I have been thinking a lot about self-care, especially for people who find themselves pulled into helping people and making things better. The desire to help can be a gift. It can make you notice pain other people have normalized. It can help you imagine futures that are more coherent, humane, and effective. It can give you the energy to push against inertia. And it can give you the patience to nurture something that others might give up on too quickly.
Way too close for comfort. For somebody not knowing me, a lot of what you describe feels awfully familiar. Including the countless (emotional) brick walls I hit.
What I have come to accept is, that having a learning curve like a hockey stick on steroids puts me in a position to help with almost any problem, but most people can't handle this kind of acceleration so they start blocking, which in turn frustrates me.
I appreciate the framing of self-care as a reflective and relational practice.
One thing I'd add to the discussion is that helping is itself a form of power, which is why helping can cause so much trouble and why I often work with leaders to get out of the helping habit.
Rachel Remen says it beautifully in her essay Helping, Fixing, or Serving?: "Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness." (https://www.dailygood.org/story/218/helping-fixing-or-serving-rachel-naomi-remen-md/)
I had many ahhaa moments reading this - in cases recognized my own reactions, and made sense of actions of others around me. I believe I'm able to adapt quite fast to the comfortable corporate language of others, but this article has given me insight to put meaning behind the choices or actions much faster. Beautiful!
Way too close for comfort. For somebody not knowing me, a lot of what you describe feels awfully familiar. Including the countless (emotional) brick walls I hit.
What I have come to accept is, that having a learning curve like a hockey stick on steroids puts me in a position to help with almost any problem, but most people can't handle this kind of acceleration so they start blocking, which in turn frustrates me.
I appreciate the framing of self-care as a reflective and relational practice.
One thing I'd add to the discussion is that helping is itself a form of power, which is why helping can cause so much trouble and why I often work with leaders to get out of the helping habit.
Rachel Remen says it beautifully in her essay Helping, Fixing, or Serving?: "Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness." (https://www.dailygood.org/story/218/helping-fixing-or-serving-rachel-naomi-remen-md/)
I had many ahhaa moments reading this - in cases recognized my own reactions, and made sense of actions of others around me. I believe I'm able to adapt quite fast to the comfortable corporate language of others, but this article has given me insight to put meaning behind the choices or actions much faster. Beautiful!