Helping can be fun. But not always. When is it right to help? Do you know which criteria have to be considered?
Help ! Help me !
There are many reasons that cause people to call for help. Healthy and unhealthy. Sometimes it is important that they get help, sometimes just the wrong thing! How can we tell the difference?
Would you help an alcoholic get home?
Would you help a 4 year old step into their shoes?
Would you help your wife cook?
Would you help your husband clean the car?
Would you help your neighbors in the garden?
Would you take a hitchhiker with you?
You can't always say YES or NO so quickly. Certain circumstances sometimes play a role.
Many dear people always have the lifebuoy with them. Wherever they see the opportunity to help, they can be found there. But they do not consider whether help is really help.
Oswald Chambers, the famous British pastor, once said:
Many people spend their lives sacrificing themselves for other people, with the result that their help makes these people even more selfish.
Is this actually how it helps? Does it make sense to only help if my help helps people on their way to maturity?
So what is helping really? How would you define help?
Definition Of Help
Wiki: Enabling or making it easier for someone to do something by adopting certain parts or advice.
In this definition, the meaning of helping is described as 'enable' and 'facilitate'. Are you satisfied with it?
How about the following definition?
Helping someone in a challenging situation in such a way that self-help is improved and the motivation for solving problems is increased, i.e. helping people to help themselves and become independent.
Maybe you have a better suggestion ???
Mothers in particular are highly challenged to provide their help with far-sightedness and wisdom. Your own deficits usually have a negative effect on your assistance. Unfortunately, they do not notice it, or only when it is too late. It is important that mothers are willing to include the opinion of the fathers in their upbringing. This usually enables a better balance. Parents are stronger together.
So when it comes to helping, there are two areas involved:
the helper
the person seeking help
The One Seeking Help
Do you remember your childhood? Those were wonderful moments when you lay ill and were cared for so lovingly by your mother that being sick was actually a pleasant experience. Right ?
Especially those people who have experienced this act of conditional love (see Blog) as the climax of being loved and who otherwise did not feel loved - although the parents would usually claim the opposite - they tend to demand the same love in adulthood, if they do did not want to grow out of this immaturity.
In other words: Many people love visits to the doctor, care situations, their own accidents or handicaps that enable them to receive special treatment. To be normal would be unbearable.
In other words: There are dear people who prefer to be in an emergency situation all the time and then like to be helped so that they can feel loved.
Well, when I help in such a case, am I not supporting this immature system of demand for love? Isn't that how I prevent the learning process of self-acceptance?
Particularly when bringing up children, it is important that the parents address the children in their love language and that they do not spoil them with their help, but encourage them with far-sightedness. This should not be neglected after the age of three because of other priorities. Expectant teenagers in particular need a lot of attention.
How can you really help such a needy person?
You have probably already gained experience with it. When I meet people like that, the first thing I do is think about how best to help. If this person is a stranger to me, i.e. a 'chance contact', then I tend to point in the healing direction with a challenging 'gentle' question and then to help.
With people for whom I feel responsible, I am therefore obliged to help properly. This can sometimes lead to a deeper conversation, a deeper relationship. The more interested the person is in learning, the more so.
It can also help if the person seeking help realizes that he / she can never get enough of unnecessary things because the unnecessary is never satisfying. It's about deeper values and not about apparent values.
In addition, if you like to be corrected and helped, you will become wise! But whoever does not accept this kind of help remains a fool! Proverbs 12: 1
The Helper
The Helper Syndrome
Wiki: A helper syndrome is a model of emotional problems that are often found in social professions (such as teachers, doctors, geriatric nurses, pastors, psychologists, social workers).
Medical care for sick people is an important and often rewarding task. But it should not only be an end in itself. Love your neighbor as yourself. Enjoy his recovery.
A person affected by the helper syndrome has poor self-esteem and is fixated on his role as a helper; helping or wanting to be needed can become an addiction. He tries to experience the love and acceptance that he himself missed from his parents or generally in his childhood. His willingness to help extends to self-harm and neglect of the family and partnership. In doing so, he easily overlooks or underestimates the limits of what is possible and also ignores the question of whether his help is desired or useful at all. He tends to refuse the help of others in his mission. The result can be depression or burnout.
The helper syndrome occurs in all classes of the population.
As mentioned, there are special occupational fields and specific personality traits that increase the risk. Depressive and dependent personality patterns, borderline and emotionally unstable personality profiles are particularly at risk.
It is clear that helping such people properly is a great challenge.
Other disruptive help factors can be:
The helper motives are selfish
The helper helps in a narcissistic basic attitude to revamp his self-image
The helper does not take the trouble to understand the person seeking help holistically
The helper exercises power unnecessarily, helps his own interests
The helper arouses feelings of failure and immaturity in the person seeking advice
The helper crosses social, moral or spiritual boundaries
Functioning Help
It is often only later that it can be found out whether help is actually a help. Helping a child to become self-reliant is a constant effort. Helping a person to find himself, to recognize toxic thoughts (Blog), to slowly but surely convert his own inability into mature, wise behavior is in any case a challenge and far-sighted, rewarding help.
Only proud people want to do without real help. Know-it-all, arrogance and self-sufficiency prevent maturation. It is therefore clear: humility helps. In helping and getting help. But we don't know so clearly what humility really is! Is not it ? Where have the role models gone? Can you find any?
Those who help others properly will also be helped by others. Because empathic help promotes relationships and strengthens mutual trust.
Good communication is a miracle cure. Saying the right thing at the right moment is high school. That helps a lot of people. Addressing 'hot' topics and dealing with them objectively can work wonders.
Help based on needs increases our feeling of happiness.
Right helping is double helping.
. :-)
