Helping Others

Helping Others

"One should give only what people need or
want, and in the way they need or want it."


   It is a good and natural thing for us to want to help and support others. But it can also be a very difficult thing, as we may have already discovered. There are a number of factors we must consider before we step forward to assist someone. In the first place, help may not be wanted. In the second place, if help is wanted, we may not be the best people to bring it. This inability to ask for or receive help can be very frustrating to the would-be helper, but for the one in need, personal control over her life - even to the extent of refusing help - may be all that she has left. To persist in help in in the face of down-right refusal is a way of further disempowering that person in need.

    When we help others in order to help ourselves, we are on a slippery slope of self-delusion. Sometimes, after discovering something wonderfully efficacious to our own condition, we press that something on everyone we meed in a fit of convert fervor and excessive zeal. People find their own ways to ask for help. Our part is simply to be sensitive to the signs (whether obvious and indistinct) that they make in our direction.  Then we can look into what kind of help is needed, what kind of support and backup is desired, when to back off and let well enough alone so that nature can heal wounds. If our personal help is inappropriate or inexpert, we must leave the helping in the hands of those better capable than ourselves and not press our attentions where they are not wanted.

"Is there something you need to ask help with at this time? If so, is there someone you know whom you would like to have help you?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]