All of us seem to have an inbuilt genetic code that makes us to help others, at least that is what we believe in. We do believe that we always help others, but do we really help others?
We understand help as –‘what we give to others’. So if we give some money to another person or solve his/her problems we believe that we are helping them.
A few years back as a part of counseling process, I asked this client of mine: “ What are the few traits in you which you want people to remember about when you pass away? What foot prints you want to leave behind?”
Interesting enough, he replied, “I want to be remembered for my helping nature.” Very often I do come across this reply with many of my clients. I often question them about what they mean when they say, “helping others”. More often than not most people are confused about what they understand about helping others. Some of the typical examples of helping others: “Walking an old person across the road”, “contributing to charities”, “advising somebody on what he should be doing”…. all activities which I will classify as courtesies, a part of civility and civilized society.
I had this client - a “compulsive helper”. She will offer help at the drop of a hat. She had the need to be accepted and being in the center of attention. Helping others was her way of getting accepted by others. Many found it as big nuisance and there were times when they would make a lot of efforts to avoid her.
There are many ignorant concepts about helping. We believe we are helping but more often than not we take over somebody’s life and end up directing, converting them into ‘thinking’ as we want them to think.
Helping is much beyond this and in fact beyond human capabilities.
Ask yourself when you felt ‘helped’ ? Go into the place where you felt helped. You will discover, somebody said something that you needed to hear at that point of time and you felt helped. You were in a trouble zone and somebody listened to you and you felt helped.
Helping is putting yourself out there for somebody else without you thinking for them or planning for them. Let them dictate and direct and take you in. All you need to do is to put yourself there and experience the other person. Let the other person dictate and direct you in a particular direction.
Helping means losing control of your self, learning to flow with the other person. In helping you have forgotten yourself, go beyond boundaries of self and your own ego. You have to just put yourself out there for the other person to experience you.
You help others as much as you can help. There is no point in stretching yourself thin. You have to help others in a consistent level, equal level and sustain it. If you try to stretch beyond your capability you will end up not doing good to yourself.
Sometimes listening to somebody who wants to be helped and being there is all you have to do. Sometimes you may have to excuse yourself when you cannot listen. You should be upfront and say “I heard you, thank you, but please excuse me as I cannot do anything more to help you”.
It is important we understand where the other person is. For example when you lift a small baby and carry it from one place to another you are helping the baby to move. As the baby grows up it may not require you help in moving about. When the child grows into an adolescent he/she looks for different help. They want somebody to help them in validation of their thoughts without confusing them.
With a young adult, you need to talk and interact differently. Young adult goes through different experiences, some good and some bad. When he faces bad experiences he feels down and he needs help of constant dialogue that makes him/her accept the bad experiences as a part of life. With a mature adult helping could be sharing of ideas and thoughts.
In an organization, a leader cannot help his entire team. The more he starts to help the more he interferes in the process of growing and learning of his team. The only way he can extend sustainable and equal help is by dialogue and discussing constantly with his team, by partnering with the team. That’s is the best way the leader helps his team.
Helping is more to do with others than your own self !
