I’m always perplexed when I see responses to people reaching out for help. If someone gets the courage to reach out, they are often torpedoed and shot with such ridiculousness that they would have been better off to stay silent.
What's Inside?
Yes, I know to stay silent is not good advice because people do need to reach out to others at times. However, the things I’ve seen, I think the responses people get can be far more helpful.
Not Feel The Way They Are Feeling
When you tell someone not to feel the way they are feeling, you’re doing nothing more than boiling water. In many of these cases, the boiled water is then thrown on the person! Reaching out then feels like being told to shut up.
Don’t Use Religion To Suppress Their Feelings
When you send your religious material to suppress someone from feeling, you’re not doing them any favors. You’re hurting them more than helping them. Maybe they mean something to you, but don’t diminish a person with some prewritten material that may or may not apply at this moment. See their life through their eyes, not yours!
You Should Be Over This By Now
If you try to minimize what they are going through as in “you’re just having a bad day” or “you should be over this by now,” you’re inflicting significant pain on them. You’re telling them that they don’t matter, and all they are facing means nothing. You are telling them that reaching out is futile.
Don’t Blame Them
If you shame them in any way, blame them in any way, or ignore them because you think they are just complaining, you’re one despicable human being. Many of these things that people share are very raw, painful, and horrendous to deal with, but when they are told to shut up, I can’t think of much worse than what they experienced. Reaching out met with blame is like dumping acid on a wound.
Sure, I know we live in a society where we numb, and we live in survival mode. The human population as a whole does this. Many will think they are all enlightened or so religious that they don’t, but don’t let them fool you. Don’t fool yourself.
We Have No Right To Disrespect
I know we live in a society where there are many challenges and so much stress, but it doesn’t give us the right to treat others who are reaching out with so much disrespect. If the only way you can respond to them is inflicting pain, may someone have mercy on your soul. May you never experience what they have dealt with in life.
They Need To Know Someone Truly Cares
Rather than thinking that you have to solve the issue they are struggling with, people need to know someone cares or will listen. They need to know that they matter to someone, and they aren’t walking this journey alone. Most of the time, they aren’t expecting anyone to fix things. Reaching out is one way they can see if they genuinely matter or others care. Sometimes the world has told them they do not.
Simplistic Solutions Don’t Help
Too many times, I see people acting as if they have all the answers, and if you apply response 1 or 2 or 3, it will have solved the issue. I see the platitudes thrown about as if their simple message will solve all the problems brought to their attention. How disrespectful can people get with these types of responses? How much pain can you inflict on someone when they are reaching out for help?
How Would You Receive The Help You Offer?
Maybe instead of responding the way you do without engaging brain cells, you can stop and think about how you would receive what you are saying. Don’t do this unconsciously in your numbed survival state. You might want to open your own eyes before saying anything.
Before you think that it is everyone else that inflicts pain and disrespect upon others, take a cold hard look at yourself. More than likely you are just as guilty of it as anyone else. In fact, this is usually the case.
We, as a human population, are not good at empathy and compassion because we see the problems of everyone we meet through our filters, not through their eyes. When people are reaching out, we are far too eager to tell them advice we should be telling ourselves.
We Are So Judgmental In This World
We are so judgmental in this world, and it plays out every day when we cast blame against so many besides ourselves. When we fail to walk a mile in the shoes of another but demand that they see life the way we see it, we fail them.
The world is struggling right now, and so many need help and compassion. They need a listening ear and one with someone who cares and understands. They need someone who tries to understand through listening, not the judgment of how to support another fellow human being when reaching out for help.
Use Your Ears More Than Your Mouth
If you’re one that tells others to just get over it or not feel what they are feeling, I sincerely hope you will stop that practice. Instead, use your ears more than your mouth, for we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. We should use them proportionally.
Wake Up When Someone Is Reaching Out
If you think you’ve got all this figured out, I’d offer this gentle advice: it is time to wake up. None of this is easy for any of us. This is a harsh planet, and if we think we’ve got things figured out, we’re about ready to slide down the hill.
Each day should be a discovery into awareness and out of our numbing and survival mode state of being. Unfortunately, far too many of us stay put where we are while convincing ourselves that we are making progress.
Surely we as a human population can do much better than we are doing when others are reaching out for help. All of this involves dealing with our own issues and learning how to be compassionate with empathy, not judgment. It requires us to learn and grow, not stagnate in our limited awareness and ego.
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