The story of Little Help and Little Need

(5 min read)

 

"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."

Ronald Reagan

 

For many of us, helping others is a life purpose in itself. Especially highly sensitive or intuitive people have this antenna that's constantly tuned in on everybody else’s needs and they tend to pick up very clear ideas about what is needed in any given moment. And so we help. Or that's what we think we do. We offer advice, we do the necessary things before the other person even realised that it needed to be done for them to feel good, we jump in whenever something can be done, improved, made, etc...  We just can't stop ourselves, can we? Come and join me on a little thought journey into the world of communication and deeper understanding:

The main characters of our story are Little Help and Little Need. They are friends and one fine day they meet and chat. Little Need is facing a challenging situation and is really stressed out. She tells Little Help all about it and Little Help, helpful as she is, knows exactly what to do and offers her solutions straight away. Little Need, however, rejects them one by one. "It's not possible.", "I can't do that.", "It won't work." and "I’ve tried that already and it´s useless." are some her objections. It's so frustrating for Little Help.

 

Little Help decides to go see her friend called Wise Counselling and ask for her advice. Wise Counselling listens carefully to every detail of Little Help's explanation and then asks her the following questions:

 

1) Did Little Need ask you for advice or help?

2) Have you carefully checked that you are the right person to help Little Need? 

3) What is your motivation? Why do you wish to help Little Need?

4) Have you considered that your advice is coming from your reality and might not fit into Little Need's reality? 

5) Is it the right moment to help Little Need actively?

 

Little Help feels confused and asks her friend to clarify. After a moment of thought and silence the Wise Counselling’s answers:

 

"If someone has a problem and tells you about it, it doesn't mean they ask you for advice. Most likely they only need someone to offer them the precious gift of active listening. They need to talk out loud, give voice to their thoughts and feel understood. This alone can give them the strength and energy they need in order to help themselves. So if someone does not ask for your advice, don't be frustrated if they refuse to listen to it if you decide to give the advice unasked. If you want to make sure, check with them: "Would you like me to share my ideas and thoughts on the topic or do you prefer to talk and be listened to?"

And if someone does ask for help, proceed to the next question...

 

Are you the right person to help? Sometimes the biggest support we can give is by stepping aside and freeing the space for the right person to come along. By forcing our help onto others, we might block them from learning valuable lessons, finding necessary information, following their intuition or listening to their inner voice. Imagine you're trying to listen to an intricate piece of piano music and outside there are lots of cars driving past, each with a different kind of music blasting out of their open windows. It's exhausting.

 

Question No.3 is a big one. What is your true motivation to help? You will probably answer: 

- "I want Little Need to feel good." That's very kind of you, but why do you want Little Need to feel good?

- "I am worried or I feel sad when I see that Little Need has problems and therefore I want to help." Ok, now we're getting closer to the essence. You want to help because YOU feel worried or sad. So your ultimate goal is to feel good yourself. I know that sounds horribly egoistic, but don't worry. You are human. We all strive to feel good, be accepted and loved. So basically, all our actions will aim towards achieving it. But how does that relate to your desire to help Little Need? Well, there I have another question for you: Whose responsibility are your feelings and needs? Yours, right? If next time you feel the urge to jump in and help, hold your horses and sit with your feelings. If Little Need has to deal with her own problems AND with defending herself against well-meant but unasked for help, she is carrying a double burden. It’s going to make things worse for both of you.

 

Now, let’s have a look at the fourth question: If Little Need asks you for help, will you be able to step into her shoes, look at the world through her eyes and fully understand her and her reality? Because only if you do will you be able to know what is good and feasible for her. And if you don’t, it’s ok too. Then you can listen and be present, give your full and undivided attention and show that you care. That is true support as well and will be very much appreciated.

 

And last but not least question 5. Is it the right moment to help? Imagine you are currently stressed, full of anxiety or panicking. Your whole system is busy dealing with a fight and flight reaction. Do you think you will be able to handle advice? Before giving advice, even if it’s the most reasonable and suitable advice, always check if the person in front of you is actually capable of receiving it. It like having a full stomach. If you want to add new food, you have to wait until the stomach has digested what is already in there, especially if the stomach is upset. Maybe as important as the timing is also the quantity. If you give an upset stomach a lot of food to digest it might just want it to pass quickly either way without actually digesting it. It won’t be very useful and none of the precious nutrients will be kept in the body.”

 

On her way home, Little Help feels dizzy but happy. So much to think about. She also thinks of all the times Little Need has helped her. Maybe that’s another reason she feels so obliged to help her friend in return. But something that Wise Counselling has said keeps tickling her mind. If Little Need is the right person to help Little Help but Little Help is not the right person to help Little Need, maybe it’s not supposed to be a two-way-thing. Maybe it’s more like a chain reaction. Little Need helps Little Help, Little Help helps Little Support and Little Support helps Little Empowerment etc...

​

What a nice thought. It takes away so much pressure and makes it easier to accept help without offering anything in return but friendship and loyalty. Which is a lot already...

 

And with this thought, dear reader, I end my story. May it inspire you and help you help others in a good way.

 

​