Many years of my life was spent on trying to “save” people from suffering. I thought that if they just had a kind, listening ear and a few words of wisdom, they would change and be happier. When minor interventions didn’t seem to work, I would continue to barrage them with positivity, and “helpful advice”. Somehow many of them ended up using me as a bank, babysitter, taxi driver, safe haven from domestic abuse, and receiver of their negativity, fear, and anger. That’s when I still saw them (and sometimes myself) as “victims” that needed “saving”.
I cried for these people. I lost sleep. I talked incessantly to friends and family until their eyeballs rolled. I felt what they felt and had tons of secondary trauma. I saw and experienced their darkness.
Concurrently, these patterns were recreated in romantic relationships. Narcissists and substance abusers mostly. All charming, especially at the beginning. Eventually these patterns devolved into continuous and debilitating inner stress, anxiety, panic and depression. Then, a year and a half romance with substance abuse. I hit bottom, truly.
So, the next 30 or so years were spent searching for peace and wellness. Counseling, 12 Step Programs, day hospital treatment programs (for debilitating depression), psychiatry etc. Somewhere along the line I found a metaphysical healing based church that changed my life! Then an Earth Angel Goddess came into my life and she started me on a holistic path that continued the forward momentum of what I now see was fast and amazing personal growth.
Did all those patterns simply vanish? NO! Well, some did. Some became dormant, or I shut them down with willpower, or I amputated people from my life that triggered me, or they came out in quieter, more subtle ways. That’s where I am today. A quiet and subtle fixer of others! LOL.
This piece has come into existence today after a conversation with a family member just this morning. I had an A-HA moment while talking about, basically, the topic of Live and Let Live. I found myself getting very emotional about how I don’t want to watch people suffer. I started to cry a little, and internally realized something about myself…..others’ suffering STILL hurts me to see……….
So I want to control them.
I want to teach people (who are NOT asking, I may add!) about health, mindfulness, nutrition, holistic and spiritual interventions. Then nobody would have to suffer! HA!
Some takeaways from the conversation from this wise person’s point of view:
We can’t change anyone so why worry about them.
Let the diabetics eat their sweets.
Let the alcohol-involved folks drink whatever they want.
Each is on his/her own journey and have free will.
I came to realize what the BIG fear/subtle false belief is beneath the gazillions of episodes of my co-dependent attempts to “fix others” in my life:
People aren’t supposed to suffer because suffering hurts everyone, including me!
I don’t want to suffer! Well, that’s an unreasonable expectation, isn’t it! Being human and all……
That quiet, subtle yet persistent false belief negates everything I know about the role that Contrast plays in personal and universal expansion (The Law of Polarity).
Believing that people aren’t “supposed” to suffer negates what I teach and believe about the Law of Attraction-which states “that which is like unto itself is drawn”.
People either “grow or go” as a result of their suffering. Who am I to ever try to play “God”??
Ahh…so THIS is what they told me at the Day Treatment Program 25 years ago about living in the dialectic, which means “a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to find the truth”!
Even as painful as it was to discover this little devil of a belief inside of me, it reminds me that everything that comes up can face the Light and dissolve. I’ve got this!
Funny how when you think you’ve conquered some lesson and it so surprisingly comes up again for healing…..
I guess I’m still human and will continue on this spiral, circuitous journey towards health, wholeness and expansion, well guided by Source and many earth angels.
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