When Someone You Love Is Hurting

What is the secret to a happy life? Happiness is an exclusive club that few can join. Instead, we can all be happy if we do two things. First, we need to fully engage in the here and now. Second, we need to call life

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm dr.

Robert Puff For most of us as we live our lives We fall in love with people not just in the romantic way But people that we care for and their joys their happiness their successes Their failures their pains are often our pains our joys our happiness This past year.

I had the privilege and honor of being in my best friend's wedding he got remarried after five years of being divorced to a beautiful soul and I'm not sure when I was at his wedding if I was more excited than he was about him getting remarried Because I also went through with him his divorce which was contentious argumentative and painful for him Another friend of mine who have known for years She has two young children and a husband that she loves deeply Has been diagnosed with cancer and she's been struggling with it for a couple years now and we also connect often to talk about the challenges and the difficulties and sometimes even the joyful moments as she continues to survive and go through the challenges of fighting off the cancer if You're a parent.

You probably know the challenges that come with being a parent particularly in this day and age Where fentanyl is laced in so many different prescription drugs that people think they're not taking that drug but they thought it was but it's something with fentanyl in it and it kills them and If we love someone particularly if it's our child that's experimenting with drugs.

It can be overwhelming So in this podcast,

I often talk about what we do when we're struggling But what do we do when people that we love are going through difficult times?

When they're struggling,

How do we help them and Still maintain a sense of happiness.

I Teach how to do that with our own struggles But what about someone that we love often we can be more upset over someone else's struggles than our own And particularly if it's our children or our parents or someone that we deeply love like our partner.

What do we do then?

Remember how I was talking about earlier that I attended my best friend's wedding and I was so elated to be there and excited to participate in his very special day But after I left obviously I went back to my life focusing on things that were happening to me and though at the time I was very present with his exciting day Later,

I was focused on my day and things that I was responsible for in participating in I didn't get married that day He did that was his journey and at the time of the wedding I'm sure he could tell that I was very excited for him and really felt his joy of that day And that's really the first thing we do when we're friends are either struggling or having joys in their life We're present.

We feel it with them We're not going through it with them,

But because we love them we feel their joys And of course in these situations we feel their pain if they're struggling they need to know That we feel that not that we're going through it with them,

But we empathize with them We sympathize with them and we care for them knowing that Their sorrow their pain is something that we care about And we let them know that through our affect through our words through our reaching out to them and seeing how they're doing Those are all things that we do and we can do well in the present moment and during those times We're not focused on what's going on in our lives.

We're focused on what's going on in their lives We're giving them our 100% attention We're listening We're caring and we're there we're just there with them and that active listening that active presence Really helps a person feel like they're heard and when we're heard from others It helps us if anything it just gives us a sense of relief Knowing that we're not alone as we're going through these difficult times and that's the first thing we do.

We're present We're with them.

We're connected to them We're feeling with them at that moment But the next thing we need to be careful of is to not judge them There's a tendency when someone we love is suffering To come up with solutions to solve their problems to critique what they've done to get there That isn't helpful They are on their journey and we need to let them do it their way if they ask us for advice It's a little different but mostly We don't give any advice.

We're just with them.

We're just present and that's enough They don't need us to criticize them and often advice Which doesn't seem to be critical can be taken as critical and we need to be especially careful If we give advice it's far better just to be with them Often not to say anything or reflect back what they're feeling.

Just let them know that we hear them That's enough So then we're not judging them and we're being present and when we're with them,

We're really with them But then when we leave we go back to focusing in on our life and what's before us what we're doing right now We don't carry their burden.

It is their burden not ours Because if we try to carry other people's burdens that we love We're gonna get exhausted.

We're going to get burnt out As many of you know,

I'm a clinical psychologist working in private practice Which i've been doing now for over 30 years And my profession if you didn't know this It's a very high burnout profession because you're hearing people's struggles all day long And to do it.

Well,

You do need to be present 100 present But the key of being able to do it for so long and not being burned out And hoping to have another 30 years of helping people Is that when people leave I let them leave and then I focus on the things in my life Things that i'm dealing with Experiences that i'm having Not theirs.

They are now on their journey.

I am now on mine When we carry other people's Burdens that they're going through right now with us Our struggles our life gets heavier and heavier Until we just get burnt out and exhausted the key of being able to be 100 present with another person Is when you're not with them taking care of yourself focusing in on yourself so that when you are with them You're with them Fully focused fully there for them and when they leave You let them leave and get back to your life because otherwise If we carry other people's struggles,

We're gonna struggle more and more.

I remember when I was younger I had a relative whose husband got ill had dementia and needed a lot of care throughout the day Well,

My relative didn't get any help.

She wanted to do it herself and she did for three years,

I believe But shortly after he died she died because she was so exhausted from taking care of herself And when he died she died because she was so exhausted from taking care of him Of course,

It's wonderful when we help out other people But we need to do it with balance because when we're in the caretaking business It can be utterly exhausting if we don't take care of ourselves each and every day And then finally the fourth thing we need to do After we've been present with a person that we love that's struggling Not judging them for their struggles,

But just being there with them Being careful to leave and really leave when we're not with them.

Don't carry their burden with us all day long And the fourth thing we need to be very careful of and perhaps is the most difficult to do Is not blaming ourselves for their struggles Yes,

It's easy to do this with friends and people that are acquaintances or family members that are distant from us But when it's someone close like our child The guilt the self-blame can be astronomical But at the same time incredibly unhealthy for us and the other person Because now we're feeling guilty We can get much more angry at them for the choices are making And we can't really be with them because we're so focused on what we did wrong If we can not take on their burden Even if we did participate in it as a parent,

Of course,

We have effects on how our kids turn out But kids come from all different circumstances And two exact kids can turn out completely different in the exact same family Because they are making their choices And it's their journey Our journey is to love them Now the tricky part with not blaming ourselves is Sometimes the person that we love blames us for their struggles and why they're suffering.

It's our fault And that's where we have to be very careful because that's just not true We're all on our own journeys.

We're responsible for the choices we make We're responsible for how we react to the things that are done to us no matter how heinous they are It's our responsibility of what we're going to do with that And there's always good responses to whatever life throws at us even from people that love us So how do we avoid self-blame and feeling guilty when people that we love are struggling?

I'm sure you've heard of this organization.

It can go by different terms,

But each of these organizations really has the same principles Overcomers Al-Anon,

Code of Tennessee,

No More.

It's with people that have people in their lives That are struggling with addictions.

They aren't the addict.

They're the person that is living with or related to the addict And how they can respond appropriately to that person who has an addiction And their motto which is based upon three things that I just love can be super helpful to avoid Not feeling blame over someone who's struggling or suffering Because in many ways probably the hardest thing to do is to blame yourself Probably the hardest thing to do When someone is struggling in regards to the four things we're talking about today Is not feeling blame over someone else struggling And this is so good.

I really recommend you write it down and look at it often if this is something you struggle with And here it is.

Number one I didn't cause it Number two I can't control it Number three.

I can't cure it I think that's beautiful Now this motto is in regards to someone we love who's an addict,

But I think it's just Beautiful in any situation that we can apply in our lives to make our lives go better So let me conclude with a very practical way of just showing how this would work This is something that many of us are going to face as our parents get older Many of us are going to face them struggling and suffering And it can be hard.

So remember let's talk about the four things we do if our parents are getting older Perhaps have dementia and are struggling financially And apply this to any situation where we love someone that's suffering and how we can be there for them And that's the first thing we do when we visit our parents.

We're present.

We're with them We are giving them our full attention The next thing is we're not judging them.

We aren't saying well if you hadn't eaten that way or drank so much in your life or fill in the blank You wouldn't be in this situation.

We don't judge them The third thing we do is that when we aren't with them,

We let them go We focus on our lives and we're not thinking about them 24-7.

It's that will exhaust us And lastly We don't blame ourselves for their struggles If we had been better kids if we had been more present with them if we'd saved more money for them They wouldn't be in these dire situations.

That's not helpful either And when we visit them and they're blaming us for their problems We rehearse in our mind those three great statements I didn't cause it I can't control it And I can't cure it So as we journey through life We are going to have people That we love who suffer and sometimes the suffering is pretty awful But we can be there for them.

We can help them and at the same time find happiness in our lives There's a balance to life It's loving others With loving ourselves and when we do that we can keep loving people.

Well Until our last dying breath Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast until next time Accept what is Love what is

Reviews

🙏

Super helpful. I feel relieved and reset.

Great advice for many situations! Thanks Dr Puff!

Great advice

Thank you 🙏