Help where it matters.  A reminder that showing up and doing as appropriate is what it means to be helpful.  Showing up, taking over, doing what you THINK is helpful isn’t helpful.  It’s an unnecessary stressor to the one you say you’re helping, and a call for attention on yourself rather than the individual you’re trying to help.  I’m guilty of thinking I know what people need—we all see a situation from our perspective or we’ve experienced something similar so we know how we would handle it and we think that’s the best way to approach someone else with a similar issue.  But here’s the thing: regardless of intentions, if we aren’t helping where the person actually needs it, then we aren’t contributing anything valuable to the situation.  I’ve also been on the receiving end of people who thought they were helping when all they were doing was steam-rolling my emotions and not hearing what the actual issue was—it felt awful.  I would never encourage NOT helping, but we have to be self-aware enough to know when to offer what we know and when to tap into what the person is asking for.

We also have to be cognizant that what we have may not be what the person needs.  Sometimes all they need from us is an ear.  Sometimes they need our help to lift the world but we may not be that person to do it all in every situation.  And that’s ok.  We can’t put our emotions/reactions into a situation because the things that might bother us may not have the same impact on someone else.  They may not need us for the same things we’d need them for.  The key is to listen and actually hear what the person needs, what they are asking for.  Some people may say that “help is help” and we should be grateful for what we get.  Help IS a beautiful thing and so is the intention behind helping others—but if we continue watering a plant that is already hydrated, we will drown it.  So we need to pay attention to what it is we can actually contribute in a situation and know when to back off. Helping isn’t about US, it’s about the action needed in the moment.