Are You Threadbare? 3 Ways to Reclaim Your Personal Power and Set Healthy Boundaries (Part 2)

Yesterday, I wrote about needing to make myself a first priority in order to regain some sense of personal power and not feel so threadbare (I'm hoping you've taken this message to heart, too!). Here’s the second lesson I have learned (and actions I am taking to change):

#2: No matter how much you want to help, ultimately, other people are responsible for themselves.

Someone comes to you and says she's hurting. Or stuck. Or in a bad situation and doesn’t know what to do. Or simply needs help. 

What do you do? If you are like me, you jump in with both feet, throw yourself into helping, and take on the whole issue as if it were your issue, often staying up late worrying and going to any length in the mission to fix the problem. 

And then it happens: You realize the person may say she wants help, but she doesn’t actually want to put in the time to help herself. Or, she might want you to just fix it all for her. Or, she might actually not really want to fix the situation - she likes the drama, sadness, chaos, or whatever. 

But, you said you would help (and you've now taken this on as your personal problem and responsibility), so you spend a lot of time either trying to convince her to take some positive action, or you get fed up and just fix the whole thing for her.

Either way, you’ve just wasted time and energy on solving her issues, but you are left with so much stress and exhaustion that you don’t have the energy to try to make your own life better or deal with things that are important to you. 

If this sounds like you, it’s time for a little tough love (and let me tell you, I kicked my own behind for this one, too!):

Solving other’s problems for them does not work. Helping someone who doesn’t help him or herself doesn’t work. Fixing issues that others’ don’t really want fixed doesn’t work. 

No matter how good your intentions are, it truly doesn’t end well for anyone.

Imagine this: Your friend (lover, boss, grown child, etc) is caught in an angry ocean without a boat. She can’t swim, so you throw a rope out. She ignores the rope. You bring out a helicopter. She waves it away. You call out the coast guard. She says that she’s afraid of boats and won’t get in. So, thinking you are helping (also known as the “last act of a kind but self-defeating person”), you jump in, grab your friend, and start swimming for shore. 

Instead of being grateful, your friend fights you every stroke of the way, kicking and flailing and working against you in the most disruptive, exhausting ways. Or, she simply refuses to even try to swim, telling you (tearfully) why she can’t or won’t try to help - that you need to do it for her.

What do you suppose would happen at this point? Is it possible that you somehow have enough strength to lug your seriously resistant friend and yourself to the shore? Sure, it’s possible, but not likely.

The much more likely scenario is that you become exhausted from all that effort, and you both drown. 

If you are trying to help people that will not help themselves or will not participate in solving their own problems, you are doing exactly this, and I am telling you (from experience), you will eventually sink under the weight of it.

Or - hey - I’m an optimist! Let’s look at the ridiculously positive view for a second. Let’s just say that you DO actually, somehow, against all odds, fix the problem and save her from herself. You know what you have actually succeeded in doing? You’ve successfully made her dependent on you, which means that the next time she's in a pickle, guess who she's calling? (And rest assured, there will be another, breath-takingly similar pickle.)

There’s a couple of problems here:  

1. Your friend (lover, boss, grown child) doesn’t learn the lesson because he or she suffered no consequences, felt little pain, and made no effort. This pretty much guarantees he or she will repeat the experience (or upgrade to a worse one). And, if she actually kinda likes the experience (no matter how much she says she doesn't), she'll actively seek another one out.
2. Your intentions might be great, but you’ve actually robbed her of the satisfaction of actually solving her own problem, unintentionally creating a sense of helplessness and a feeling of being incapable of effectively saving herself. Essentially, she's just learned that the best she can do is do the dead man’s float in life, rather than learn how to swim - because, after all, she's incapable of learning to swim and someone else will pick up her mess and drag her to shore anyway.

Sometimes you have to let people fall flat on their faces in order to learn a key lesson to create a better life or stop making bad choices. Sometimes, it’s got to get to the point that leaving the situation is less painful than staying for real change to happen. If people never feel pain, they don’t change - there’s no reason to. If you are always saving the day, never letting the person have to really feel the pain of the experience or his or her decisions, you are actually almost guaranteeing that he or she will stay stuck in the experience (which is kind of the opposite of what you intended to do!). 

Think about it this way: when you successfully face a difficulty, obstacle, or tough situation for yourself, summoning up the courage to deal with it and get through it, don’t you feel stronger and more capable?

You do. You know you do. It’s the same reason that cancer survivors wear ribbons and shirts and do 4-day walks and help those going through the disease. It’s the reason that you can sit with your child and tell him that you truly do understand how it feels to be bullied, teaching from the heart how to deal with it. It’s the reason that you can help someone get out of an abusive relationship, because you know what you needed to hear to finally leave. 

By participating actively in solving your own problems and issues - side by side with anyone helping you - you strengthen yourself in ways that allow you to be more resilient, capable, and self-confident. You’ve been there, done that and can help others get through, too. 

So, next time someone asks you to swoop in and solve their problems for them, remember this. Don’t you really want them to have that sense of satisfaction and strength? 

And, if someone won’t participate in their own solutions or healing, you must walk away. It’s not good for you to go down with the ship. It doesn’t prove anything at all that you have given until you fall over. It robs you of the life you are supposed to be leading and it’s time that you could use for someone or something else.

I know this is so hard. It’s a badge of honor when you miraculously fix the unfixable. It’s addictive to think that so many people need you. It feeds that place in you that longs to be loved and wanted and admired. 

I get it. I have the same hunger within me. 

It’s time to feed it something different. It’s time to feed your soul by releasing those that are sucking your energy dry. It’s time to focus on letting go of the notion that you somehow created everyone’s problems and are responsible for solving them. It’s time to use your energy to strengthen you and your life so that you can go on to make the difference in the world that you are intended to make.

So, repeat after me: “I did not create other’s problems. I cannot fix their problems for them. I can only be there to listen, to offer support, and to give only as much time and energy as they are putting in to helping themselves. It's okay for me to release those that drain my energy and refuse to help themselves.” 

Repeat that a lot. It helps. It really does. This should really be your new go-to affirmation.

Have you ever helped someone that didn’t want the help? Or solved everything for someone, over and over? Maybe you broke the over-helping habit? I’d love to hear your stories! 

Part 3 tomorrow - and it is a doozy (you will not believe what I just went through from setting one simple, seemingly innocent boundary)! 

Flow Method Actions to Implement:

Take a look at those that you are helping that continuously require that you save them or clean up their messes. Set a mental boundary right now that the next time they ask, you say “no.” Let them know that you will help them and support them, but you will not do it for them again. Hold fast and remember that it may be painful now, but you will feel better and so will they in the long run.

Repeat the affirmation above over and over. You won’t buy it at first, but eventually, you will start to feel stronger; at that point, things start to shift.

My Oprah Casting Call: One Stiletto Stampede, Forty-Five Breathless Seconds, and Six Lessons Learned (Part 1)

A QUICK NOTE: I published this story on Facebook back in June, and the response was so overwhelming, I thought my new readers on this site would be entertained by it as well! Enjoy!

There are moments in life when you wonder what the heck you have managed to get yourself into. The Oprah “Win Your Own Show” casting call Saturday June 26th was precisely such a moment.

As many of you know, I had been competing - quite successfully, thanks to your amazing support - to win my own talk show on Oprah’s new OWN Network. I entered the competition because of the way that it was described on the website calling for entries, “Are you an expert or spiritual guru? Are you passionate about what you do? Win your own talk show and help MORE people!”

I thought, “Hey! I am an expert, and I really, really want to help people! I am passionate! I am going to go for it!”

Not to mention, I - like so many of you, I am certain - truly admire Oprah Winfrey for all that she has overcome and accomplished. To be part of her network would certainly be an honor. 

So, I did the video thing - which was totally unnerving, because even after all this time doing what I do, I truly hate being taped. But - if it meant getting a shot to get The Flow Method out there and help as many people as I could, I was going to grit my teeth and do it.

After about a half an hour of filming and one laborious Sunday filling out the 20 page application to enter the contest, I submitted everything and the video went up.

Then, somewhat apprehensively, I took a deep breath and started letting people know that I was up there and could use votes. 

The most extraordinary thing happened - I started to get these lovely messages of support from all of you. Thanks to so many of you sharing the video on your page and also voting like crazy, my voting numbers started going up and up - and I ended up holding a spot on the 1st page of the Health and Wellness category for the entire competition (finished up on Saturday in the #21 spot out of 1787 videos in the H & W category and #98 out of all 9,504 videos - top 1% - which is pretty remarkable).

But - there was more I could do to win this thing. I knew that there was an open casting call in Atlanta on June 26th, and I felt that if I was serious about going for this I needed to make the effort to get there. So, still jetlagged and exhausted from my incredible Romanian book tour, I took off for Atlanta on the 25th.

I delighted in driving my new Mini Cooper Clubman, found out that I still knew all the words to Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” (not sure what that says about me, but it can’t be good), and ran through my answers for the questions that the producers would surely ask me. 

After about 7 hours of driving and almost running out of gas in Sandy Springs, GA (the signs say that they have a gas station there, but don’t you believe them), I arrived, checked into the hotel, and decided to do a “dry run” over to the Kohl’s where the call would be held the next morning. Being somewhat famous for having the sense of direction of a drunken sparrow, I figured that the first time I tried to find the place should not be in the dark at 3 in the morning. 

To my relief, the Kohl’s was only 1.5 miles from my hotel and quite easy to find. I walked in to see if anyone knew anything about, well, anything for the next day, and ended up being greeted by a leather-skinned Kohl’s cashier we’ll call “Maria.” I glance around and don’t see any signs up about the casting call, so I ask her if I am at the right Kohl’s, fearing that I may have headed to the wrong store altogether. 

“Yep, you’re in the right spot, and you can show up here tomorrow at 4 am to line up.  Here - “ She waves me over. “You just need to fill these 5 questions out quickly for tomorrow!” She walks toward her register. 

I assume she means that there is something else I need to bring in order to get in line. “Oh, okay - what else do I need?” I say, following her to her counter, “I already filled out my application and brought it with me.” 

“No, no - this is different. It’s just 5 questions.” She rustles around looking for something.

I stare at her trying to understand what in the world she is talking about.

She flies through the next sentence as fast as an auctioneer selling cattle. “Just 5 questions so you can get a 20% discount tomorrow on shopping and...” she slows down, “you just need to fill it out now.” She smiles like a snake charmer. 

Something is not reading right here. “Uh, well, I don’t really need a discount right now. I just got off the road and am really tired.”

She sinks her teeth in deeper. “It’s just 5 easy questions - just your name, your address, your social security number -”

I cut her off. “My social security number? Is this for a credit card?”

“Oh, well, yes - but if you are going to shop tomorrow, you will want your 20% off.” She acts like she is looking for something at her cash register.

“No, I doubt I will be shopping tomorrow, and I really don’t want to do this right now.” I look at her with as determined a look as I can muster. I am a ridiculously friendly-looking person, so it isn’t very convincing.

“It’s just 5 quick questions - you don’t even have to think to do it.” She hands me a pen, but refuses to meet my eyes.

“No - I am not doing that right now.” I mentally call up my inner Mr. T, stare at her like I really mean it, and hand the pen back.

Refusing to let her potential credit application commission slip through her leathery fingers, she whips out an app and fills her name and “associate number” in the proper spaces. “Oh, well, here - keep this with you and you’re all ready to go for tomorrow.” She hands it to me. “Don’t forget it!”

Sure thing! I think to myself as I wonder how far away the next recycling bin is.

I begin to make my escape when I hear my dear friend Kellie Kuecha call out, “Hey girlfriend!” She and her wonderful boyfriend Cliff Moitt are also there doing surveillance. I hadn’t physically seen her in years, so we hugged and laughed and she brought me up to date on what she had found out - which, unfortunately, was pretty much what I found out - which was not as much as either of us would have liked.

We parted ways with me worrying because they had not found a hotel yet (they found one right after). I grabbed some dinner and headed back to the hotel to just relax and burn a sample DVD of me doing on-the-spot mind-body diagnosis and a CD of sampling of the meditations I have produced. I put these with my media kit, testimonials of The Flow Method, articles in Romanian about my tour, press releases and everything else I can think of to showcase my work. Being under the assumption that they are looking for an expert in her field that does something really unique, I want to bring an entire kit to show what I can do.

I run through everything one more time, get a pep talk from my husband and parents and fall asleep around midnight.

Next, Part 2: The Stiletto Stampede and My Run-In with Del from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...

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