I just read a post about how if we love a flower, we shouldn't pick it, we should just let it be and appreciate it. I think the same is true about people...how when we truly love someone we just accept them as they are, and appreciate them as they are.
But this isn't always easy to do.
I have spent my adult life helping people to create a functional life...that's essentially what my work was as a social worker, and it certainly was when I had my private practice. But these were people who were asking for help with that change, or someone was asking on their behalf (which was the case with the foster kids).
It' not always easy to do, however, when someone is struggling, but isn't asking for help. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing or wrong thing that someone is struggling and doesn't want help. It is their process, and they have a right to it....but that truth doesn't make the job of a bystander any easier.
We are always bystanders to another person's struggle...no matter how much we love them...no matter how close we are to them...no matter who they are within the scope and sphere of our lives, we are always a bystander to another person's struggle.
When people come upon a disaster scene, there are three responses...they flee (leave the scene and do not help)...they freeze (stand by watching, but don't know what to do, so they do nothing)...or they fight (they step up and do something, even if that something is "wrong").
There are good Samaritan laws that protect the untrained "fighters" who are on scene and do something to try to help. But there's nothing to shield and protect the good Samaritans who offer help to those we love within our sphere of personsl relationships within our lives.
Everyone has a right to struggle through whatever they're struggling through without any help from the bystanders on the side. And one of the first rules of any first responding is that if someone refuses assistance, the first responders are legally required to stop, even if it means that the person is going to bleed out and die...they are required by law to stop assisting...even if it means the person is going to die.
It's the hardest thing for me to do...to stand by and not do something...yet, it is exactly what I need to do.
I have read that a baby chick will die if they are helped with the breaking away of the shell they are struggling to break out of. There is something inherently necessary about the struggle. Yet, as a bystander watching, it is the hardest thing to let the struggle happen without reaching down to "help" pull away pieces of a shell...and the truth is we're not really helping, even if it makes US feel better to do so.
Today has been some hard lessons bout not picking flowers, and about not pulling away pieces of a broken shell, no matter what the intent...no matter how much I want to help...no matter how much a person may be struggling.
Loving people when their lives are filled with love and sunshine every day is easy. But loving a person who struggles with an unfairly burdened life challenges every aspect of humanity to its core (for everyone involved) As for me, I'm not doing a very good job of it today, but tomorrow is another day, and I will try to do a better job loving the people who are struggling around me.