3. What the expert on death and dying has to say about living: If you took a psychology course in college, you probably
had to read something by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, probably her most famous book On Death and Dying. She literally wrote the book about this subject, and introduced us to the five stages of grief model. But she also has something important to say about living your life:
"It is very important that you only do what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to
live, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do.
Otherwise, you will live your life as a prostitute, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived. and you will not have a pleasant death.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross." - John Maxwell
This week I'm including a portion of my forthcoming book: Not So Overwhelmed. You know what creates endless amounts of frustration, discouragement, and overwhelm among people who are trying to help others? Dealing with people who don't really want help.
In recovery circles, we often hear the reminder: Beware of wanting recovery for someone
else more than they want it for themselves. If we are trying hard to "get" someone to do their recovery work, go to meetings, find support, etc., chances are we are pushing them, that we want it more than they do. Eventually they will resist, or start lying to us, just to get us off their back. In order to make significant life change, people need to want it for themselves. This is true in recovery, but also in many areas of working with people. Here's the
excerpt:
Not everyone who has a problem or a need wants your help. This is part of the discernment process: coming to terms with this fact and learning to invest in people and situations where your help will actually be welcomed.
Sometimes we are in situations like Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, where the person in need is so desperate that they have no choice but to accept our help. (In the parable, a man was robbed and beaten,
laying on the side of the road.) Or we might be in a situation where the need is not debilitating, yet the person is very open and receptive to our assistance and support.
But when we are working with people, it is not uncommon to find that they don’t really want our help. They might seem to want our help, but when we try to help, nothing seems to work. They resist our suggestions, never seem to be available when we offer to meet with them, or don't take action on
opportunities we give them.
Here is the key in working with people that will save you countless hours and headaches: Ask yourself if they really want your help or if they simply want your understanding and compassion.
Remember this: Some people just want to commiserate; they don't want to change. Some people want you to know about their troubles, and that's all. They want your compassion and maybe your sympathy, but
they don't really want your help. This is not bad, and there's no need to be judgmental about it. It takes time for all of us to deal with our denial and resistance to change.
How can you tell?
How can you know for sure? It may not be clear initially if someone is really open and receptive to your help, but over time it will become obvious. Trust me on this.
Watch for signs of resistance. They are easy to spot once you become sensitive to this issue. You say, "Okay how about trying this, in order to deal with the problem?" And they say, "No, that won't work. I can't do that." So then you say, "Well, how about trying that?" And they respond, "No I tried that before and it won't work because of this or that." And on and on.
After going back and forth, it might become clear that whatever options you can think of to deal with the
problem -- that involve action or hard choices on their part -- will be dismissed.
If you spend much time on this merry-go-round with people, it will drive you crazy. At some point it starts to dawn on you that you are putting more energy into helping them than they are into helping themselves.
Please note: You will not learn this from their words. Almost everyone will say they want your help. You will learn that people don't really want your
help by how they respond when you try to help.
It's probably more accurate to say that people do want help … they just want it on their own terms, without it requiring much work. People want their problems fixed, but they just want them fixed easily. They're not ready to deal with the issues that need to be dealt with in order to fix the problem. They're not willing to do the hard work that it takes for them to change.
I
know this may sound a bit harsh and cold-hearted. In the book I go on to point out how all of us are like this -- resistant to change -- at some point. People who are not ready to make changes are not bad people ... they are just not ready yet. It's okay. Let them be.
Just don't drive yourself into overwhelm trying to help those who don't want help.
