As I'll be talking about in my upcoming webinar, when we try to help others -- whether as part of our work, or a
volunteer ministry, or simply in personal relationships -- there are many ways that this work can go wrong. We talk in the church and in recovery meetings about how great and helpful service is, how it's better to give than to receive, and how helping others in their recovery actually helps us in our own recovery.
But that's not always the
case. Yes it's true that service, done in the right way, with the right heart and mentality, brings blessing to both the receiver and the giver. We help others, and in the process we learn and grow, and find a deeper sense of fulfillment and meaning in life. That's how it's supposed to work, and it often does.
But service done in the wrong way, with the wrong
heart and mentality, is unhelpful to the receiver and destructive to the giver. And believe me, as a leadership coach and mentor, and as a pastor, I see this happen A LOT. I see people trying to make a difference, and help other people, who wind up alienating and dis-empowering the people they're trying to help. Their own character flaws and neediness get in the way of genuine and helpful service. Maybe conflict develops. Maybe the "helpee" feels insulted, or judged, or even worse:
feels super grateful that this "savior" has done it all for them, and loses a sense of their own dignity and personal agency.
And then I also see problems develop for the helpers and givers. I see people get too wrapped up getting results, be that in success for an organization, or in seeing a person change / behave / respond in a certain way.
Then inevitably they get frustrated or discouraged when it doesn't go the way they hoped. (And if by some chance things DO go their way, they then become insufferable in their smugness and arrogance.) I see people over-function, and get worn down. I see people get into power trips or martyr missions, where work they do to serve others gets co-opted by their own ego.
Mostly, I just see people get tired and depleted, engaging in some form of service with great zeal for a while, only to give it up not long thereafter, because they're too stressed out, and "have to cut back somewhere."
Beldon Lane writes about the desert fathers -- monks and hermits in first few centuries BC, who left what they felt was a
morally corrupt Roman society to focus on developing their spiritual lives, either alone or in small communities. Notice what he says about how the work they did on themselves actually allowed them to serve others in more helpful ways. When they let go of their need for other people to approve of them, or to respond in certain ways, it allowed them to be of genuine help.
I haven't used the word "codependence" yet, although I use it in the title of this piece. The term "codependence" is used in many ways, and seems to mean different things to different people. But one important and universal dimension is this: codependence is what happens when we don't have a healthy sense of internal peace and self-worth. Without that center, we look to other people to fulfill our needs. We can't be okay unless
they are okay, and okay with us.
I would say that when this internal sense of neediness -- the need for attention, approval, or control -- exists, our ability to be of genuine service to others really diminishes. Here's Belden Lane:
“The desert monks learned that love thrives on the distance made possible by solitude. …Only those who have died to others can be of service to them. Only when we have ceased to need people–desperately, neurotically need them–are we concretely able to love. …Genuine love is ultimately impossible apart from such indifference. Without it, the sinful self remains 'incurvatusse,' as Luther insisted, curved in upon itself in hopeless self-preoccupation. Only the solitary
therefore, can truly care for all the right reasons, because he or she has ceased to care for all the wrong reasons. …
True love, a love that is unacquisitive and free cannot exist when the person loved is being used as an object for the satisfaction of another’s needs. To love in the sense of agape, is to treat the other
person not with any preference for one’s own good but as an equal....
Admittedly this idea of compassion as the fruit of indifference may be difficult to grasp in contemporary culture. Popular conceptions of love are often limited to sentimental feelings and delusions of self-denying grandeur. As a result, we often fail to
recognize the extent to which all this disguises a highly manipulative bid for our own self-aggrandizement. We are entirely too needy–too anxious about the fragility of our own self-worth–to be free to love.”
-- Belden Lane
