We have the desire to help our loved ones. Seeing clearly the things they are doing that are self-destructive and self-sabotaging, that are getting in the way of their health, happiness and success, we try to enlighten them and guide them to make better choices.
Unfortunately, whether in denial or aware of what they need to do and just unwilling to do it, no commitment to change is made, no actions are undertaken.
Rather than accepting that they are stuck in their own private hell, at a psychological and spiritual level that we do not have the power to dislodge them from, we tend to get depressed, frustrated, and angry with them. More to the point: we don’t stop.
Despite their clear and consistent resistance and reluctance to heed our warnings and put positive action plans into play, we persist with a vengeance, we keep poking them with our stick of change in order to force them off their spot.
We feel we have the right to do this because we care for them and we know what’s best for them.
As true as this may be, when our efforts repeatedly fall on deaf ears, we need to stop. We need to let it be. We need to appreciate that people move at their own pace and we can’t push the river where it doesn’t want to go. We need to accept them as they are.
If we continue to berate and badger them over and over again, what we perceive as our constructive criticism and advice becomes abusive behavior. If we continue going at them long after we’ve made our point and they have taken their position of resistance, we are simply attacking them and doing nothing positive.
In fact, we are, oftentimes, doing quite the opposite. We are hurting our relationship and damaging the potential for them to embrace our agenda sooner rather than later, in the sense that the more we push, the more they tend to resist and the more resentful they tend to get.
Rather than helping them move forward, which is our intention, our behavior makes them more entrenched and oppositional. And it oftentimes comes back at us in the form of irritable, angry, aggressive and passive-aggressive behaviors which weaken the relationship rather than strengthen the bond.
The Bottom Line
When we see our loved ones making self-destructive choices, we offer our helpful suggestions. We advise them as to what we think it’s best they do. And then we let it go.
After planting the seed in their mind, we water it solely with our love, our role-modeling of the right actions we have been endorsing, and our support when they stumble and fall.
If we find ourselves unable to do this, then it is our ego getting in the way. It is our control issues, more than our desire to help them, that is carrying the torch, in which case it would behoove us to look within and get our own house in order.
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