The Need to Help
La necesidad de ayudar
A question about the difficulty of watching friends suffer, and how the desire to help others can mask unexamined needs of one's own.
The Need to Help
A question about the difficulty of watching friends suffer, and how the desire to help others can mask unexamined needs of one's own.
I have a question regarding friendships and relationships, specifically around people I've known for a long time who don't do this type of work. It's really hard to sit with, just seeing their patterns and their suffering. I want to be helpful when they come to me, and it's hard to just listen to their problems and not want to say something. Sometimes I might say something because they ask, but they get very defensive. I know that's just part of it, but it keeps going. I find it sometimes really hard to navigate, because I don't want to cut the friendship.
There is always a place where that might be the necessary choice, but there are so many opportunities for taking that as an easy way out when it's not necessary.
Now, when you speak about their suffering, it's actually your suffering. You are getting to a point where you're looking at things that are quite complex. You are in a place where you're starting this work, starting to move more deeply into it. You will see benefits, you will see changes, and you will find how good it can be.
But when you stay with friends and they share, and you want to help them, and things get either triggering or really speak to a dynamic that you're a part of, that's because you're not fully out. There is a journey ahead. Even just trying to help speaks to something that is of your own nature.
Their suffering doesn't bother me
Let me describe my own experience. When I stay with people I've known for a long time, their suffering doesn't bother me at all. I know what I'm about to say can be misinterpreted, but I'll say it in the spirit of transparency: I don't think they suffer, in the sense that I know their suffering is an illusion. So I don't suffer their suffering. I can see the dynamic of what I know as suffering. I can see it happening. I can see it in my family members. I can see it in most of the people I meet. But it doesn't bring any trouble to me. I could be sad. I could really want to be of service. I can offer. But if I'm not invited, if that offer isn't taken, if I'm not asked to begin with, I have no problem with that.
What's activating for you is that you're becoming more and more aware of your own psychology, your own challenges, your own illusions. That's a good thing; this is the process. But then you're able to see those patterns in others more clearly, and until you're more fully free from those dynamics within yourself, you're going to get caught in various reactive dynamics.
Don't be too quick to judge
It's true that some people are not doing this work, and they change less. That's what they're choosing. But it can also happen that they don't do this work, they do other things. Their passion for skydiving, for example, brings them to live at a level of awakening that is deeper than normal. You can find yourself relating to these people, not sharing the language, because in circles like this we all share a certain vocabulary. You could be sitting with somebody who absolutely dislikes that language, yet you can connect because there's a level of depth and openness.
So don't be too quick to judge somebody who's not doing this work as less deep or less advanced. That happens a lot in these circles, and it's very unnecessary. I can sit with the coffee barista in the café and have the loveliest connection without knowing whether they have any spiritual practice. I'm meeting with a human who is more than that. I'm meeting with just the presence of another being.
Sure, especially with friends, parents, or siblings, there's a lot of conditioning in those relationships. But any struggle there points to my own struggle. There could be pain, disappointment, frustration, which I can feel quite often with my relatives. But there isn't actually a problem with that for me. If I'm expressing some frustration, I'm using the energy of frustration to make a point, because there's something I feel needs to be addressed for the well-being of the people involved. But ultimately, if the choice in this person is to not hear me, then it's their choice and it's not mine.
I'm describing my experience so that you might see: when it really is a struggle you're having, that's you. That's your work. If somebody you are trying to help gets triggered, it's probably something about how you brought that. You really have to look at yourself first, because the energy of trying to help can come from a need that's your own. Then it gets placed on the other person, on them letting you help. I would need to be there to see what's actually happening, but I'm describing a common situation and things that commonly arise with this kind of work.
Right. I still have lots to work through, for sure. Sometimes it's not easy to distinguish if it's in them.
It's often very difficult, and it should be. You should always assume first that it's something in you. Look in yourself first, and then make room for what's happening elsewhere, until what's happening in you becomes thoroughly clear.
The need to help is yours
The need to help is a need that is yours. It gets projected or transferred onto another, and then it becomes something for you to hold, for you to carry. For example: "If I am the one who helps, then I will be accepted and cared for. I will be seen as valuable and needed and intelligent or loving." I'm describing a common pattern. See if this resonates. If you're coming from that place, another person who is deeply sensitive will feel it. And even if they're not sensitive, something might rub them the wrong way. Then there could be a reactivity, and you react to that. But what's actually happening is that you're bringing a need to somebody who is sharing or expressing a pain or difficulty. These things go really deep.
Yeah, I see that now. It's always about me, right? Not most of the time. Ninety-nine percent of the time.
Most of the time, yes. Some people go through this process very young and very quickly, as if they're a miracle. I took a long time, but I worked intensely. I didn't do anything other than this work, pretty much as a priority, since I was a teenager. I didn't have children. So there was a lot of time, a lot of focus. And only recently did I start trusting the clarity in me, instead of constantly looking at it as if it's not clear. I started to see: okay, now I can trust more and more. When I read something in a situation, it's more likely what's actually happening and not my own neurosis or projections. And I still look. I'm still constantly looking for that.
Right. Definitely. My need to help is my own need.
The shadow side of helping
Exactly. And there is a shadow side to that. Shadow is not always bad. In this type of community, "shadow" is often spoken of as all the dark, bad, negative things, the pains and fears. But shadow aspects can also be very positive. The shadow aspect of the need to help is the gifts that you can give.
What I invite you to do is start contemplating: what gifts were you given? What gifts has life given you? We are like a distillery. Think of a vineyard. Our body-mind receives the grapes, the raw fruit from the vine. That's the life force. And then we can develop what we are, the body-mind, so that what comes out is the finest wine. That is the gift. That is what you can give.
This is different from deciding that the process of development is too much work and instead trying to help somebody else with their troubles while not addressing your own. That becomes a mechanism for avoiding the work, avoiding your own development. What we really need is to let what's in us come through. We need to give what we have to give, but give it without it needing to be accepted. You don't need anybody to receive it.
If you want a friend to get your help and respond well to that, and there's pain or sadness when they don't, that's probably not genuine service.
Service, not helping
I invite you to look more deeply at what you want. We receive these grapes from the vine. They come with the energy of a life force and a desire, what I call the universal desire. It wants to come through in its highest form. For me, for example, it has to do with the work I'm doing with technology and the inventions I'm creating, and with the work I'm sharing here. But if nobody attended these meetings, I would simply not hold them, and I would be absolutely fine and happy. So in a way, I'm not here to help. I might use that word once in a while, but the word that resonates more deeply for me is "to be of service." I'm in service if service is needed, but I'm happy if it's not. "Helping" carries a bit more of the assumption that somebody must have a problem. And at the level of depth I'm wanting to focus on here, the problem is the false belief that there's a problem.
Right. I see the problem; they don't see the problem. If they don't see the problem, there is no problem. If I see the problem, it's my problem.
It also depends on what problem. You might be projecting a problem. But they might also be coming to you with something, sharing something they're frustrated with or in pain about. When you said those words earlier, that it's difficult for you to hear them, that it's painful when you try to help and things go sideways, it escalates, or you get triggered: that to me describes a typical scenario where you are bringing something of your own into that sharing, but placing it in the other person. That's why the dynamic is not going to work. It's almost as if someone comes to you with care, saying, "Here's a problem I'm having," and you respond, "Oh, here's one I have. Can you hold that one for me as well?"
Yeah, I totally see it now.
Curiosity, not self-punishment
The important thing is for you to have what I call inner integrity and honesty, to be able to look back at that and go: "Well, I just did that." And to say, "Yeah, I do see I'm doing that." It's totally fine. Don't waste any time beating yourself up about it. Just recognize: "Oh, that's what it is. I can now see this more clearly. I can do things differently. I need to pay attention. This is a habit. I wonder why this is happening." Let it purely spark and ignite your curiosity.
Thank you.
You're welcome.