Helping has limits

Carrying someone’s burden will not make it go away. We can only help from a place of order where we give only what we have and the other person takes only what they need..

Paula Dunson

1/23/20252 min read

Breaking patterns is not easy.  Carrying other’s burdens however is not our task
Breaking patterns is not easy.  Carrying other’s burdens however is not our task

Seeing someone we love suffer, is very difficult. So much so, that our instinct is to want to carry the burden for them. We do this with the “magical thought” that if we also suffer along side of them, we could somehow change their destiny. This is a child’s way of thinking. A child would do anything to “save” a parent, even die in the hopes that they could change things.

If this is the way in which our families have done things, then doing anything differently will generate in us what is known as “bad conscience”. Good or bad are relative to each family system, and to do something differently than what our system believes is good, risks our sense of belonging. This risk is so great that most people would rather give their lives, than risking their belonging to their group.

But thinking we have the power to change someone’s destiny is quite self centered. What actually happens is that we take the power away from the person we are trying to help. We uncounsciously tell them they can not handle what they are going through. So the person does not really gain strength from their difficulty, and instead stay in their weakness. For us, if we are doing the “saving”, we are carrying something that is not meant for us. When we do that, we are not open to the lessons which are meant for us instead. Because this burden was never ours, we end up exhausted and burn out.

This is how unconscious patterns and dynamics from our family systems shape our lives. When we make them conscious, we are able to do things differently. When we are able to stand in our “adult”, then we can go through the “bad conscience” it requires to make a change. Our adult can do that because it knows that no matter what they will never loose their belonging. When we are able to respect others destinies, when we help from a place of order, only giving from what we have and only what the other person really needs, then our help has strength. Seeing the other person in their strength liberates both parties to walk side by side on this journey we call life, growing with each challenge and leaving with each person what belongs to them.