A client who frequently loses focus in her own life when she notices that someone else is in pain or difficulty asked me if I could help her get to the state described by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the following quote.
“A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir – a constant source of energy, determination and kindness. This is like a seed, that when cultivated, gives rise to many other good qualities, such as forgiveness, tolerance, inner strength and the confidence to overcome fear and insecurity. The compassionate mind is like an elixir; it is capable of transforming bad situations into beneficial ones. Therefore, we should not limit our expressions of love and compassion to our family and friends. Nor is the compassion only the responsibility of clergy, health care and social workers. It is the necessary business of every part of the human community.”
This client confuses the feeling of compassion with taking action that may or may not help the recipient, but is damaging to herself and her goals for her own life.
She often becomes a Rescuer instead of a helper who puts on her own oxygen mask before assisting others. When she Rescues from this caring but thoughtless position she eventually becomes a Victim who needs assistance herself.
In Transactional Analysis terms the kind of compassion described in the quote comes from an integrated Adult. An integrated Adult in a mature person attends to and considers (Inner) Parent rules, (Inner) Child needs and the constraints of reality before making decisions to take action.
My client often makes decisions from a Child ego state, eager to please someone, and/or a Parent ego state that discounts the needs of the Child ego state and who tells my client that the needs of others are important and her needs are not.
These guidelines can help anyone in this position, who feels compassionate and wants to help others to be genuinely helpful instead of risking martyrdom.
Guidelines for Helping Without Rescuing
- What do I think would be helpful?
- What evidence am I using to decide that help is needed?
- Do I have the resources to provide this help?
- What will helping cost me? (Time, energy, money, etc.)
- How will helping benefit me? (I’ll have more fun, feel less tense, feel like a good person, be more comfortable asking for things for myself later, etc.)
- What is likely to happen if I don’t help?
- Given these predicted costs and benefits, do I really want to help?
- Has the other person asked for help?
If the answer is yes and you want to help, clarify what you can do and go ahead and do it.
If the answer is yes and if you don’t want to help, decline and suggest an alternative.
If the answer is no and you still want to help, don’t just go ahead. Instead offer some specific help. Wait for the other person’s agreement. If you don’t get agreement, don’t help!
- Check to see if your help is actually helping. (Ask questions, observe)
- Give only as much help as needed. Giving more than is needed often leads to resentment for the helper and low self-esteem for the recipient.
- Accept the positive strokes youget for helping. (Say thank you.)
written by Laurie Weiss
\\ tags: Coaching, Communication, Difficult Communication, Personal Growth, Relationships, Transactional Analysis
Change happens. I just revisited a shockingly orderly storeroom in my home. Just 24 hours ago I recruited my husband and my visiting son to excavate 20 years worth of stacked boxes and precarious piles of miscellaneous treasures.
By the time we finished we had a car trunk full of items to deliver to a donation center, several huge boxes of papers to recycle, a pile of trash and many miscellaneous items related to the obsolete technology of developing film in a darkroom.
Some of the choices were easy to make. We asked questions like,
- Do you need this?
- Will you miss it if you never see it again?
- What on earth is this?
- Can somebody else use this?”
Other choices were more difficult.
Photography was a hobby shared by my husband and my dad, who bequeathed his (then ancient) darkroom equipment to us over 40 years ago. A few pieces have sentimental value. I remember using them while helping my father in his darkroom when I was a child. Yet they have no place in my life now. We haven’t decided how to dispose of those things yet.
A question we didn’t ask is why many of the things we saved for so many years were important in the first place. Why did we save them?
I think I saved most things because I expected to use them again. Then I didn’t, and it took more time to make decisions about disposing of them than it did to just let them accumulate. That’s my style. I’m not proud of it. I have a computer full of files that could be pruned — but they’re even less visible than what was in the storeroom.
How about you? Would you feel better if you released some of the things you intended to use again? Or is it better to just keep moving forward and leave the clutter hidden away until you are moved to address it?
I don’t have an answer for you. What I suggest is to make a choice and relax. What we did do makes me feel lighter as we move into the busyness of the holiday season. And I’m not worrying at all about what I haven’t done yet.
I wish you and the people you love a joyful and relaxed holiday season.
Also — If you are having trouble dealing with the holidays, watch for a blog post in a few days. My colleague, Dr. Joe Rubino,
created a free 45-minute audio recording called 7 Steps to Soaring Self-Esteem. You can claim it now at http://cli.gs/V8WdP2 if you like, or wait for the post that explains it in more detail.
It’ll be a great way for you to start the New Year.
written by Laurie Weiss
\\ tags: Coaching, Ideals, Personal Growth, Self-Improvement
Laurie will be interviewed on Barbara Dixon’s Spirit Speaks blog radio talk show. Her topic is "How to Nurture Your Relationship During These Changing Times." Tune in at 10:00 a.m. ET on Monday, March 16. by clicking the Play button in the box below:
You will be taken directly to the online player for the interview. If you would like to comment or ask questions during the interview, you can call in at (646) 727-3956. [tags]Relationship Advice, Relationships, Self Help, Difficult Communication, Money[/tags]
written by Laurie Weiss
\\ tags: Difficult Communication, Money, Relationship Advice, Relationships, Self Help
Three Different Things For You Today.
I have three things to share with you. First, I just finished an amazing book. If have a loved one or friend who has had a stroke or brain injury you need to read this one.
"My Stroke of Insight" by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., is a first person account of a brain scientist’s report of her own stroke and recovery of brain function over a 9-year period. It blew me away.
Second, I also want to share something that Jonathan wrote (Jon has reclaimed his birth name) as we were developing material to let people know that we are actively offering couples counseling again.
It was a spontaneous statement of why couples should come to us for counseling. It didn’t quite fit into the webpage we were designing, but I think it’s a wonderful restatement of our lives together.
"…we want to share what we’ve learned with you!
Why us?
There are hundreds of people offering relationship advice on the Internet, and thousands more offline. How are you going to know who to listen to, who to trust with the most important part of your life?
All these adviser have credentials; so do we. They have all probably talked to lots of different people; so have we.
So what’s different?
Very simple: we have been there AND we have applied our training, knowledge, theories, understandings, etc., to our own personal and business lives, and have lived to tell the tale.
We have been married (TO EACH OTHER) for over 48 years, and we have experienced, survived, and grown from almost everything that two people together will ever run into:
- Major and minor moves, career changes, failures and successes;
- Stagnation, new directions, changing roles;
- Separations, distance, infidelity;
- A stillborn child — our first;
- Births;
- Children growing, grown, moving out, succeeding, failing;
- Teenage runaways, drug abuse, and impressive achievements;
- The deaths of all four parents — long illnesses, nursing homes, suicide;
- Investment successes and miserable failures;
- Giving advice, getting advice, using advice, ignoring advice, regretting advice;
- Laughing, yelling, grieving, plodding, creating, committing, sharing;
- Getting older, loving it and hating it.
Sometimes we think that the only important experience we have missed is the rich learning of a divorce, but we have worked with plenty of people before, during, after, instead of, preventing it or encouraging it,
that we think we have some wisdom anyway."
We have also made our CD of our talk with marriage counselors about relationship development available as an online audio. You can listen to it right now I’m your computer, or download it to listen later. You can get it at this link: http://tinyurl.com/53wvyh
(Jonathan’s words again) "Listen to some REAL experts talk about what REALLY happens in relationships, and how you can use the information to make a difference in yours."
Third, I’ve agreed to help spread the word about a fr.ee tele-seminar being offered by my friend and colleague, Sharon Wilson. She is a leading transformational teacher who creates enormous success for the life coaches and entrepreneurs who work with her. She’s offering lots of bonuses when you register for the call.
So if you’re interested in how spirituality and business fit together, this will be a call you’ll enjoy. Watch for a post here with the title, "What’s been missing…" that you will show up on January 21. (It won’t sound like me, because I didn’t write it.)
Warmly,
Laurie
More about Laurie Weiss
written by Laurie Weiss
\\ tags: Coaching, Emotional Problems, Personal Growth, Psychotherapy, Relationships, Self Help, Self-Improvement
Remember the time you got one little piece of information that completely shifted how you felt about yourself or someone else. Remember the relief that came with the recognition that you were just like everybody else. It’s almost like affirming “Im really OK after all.”
I had one of those moments while flying back from spending time at my daughter’s home in Paris. I didn’t do a lick of professional reading or writing the whole three weeks I was away — until I got on the plane to come home.
I was reading a book about how the brain functions, and suddenly a bunch of information I’ve been accumulating fell into place. I understood that there is actually a reason that I don’t mix grandma and family responsibilities with my professional life. It’s not because I’m lazy. It’s because I really can’t.
All of these years I’ve been beating myself or — at least lately — gently remonstrating myself to get busy have been a waste of time. My brain — and yours — simply is not wired to manage two conflicting channels of information at the same time.
The book showed me that the brain focuses attention most like a toggle switch that changes trains to different tracks — you can go one way or the other but not both ways at the same time. This also explains why multitasking is vastly overrated. It is simply about how quickly we can switch back and forth.
Here I’ve been kicking myself because I get so fully immersed in the full-time grandma role that I can’t even think about the other professional role. I sort of know that it’s in there, but I just can’t get into it. The controls are locked. They’re locked for a good reason.
If they were unlocked I would do a rotten job each time I switched back and forth. It takes a while for me to get firmly back onto either track. That may differ for different people, but that’s the way it is for me. What about you? Can you switch tracks easily?
Just imagine me trying to write a letter like this while keeping my two preschool grandsons from destroying part of the house in their enthusiasm to learn more about it. I know some moms try to do creative work when their children are present, but most I’ve talked to just can’t do it.
So why am I telling you this? There are at least three reasons.
The first is that I love to share what I’ve discovered — sort of like the way my 2 1/2-year-old grandson screams with delight when he sees a picture of himself or of his family members. So if you can benefit from my insights and use them to make your own or someone else’s life better, please do so.
The second reason is that my whole career is about helping people, my beloved clients, have “aha” moments like this. It’s a really positive spiral. I love to do it. Their lives improve. I get a hit because sharing those moments is a rare and wonderful experience.
The third reason is that I need your help.
One of the things that happened while I spent 6 months focused on helping my daughter’s family move to France is that I let my practice diminish. Now I have only a few clients left.
After 35 years of practicing psychotherapy and coaching, I thought that would be all right with me, but it’s not.
My work has always been hard to distinguish from my play. I miss direct client work much more than I thought I would. I want to keep helping people directly as well as through my writing. I don’t really like moving toward retirement.
But the problem is, I’ve been sending out the opposite message. So right now I want you to know that I have changed my tune. I do want more referrals–NOW.
I HAVE SPACE TO WORK WITH FIVE MORE CLIENTS OR COUPLES who want to experience those fantastic moments of clarity and self-acceptance. I love helping couples reclaim deeply troubled relationships.
When I coach you, I’m interested in who you are at your core. I love to help you connect with yourself and others. Helping you live fully and joyfully with other people excites me. My work, through personal contact or through my writing, is about helping you enhance your own life and the lives of the people you’re close to.
Please help me spread the word. I connect with my clients in person, by phone and by Skype. I even have one client in Romania. I use VOIP and the web cam with my family, a new thing, since they are so far away. I haven’t used it for coaching yet, but I will. (Am I technical or what?)
So if you know of anyone or if you yourself would like to talk with me, now is a really good time to get started. Contact me by email or phone (303-794-5379) and we can discuss how we can work together.
Warmly, Laurie
P.S. I wrote most of this about 6 weeks ago — as I was trying to switch tracks from my voluntary family responsibilities back to my professional life. It took me a while to admit that I need help rebuilding my practice and to decide I trusted you enough to share that information with you and to ask for your help.
written by Laurie Weiss
\\ tags: Coaching, CoDependency Communication, Emotional Problems, Personal Growth, Psychotherapy, Relationships, Self Help, Self-Improvement, Workplace Relationships
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