How is it that sometimes when you intend to help someone, you wind up hurting them? I’m asking this question this morning in light of an experience where I meant well in my honesty with a close relative of mine, but it somehow ended in my dining alone. As I sat alone at the table, I felt really sad about the situation and began to reflect. Why is it that when we need people most, we push them away?
In longing to be there for her in a difficult situation, I seem to have made her feel judged and unsafe enough for her to get up and basically run out of the restaurant. Prior to our evening out, she had mentioned that she felt lonely and was having a hard time, so I offered to go out to dinner with her on her birthday. My intention had been to show her she was not alone and that I cared immensely about her. I intended to show her that though she had lost a lot of relationships because of an abusive relationship she continues to choose (for over 2 years), she still had me. During our conversation, I gave a lot of examples of my own life and my own demons attempting to give her examples of things that I’ve learned in my healing process. I was trying to illustrate hope and shine a little bit of light on her path since I too have seen my own lack of self-love play out in my life in really undesirable situations. I explained that sometimes the best way to beat your demons is by not entertaining them and talking back to them with positivity, love, and truth. The person who treats her badly is her visible demon, but her lack of self-love is her deepest demon that needs healing before she will ever be able to truly be happy.
I gave her an example of someone from my past and told her that because I know this person was a weakness of mine, I chose not to allow that weakness to gain any hold in my life because I knew entertaining that person even in my thoughts would lead to dire outcomes for my family and my highest good. Like an addict… a serious addict who wants recovery cannot put themselves in situations where they have any temptation before them because they know they are not strong enough to withstand the temptation and make the right decision. We see in AA, many people who cannot go to parties where alcohol is served or be around people who are drinking because they know they are weak and that this type of environment would be unhealthy for them. I explained that addictions are not always your typical drugs and alcohol, but sometimes they are less obvious coming in the form of relationships, sex, eating, etc.
We talked about awareness and I gave her the example of how sometimes certain beliefs from earlier points in our lives play themselves out in our future. So for example, if subconsciously we believe we aren’t important because we weren’t valued by our parents in childhood and were treated as an afterthought, we tend to replay this script out in our current adult life. We may choose to be with people who don’t value us because the ego or early belief system has built a stronghold in our life and shaking or rocking that might feel unsafe or unfamiliar. We don’t consciously see how we do this until we start analyzing our life and start to see our underlying beliefs for what they are, untrue, false, lies, demonic influences that are stealing any chance for joy in the present moment. She insisted that thinking this way was “making excuses” for current behavior. I disagreed explaining that it isn’t making an excuse so much as allowing you to see yourself with a bit of compassion. This compassion then empowers you to move forward and overcome the unconscious decisions you’ve been making on bad belief systems. Using this same example, it’s saying, “Although I may have been treated as unimportant by my parents, that says more about who they are rather than who I am. I don’t have to let their behaviors toward me dictate how I feel now or have any power over me. If I allow them to dictate how I feel now, then I am the only one losing in this situation.”
When failing to get through to her that way, I offered a bit more insight from my own evolution. I tried to explain that the beliefs you formed in childhood because of various environmental factors cause you to be stunted in your growth. After she explained that she is “aware” and knows the choices she is making are not healthy or safe for her, it is her own fault she is in her current predicament. I offered an illustration. I said, “Ok, so since you are aware of this, think of your daughter being younger and under your care. She tells you that she doesn’t like going to a person’s house because they’ve hurt her, and they make her feel really awful. She tells you that her stomach hurts, she gets really nervous, and feels all around sick every time she is around this person because of how they’ve treated her and the things they’ve done to her. You then, put her in the car, as her parent, and bring her to this person’s house and leave her there for a week.” I then told her this is what she is doing to herself every time she chooses to ignore her feelings and be in the presence of the person who has been causing her this pain. She paused and said, let me think about that and then it was as if it didn’t register at all… so I bluntly said to her, “What I’m seeing is that you are not loving yourself at all and you really need to learn to love yourself so that you can be happy.”
After this, things got a bit awkward, she retorted with a story assimilating her story to how she felt. Her story was in effect that, “She is a child living with an abusive parent. She goes to school but knows that after school she has to come home because that is her shelter and her food. She goes home to eat knowing that she is going to get beat up, but she has to go home because that is where her survival is.” After this, I said, “Here’s the thing with your story… you are financially independent and provide your own shelter and there are many restaurants in town that are serving food without cockroaches that don’t make you sick, but you can’t eat at those restaurants while you are imprisoned in the restaurant full of cockroaches. You have to break free of that restaurant so that the others will open for you to feast on their gourmet meals.” She laughed about the cockroaches and I thought things were going well.
However, at some point the conversation took a turn for the worse and she was saying, “You think you’re so perfect that you can sit there and judge me.” I defended myself, “No, I definitely do not think that I am perfect… I know I am absolutely not, but the difference between us is that I see the faults in me and am working to get well and heal them.” As I said this, I was insinuating that she had inner work to do based off of the patterns of thinking that she was exhibiting during our conversation. Then in my frustration that she would attack me for trying to help, I said, “It’s ok, blame me, attack me just like you seem to have done with everyone else in your life.”
Things got awkwardly silent, she fiddled with her phone for some time. As she fiddled, I sarcastically said, “What do you have a date to get to?” and then she blurted out, “I’m gonna go” and left abruptly, leaving her jacket behind. This is not atypical for her since every time we have a phone conversation where I say something honest that she doesn’t want to hear, she does the same thing and hangs up. As she was getting up, I said, “Enjoy your time alone with John (name changed for her protection)” because I was upset that she would just run away from our conversation and that she continues to make bad decisions. With this comment I was met with some expletives as she stood to leave. I didn’t say anything back I just sat there and took it, which is far from how things would have gone before I’d begun my own inner work.
I sat there feeling frustrated and as though I’d let her down. Part of me felt angry because she just can’t see that I care and that I’m trying to be her small flickering match in the dark. Then I questioned myself and whether I could have communicated better in the situation. I am not a therapist and I thought, “Well, maybe I should have kept my mouth shut… maybe I pushed too hard… maybe I am not qualified to try and show her the things I’ve learned through reading and my own inner work.” However, prior to our dinner, there was a quote by Maya Angelou that I’d heard on an Oprah Winfrey Soul Sessions podcast, “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” I realized that I was attempting to teach what I’d learned and give the joy that I was getting out of my lessons to someone else. I think my heart was in the right place, but maybe she just was not ready to receive it.
Why is it that when presented with the truth of a situation, some of us cannot face it and run? Why is it that when someone attempts to help us see our blind spots, we close our eyes? I sat there alone at the table questioning why someone would not want to take the medicine that would make their life immensely better. I prayed a bit on it… recognizing that I am not the savior but was attempting to offer some insight and help someone who was sitting across from me in a really broken place. I was trying to do what we’re all called to do… share the love, light, blessings and lessons that we’ve been granted in the world to brighten up some of the darker areas. Somehow, even though I felt I was clear in my intent, I still felt in some way I let her down and my heart hurt a bit.
I guess I don’t really know what I expected. Maybe I was hoping to witness a miracle moment where she would suddenly see the light and be grateful that I loved her enough to want to help lift her up. However, I will say that things didn’t go as I’d expected when planning to have dinner with her. I didn’t intend for her to storm out of the restaurant on her birthday, upset and angry. I didn’t expect for our relationship to wind up in a sour place. I thought we were closer than that. Having been her maid of honor in her first marriage and having shared a lot of deep things in the past, I thought she would see that I only wanted her happiness. As Iyanla Vanzant frequently says, “Hurt people, hurt people.” I’m happy that I can see fairly clearly now that in her hurt, she attacked me for “thinking I’m so perfect” and “judging her” when I was attempting to help. I am able to forgive the situation because I can see her with eyes of compassion. I just pray that she opens her eyes before the darkness consumes her. I also pray that she eventually sees that I had her best interest at heart with the statements I’d made.