A little while ago,
My eldest came home after a difficult day of school.
Something had happened that had not gone the way she'd hoped.
She'd built herself up for it,
So the disappointment felt particularly hard.
She began telling me what happened and almost immediately I went into fix-it mode.
I started offering guidance on what she could do differently next time and suggesting ways she might deal with how she was feeling.
I thought I was listening to her,
But when I looked back,
I realised I wasn't really listening.
Not in the way she needed me to anyway.
I was listening for the point at which I could make it better.
My instinct came from love.
I could see she was hurting and I wanted to protect her from having to experience that hurt again.
But in trying to protect her from the next disappointment,
I was already moving her away from the one she was experiencing now.
She didn't need me to prepare her for next time.
She needed me to be with her this time.
It made me think about how quickly some of us move into helping and fixing or advising when someone we care about is struggling.
Sometimes this is simply practical.
A problem needs solving and we know how to help.
But sometimes our urgency to make things better is also about how difficult it feels to remain present when we cannot remove somebody's pain.
Fixing gives us something to do.
It gives us a role.
We become the person with the answer,
The person who knows what comes next.
The person who can make themselves useful and there is a certain security in that position.
When I am helping,
I understand what I bring to the relationship.
I know where I stand.
But what happens when I cannot fix what someone is feeling?
What happens when they do not want my advice or when I am the one who needs something.
I had a very different experience at a social gathering recently.
I'd received some tough news that day and I'd not had the time or space to sit with it yet and I didn't know what I thought or felt about it.
A friend of mine noticed I wasn't myself.
This is someone I regularly support through the challenges in her life,
So I am very familiar with our relationship when I am the person listening and holding space.
But this time,
She didn't ask me,
Are you okay?
If she had,
I probably would have said,
I'm fine.
Not because I wanted to be dishonest,
But because we were in a social setting and I hadn't processed what had happened myself.
And so I wasn't prepared to explain it all there and then.
I'm fine would have given me somewhere to hide.
But instead she offered me a hug.
What do you need?
And that question,
It threw me.
I hesitated.
I took a quick breath in,
Almost as if I was trying to find the answer that would let me keep everything contained.
And then I sort of deflated.
I accepted the hug and admitted that I was having a tough day and that I was struggling.
She didn't solve the problem and didn't make the news disappear.
But for that moment,
I stopped having to be the one he was coping.
There was something about the way she asked the question that made it really difficult to deflect.
R U OK?
Only required me to provide information and I could decide how much of it to reveal.
What do you need?
Ask me to turn towards myself.
It invited me to recognise that there might be something I needed and to let another person see it.
And I realised how much more familiar it felt to be on the other side of that exchange.
When someone else is struggling,
I can listen.
I can ask questions.
I can help them make sense of what they feel.
But when the attention turned towards me,
I didn't have a prepared answer.
I had to let myself be met before I had organised the experience into something neat enough to share.
That moment stayed with me because it made me think about the difference between being needed and being supported.
Many of us become very comfortable in relationships where we are the person giving.
Giving can feel active.
We know what to do with our hands.
Words and our attention.
Receiving though can feel far more exposing.
There's no task to hide behind.
We're not proving what we contribute,
We're simply allowing another person to be with us as we are.
And if you have spent years being the capable one,
The helper or the person that everybody relies upon.
That can be an unfamiliar place to stand.
At some point being needed can become being connected with belonging.
That doesn't mean the care we offer is full.
I genuinely wanted to protect my daughter and I genuinely care about my friend and want to support her.
But genuine love can become tangled with the safety of having a role that we understand.
When I'm useful,
I know what I bring.
When I'm helping,
I do not have to wonder whether my needs are inconvenient.
When I'm holding space for someone else,
I can remain safely outside the centre of the conversation.
The difficulty comes when we begin to believe,
Often without realising it,
That our usefulness is the reason that we have a place.
We are constantly learning what creates connection.
Some of us learnt that being helpful,
Calm or capable received a warmer response than being upset,
Angry or overwhelmed.
Some of us became really good at reading the room and noticing what everybody else needed.
No one necessarily told us to do that.
We noticed what seemed to work and we adapted.
Eventually we can become so practised at being useful we no longer know how to be present without doing something.
We offer advice when someone needs to be heard.
We step in before anyone has asked us to.
We feel uneasy when somebody chooses to handle something differently.
We can genuinely want the people we love to become stronger and more independent.
While still feeling unsettled when they no longer need us in quite the same way.
That's a difficult thing to admit.
But it doesn't make her selfish.
It reveals how closely our identity may have become tied to the role that we play.
Because if my value in a relationship comes from what I provide,
Putting that roll down may not initially feel like freedom.
It may feel as though I'm risking the relationship itself.
Who am I if I'm not the person with the answer?
What do I bring if there's nothing to fix?
Will I still matter when somebody doesn't need my support?
And this is why the answer isn't simply to stop helping people.
Our desire to care is not something that needs to be removed.
The invitation instead is to become curious about what is happening underneath the urge to step in.
My daughter is hurting,
Can I remain with her feelings before trying to prevent the next difficult experience?
Can I trust that my presence still has value even when I'm not providing an answer?
And when someone turns to me and asks what I need.
Can I resist the familiar urge to say that I'm fine?
Instead,
Could I allow myself to be supported before I have explained,
Processed or made sense of everything?
These are not always comfortable changes.
Listening without fixing can leave us feeling helpless.
Receiving without immediately giving something back can leave us feeling exposed.
But those moments can also teach us that connection doesn't have to depend on occupying the useful role.
Sometimes love looks like guidance.
Sometimes it looks like practical help.
And sometimes it looks like staying close enough to somebody's pain.
That we do not need to rush them away from it.
Belonging is found not only in what we do for another person,
But in allowing ourselves to be known by them.
The next time you notice the urge to step in,
Fix or take responsibility.
Don't criticize yourself and do not force yourself to stop.
Just pause.
Long enough to act.
Is my help needed right now?
Or is my presence needed?
And their maths.
Am I offering this because it is genuinely mine to give?
Or because being useful helps me feel secure in my place.
You may still choose to help.
The difference is that the help begins to come from choice rather than the fear of who you might be without that role.
And if someone offers to care for you,
See whether you can notice your first response.
Do you minimise what's happening or reassure them that you're fine?
Do you immediately think about how you will repay them?
Or can you pause?
Take the breath and allow yourself to deflate a little.
It doesn't mean falling apart completely.
Just means enough to stop holding everything alone.
If you recognise the belief that you must fix,
Rescue or carry in order to be worthy,
My meditation,
The Freedom to Be Enough,
Offers a gentle space to explore what remains when you begin putting some of that responsibility down.
But for now,
I want to leave you with this.
Being needed can give you a role.
But being known gives you a relationship.
And you do not have to make yourself indispensable to have a place in somebody's life.
