I believe most of us try our best to do things right. We try to be good people, take care of others, and help out as much as possible. When we witness someone struggling, we try to empathize, understand what they are experiencing, and offer the help we think they need.
We see them go through suffering, and our hearts start to break. Naturally, our immediate thought is:
What can I do to remove this struggle, pain, or difficulty from their life?
However, is what you are doing truly the best thing for that person?
Often, we rush to resolve the issue, accidentally robbing them of the opportunity to grow through the process.
Two Traps of Well-Intentioned Help
Consider two common dynamics where trying to help can easily turn into enabling:
- The Chronic Complaint: There are people who feed their needs by complaining about everything. They are always letting you know how heavy their life has been and how they were dealt a bad hand. For them, life only gets worse every day. Sometimes, we reinforce this by constantly validating that their situation is entirely someone else’s fault. Blaming others is much easier than looking in the mirror.
- The Overprotected Fear: There are people who are afraid to face the world, and we might reinforce that fear by wanting to shield them from everything and never letting them make mistakes. Parents often fall into this trap, trying so hard to prevent their children from experiencing the same hardships they once faced. By protecting them too much, we leave them unprepared to face real-life challenges.
Using these examples, do you know someone who falls into these categories?
And more importantly:
Are you an enabler, or are you truly intervening to help?
When you constantly enable self-destructive behaviors without taking action to encourage growth, you are quietly acknowledging that you believe there is no hope—and that the person lacks the capacity to improve their situation.
Shifting from Enabling to Empowering
Instead of enabling every time someone shares their grievances, why not help by reminding them of a few foundational truths?
- Shift the focus from scarcity to abundance. Remind them to practice gratitude for what they do have. I am certain you can always find things to be thankful for if you look closely enough.
- Highlight their strengths. People utilize energy either to grow or to beat themselves down. Unfortunately, all of us get really good at putting ourselves down, and we don’t need someone else validating that negativity. We need someone to remind us of our strengths and tell us they believe in us.
- Challenge them from a place of love. Let them know gently that their current behavior isn’t serving them, and encourage them to seek solutions that will genuinely make them happier.
The Gift of Discomfort
This is a difficult task. Truly helping takes patience, empathy, and courage. We all try our best, but sometimes we confuse being helpful with removing every roadblock and excusing someone from accountability when things get tough.
The reality is that we all struggle, and sometimes the kindest thing we can do is challenge someone and show them we believe in their capability. That means giving them the freedom to sit with uncomfortable sensations, stumble a little, and find a way to resolve issues on their own. That is the exact process that builds strength and turns them into a more resilient version of themselves.
E. Luna
