apache Medicine Man gave us this to think about. A person spends years setting up a lesson they came here to learn. Unasked, you jump in to “save” them, or help them. You have now destroyed the years of work they spent setting up this lesson, a lesson they came here to learn, set up when in Spirit form, with Guides. You have set them back in their development and even their life path. Wow. That was a new way to look at raging co-dependence (which is what this is when you are helping out of your own neediness rather than a person asking you for help).  You can add to this interpretation, you have decided that the person’s Guides/God/Goddess etc. has fallen down on the job and you need to step in because those divine beings aren’t doing a good job. Talk about control and ego.  Trust me. If Spirit needs your help to help another, you will be given Guidance about that so clear you cannot possible miss the signals or the message. In fact, if you politely say no, and you are really needed, Spirit will ask you once again even more clearly before finding another. You are not irreplaceable when it comes to serving Spirit, even when it involves helping others.

So, now what to do with all your free time (just kidding). Stop rushing in to save others. Wait for them to ask. You can drop a hint perhaps, ask some questions. Then LEAVE IT. Leave it to their Guides, to Spirit. Wait until you are asked for help or advice, otherwise the others will not be able to hear what you want to say (rather than being guided by the others request for help that tells you what they are ready to hear). Stay with the person emotionally, love them, and keep boundaries as well. Then when the lesson rolls in, others will come to you because they will not feel you have the “I told you so” energy.  Whether you say these words or not—people are embarrassed when given advice they cannot take or hear, and then a lesson flattens them. They will not come to you if you tried to previously “protect” them (control them really) with your unsolicited advice.  If you mind your own business, others will come to you after their lesson rolls in and THEN you can help them both recover and to see the gift of a lesson learned (not just the pain of the situation). 

This is hard to do. It means you need to be a grown up and manage your own emotions as you give someone the freedom (free will) and the respect (of the person and his/her Guides) to learn a lesson their own way, in their own time. You will not harvest the accolades you might be craving (good growth for you by the way).  And you will have much more free time (not kidding now) to care for yourself, continue to work on your own Path, practice your Spiritual Skills, grow a garden, pet your kitten, meditate, etc.  If this makes you uncomfortable, if you start to feel “lost” when stepping back, this is a red flag you have some healing and growing to do in the areas of co-dependence, and being controlling (in the name of helping, or saving another without permission).

Journey On.