The Best Way to Help Others is to Help Yourself

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience and these are my honest opinions.  Please click here for my full disclosure policy.

I’d like to think that most of us, at one time or another, have felt a deep need to help someone else.  There’s proof in successful internet startups, like GoFundMe.  Invitations to charity fundraisers and awareness walks give us an opportunity to bring voice to something potentially near and dear to our hearts.  On a more personal level, we’ve offered our words.  We’ve leant an ear to someone or offered advice.  Hmmmm, offering advice.  This is a tricky one.  When you offered it, was it asked for?  Was it really asked for?  Well, here are my words of advice, whether you really want them or not.  Stop trying to help people.

I started writing this blog, because I wanted to help people.  Literally.  I wrote that down on a piece of paper.  It feels a little hugely generic and cliche when I read it back to myself from my goal setting scratchpad, but that’s about as specific as I could get at the time.  I’m indecisive – leave me alone.  It was a catchall and it seemed like the nice thing to do, when I really had no idea what to do.  Until now.

“You’re not required to save the world with your creativity. Your art not only doesn’t have to be original, in other words, it also doesn’t have to be important. For example, whenever anyone tells me that they want to write a book in order to help other people I always think ‘Oh, please don’t. Please don’t try to help me.’ I mean it’s very kind of you to help people, but please don’t make it your sole creative motive because we will feel the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls.”
―Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Helping people is a byproduct of my blog.  My blog is an outlet for me to tell my story, to write about what I’m learning through my life.  I’m hoping that through this, I can make a strong connection with other people.  This should be my desired outcome.  Not the sole mission.

I’m not sure I’ve been completely honest with myself either.  I think the thoughts have been swimming around for a long time, just without a voice.  Now that I’m willing to put voice to them, I’m feeling that some of the pressure is off.  I’ve gotten to a place in my grief and in my life, where I want to talk (write) about it.  I want to share with you the person who I’ve become.  I want to show myself how much happiness can found, even while leaning into the grief.

I could sit here and write posts about what I think you want me to say.  I might even be pretty successful at it.  “The World’s Moistest Bundt Cake Recipe,” by Juggling Rainbows.  The only bundt I know how to make is the world’s dryest.  Oh and I have a strong aversion to the word ‘moist’.  But it may not be what I’m interested in, or even what I know about.  I’m not really interested in spending my limited off-duty mommy hours, mastering the art of being the world’s biggest poser.

“I would so much rather that you wrote a book in order to entertain yourself than to help me. Or if your subject matter is darker and more serious, I would prefer that you made your art in order to save yourself, or to relieve yourself of some great psychic burden, rather than to save or relieve us.”
―Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Two years after the death of my son, I was sitting in a restaurant, having dinner with a few of the members of my child loss moms group.  In between bites, I confessed that even though I had a few years under my belt, I was still worried that a new loss mom might find me and ask for advice.  You know what I said my advice would be?  Fend for yourself.  Two years later and I was still feeling lost.  How could I possibly lead someone through something or give them any sort of response that could be remotely defined as an answer?  I was still trying to find my own answers, so how in the heck was I supposed to find spare ones lying around?

Turns out, I don’t have to.  I know what I’ve been through.  And this alone can be helpful.  It might even be someone else’s answer – but that’s for them to decide.

Okay, so am I really encouraging you to be less helpful?  Not really.  I’m simply reminding you that your own experiences can lend inspiration and guidance all on their own.  Don’t feel pressured to understand someone else when they use you as a sounding board for their woes.  I’m not sure this detailed level of understanding is even possible a lot of the time.  We all have different family dynamics, different ways of handling our emotions, different life events.  All of these things make us uniquely us.  Don’t try to sell us your metaphorical recipe for the world’s moistest bundt cake.  Stick to what you know and don’t sell your own story short.  You are so helpful, just because you’re you.

“Your own reasons to create are reason enough. Merely by pursuing what you love, you may inadvertently end up helping us plenty.”
―Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

5 Essentials to Rediscovering Your Joy After Loss

Walk along side your grief, discover the person you're becoming and FIND YOUR JOY

YOU DESERVE JOY

First and Last Name

Email

DOWNLOAD NOW

We respect your privacy.

Powered by Convert Plus