Rick wrote this just before lunchtime:
I was listening to a talk one that one of my future podcast guests gave (it was sensational!) on the subject of what I call “secondary gain”, or, “poor, poor, pitiful me syndrome”, (he calls it the “Spirit of Infirmity”) and it brought to mind this article I wrote last year. I hope you enjoy . . .
When the Giving Hurts
“Give ‘til it hurts.”
You’ve probably heard this a thousand times. I know I have. A well-intentioned expression that I always found somewhat strange as giving and hurt are concepts that seem to be polar opposite.
I want to share with you a personal story where giving in fact hurt a person I was trying to help. In order to do that, I need to give you a little background about myself. Please indulge me.
For whatever reason the universe has, I have been blessed to have had many people seek my counsel during my fifty years of living. They trusted that I could help them in some way.
I’ve been told that I am a good listener. Coupled with an inherent desire to help others, even during my high school days, I seemed to become the counselor of choice for many of my peers.
I vividly recall private chats I had with my high school cohorts, normally conducted in my sooped-up ’67 ‘Cuda, during lunch, spare periods or skipped-out classes. Problems about girlfriends, boyfriends, teachers and parents were the norm. Usually self-esteem issues were at the core, as is the case with most problems thirty years later.
And later, my twenty-and-thirty-something friends and family members, as well as many of the employees in my drycleaning business, could always count on complete confidence and my objectivity when discussing problems that they had in their personal lives.
As life moved along, I was faced with a myriad of not only challenges to overcome, but tragedies to deal with. The death of two of my siblings, my father and many close family members and friends, business losses, divorce and being the parent of a special needs child were among them. The lessons learned and the strength gained from these life experiences ultimately led to what I have chosen to do with my life today.
But being pretty well-schooled in life does not always mean that one has the right answers though.
He has been in my life a long time. I was mostly always on the listening end. Conversation after conversation he would laundry-list his assorted problems. And, as any ‘victims of life’ have it, they were never in short supply. I would allow him to share his stories of suffering, time after time, consuming much of mine. Like the traditional psychologist, I would just listen, as I felt listening was a large part of my role in trying to help him.
Thing was, no matter what suggestions I would offer to try to help him, the problems not only remained, but amplified over time. He never acted on my advice and I eventually began to feel rather impotent and confused about how I could make a difference in his life.
Suddenly, in a conversation last year, at a point where I became very irritated at listening to his negativity, it struck me. This person was receiving so much more benefit from knowing I was listening to him spew about his miserable life than he ever would from finding solutions and improving it. It finally dawned on me that he LOVED having problems!
I hadn’t helped him. Not one bit. In fact, for years, I was simply feeding this need in him. I was helping him to have a great time at his own pity party. All this time my giving was, in fact, hurting him!
He was shocked when I interrupted him mid-sentence and blurted out that I didn’t want to listen to any more about his problems. There was an awkward silence but when he finally asked me why I quickly reassured him that I was still interested in helping him. But it was not going to be on his terms anymore. The new deal would have to be that from this conversation forward, we would not discuss the past. Only the present and future. We would address current issues by working on solutions. He would need to act on my suggestions. Things such as reading certain books or listening to certain tapes and making small adjustments in his thinking that would produce positive results. Our future conversations would consist only of discussing the changes he would sincerely attempt to make to improve his life. He seemed somewhat stunned, and reluctantly agreed.
Those next few times we talked though he tried very hard to steer the conversation down his familiar road attempting to inform me of the latest, greatest grief in his life. But I didn’t allow that, sticking to the agreed-upon plan and changing direction to our new proactive approach.
You know what? It really didn’t take too long before the tone of our conversations became more positive in nature and soon he was beginning to “get” some important concepts about how his mind, and the universe, really worked. He started reading and listening to materials I suggested. He was beginning to learn that his current results were the product of his current thinking and that he was never a victim of life - not for one minute! That growth has continued.
Now we have great talks, often upbeat, and any real problem he has is briefly outlined and then discussed in such a way that a solution can be found and acted upon. In fact, I’ve become comfortable sharing some of my problems with him! More than once he’s reminded me to take some of my own medicine!
It’s both magical and comforting to me at the same time to know that when the simple truths of how things work in this world are realized, things can really begin to change for the better and in a big way. It’s unfortunate that it took so long for me to realize how I could better serve my friend, but then, the universe has it’s own timing for things like this.
It is my hope that if you have been trying to help someone like my friend and find yourself doing a lot of listening, that just maybe, your giving is hurting.
Rick
Filed under: My Podcast