That doesn’t help me.

You know the shit your friends say (or the shit you say) when something doesn’t work out with someone?

“Man, she’s a bitch.”

“What a trainwreck.”

“You’re better off, seriously. He was a hot mess.”

“People like that…”

Does that stuff help you? It doesn’t help me.

I don’t see people that one-dimensionally. I don’t see people merely for the behaviors they exhibit. Call me CRAZY but I like to think that people are a bit more complex and there’s more lurking beneath the surface. But don’t take my word for it, ask any psychologist. Or Levar Burton.

When people said stuff like that to me in the past, or even very recently, rather than feeling all puffed up and good about myself, I sort of got angry. I felt more frustrated by those people saying that stuff than the person they were talking about.

See, when people say shit like that, they aren’t really advocating for you (or me) to be our best and healthiest and happiest selves. They aren’t supporting us in working through the complexity of relationships with imperfect people (ourselves included). They are just projecting their own bad experiences from the past and unresolved feelings of hurt or rejection or betrayal or abandonment, etc. onto us.

They aren’t trying to help anyone be the best person possible. They’re just perpetuating resignation and resistance and rejection. And you know who they’re doing it to the most?

Themselves.

That’s right.

When we give up on others, it’s because we’ve given up on ourselves.

Listen, it’s not like I’m saying we should put up with the bad behaviors of other people and just be doormats for whatever people throw at us. No. Nope. But we can actually be mature adults and dig a little deeper below what’s happening to find empathy and compassion for the acting out we’re seeing and experiencing.

Where do we start doing that? With ourselves.

Recently, I was up to my eyeballs in thinking this person was the best thing since sliced bread. You know what I mean? When you see someone for their potential and think to yourself, “damn. That right there is really great.”

I have this way about me. I see through whatever isn’t working about someone right through to their core. I also have a bad habit, admittedly, of trying to get that person to pull that potential UP and OUT before it’s time. Before that person is actually ready, willing and able to do it.

Kind of like prying open a bud in the spring. That doesn’t work. Ever.

I get so excited about people having something incredible inside that the world really needs that I *often* forget it’s not my job to force that process. They reach out or elicit my help and I go from 0–60 to make it happen. Because that’s kind of how I live my life and it’s pretty thrilling. I have to remind myself *often* that not everyone is built like me.

As a coach, I walk this fine line all the time. When to challenge, when to guide, when to leave someone the F alone. It’s a practice. While I’m good, I’m not perfect at it.

And that’s my work.

So when this person sort of reacted to this dynamic between us, this push and pull of help-ok-here-no-wait-no-you-can-do-it-ok-thanks-no-no-no-yes-you-can-I-SAID-NO! instead of blaming that person for being unkind or _______(fill in the blank)_______ I just took responsibility for stepping back.

Not my problem to solve. I can’t help where it isn’t needed.

Which goes back to the title of this piece. What doesn’t help is what isn’t needed. So many double negatives there. Let me clean that up.

Help is helpful when it is wanted and needed. Otherwise, it isn’t help.

So, when people start throwing out unkind, unloving comments or remarks about someone to “help” me or you feel better, it doesn’t really help me. Does it make you feel better? I’m not trying to dismiss someone’s process of navigating intimacy and love to make myself feel better or let myself off the hook for the part I played in the process.

When I’m talking something out, I’m trying to better understand my role. I’m trying to better understand what I could do better next time. That’s the help I need.

Maybe that’s the help you and other people actually need while trying to talk about something that didn’t work, either with another person or at work or in life.

So say that. Say, “that doesn’t help me” and ask for what you need, instead.