The Surprisingly Effective Way To Help People By Not Trying To
Stop trying to solve people’s problems and do this instead.
I’m a problem solver. Whatever the problem I’ll have a go at trying to solve it. I rush in with advice, options, optimism, plans, resources, energy. “It will be fine,” I’ll say. “We can sort this.”
Sometimes this is what’s wanted. But not as often as problem solvers like to think. Too often we make it about the problem instead of the person, about our need to solve, not their needs.
Our over-enthusiastic attempts to assist cause irritation but usually nothing worse. We are indulged and forgiven because our heart is in the rightish place.
But charging to the rescue can hinder, hurt, or even harm the person we are trying to help.
This is a particular hazard when the ‘problem’ is internal, not external. The problem solver can slide from “we’ll fix this”, to “we’ll fix you”, always a damaging approach.
Listen
When we want to help, particularly if it is someone we care about, we want to move fast. We want to ease their pain and ours as soon as possible.
Slow down.
Unless it is truly an emergency, the ‘less haste, more speed’ adage will apply. Instead of immediate action, engage in purposeful listening. I’ve found that focus on four areas helps:
Listen, don’t talk
I am haunted by someone I didn’t help by trying to help. I didn’t listen. I made things worse because I didn’t understand how bad they were feeling. I didn’t recognize they needed to feel better before they could do better. How could I miss this? I was talking too much.
I didn’t recognize they needed to feel better before they could do better.
I realized I was messing up, eventually. And this kick-started a desire to change, to listen more, to understand. I’m a work-in-progress, but I’m improving.
I now ask open-ended questions. I wait for the answer before jumping in. Most fruitful has been openness about my shortcomings; I ask people to pull me up if I slip into my quick-fire-solutions mode.
Listen, don’t judge
People want to feel heard, especially when they are struggling. Heard without judgment, impatience, or troubleshooting.
Listening, acknowledging someone’s pain and perspective may be the best and only thing we need to do to help. It should always be the first thing we do.
Being available to hear, over and over, as someone talks about their problem, is a priceless gift of friendship. It’s not always easy for the problem solver, but keep trying.
Listen, don’t correct
When we process information, we first frame it according to our own experiences and behaviors. If someone comes to you with a familiar problem that you have experienced or could see happening to you, it is easy to empathize.
But if you could never imagine being in their shoes — perhaps they were hesitant when you would have gone all in — your inclination is to encourage them to do what you would have done. Resist. Keep yourself out of it.
Be objective and put extra effort into considering what you’d do if your natural course of action wasn’t possible. Stay in their world, don’t make it about yours.
Stay in their world, don’t make it about yours.
Listen to what’s not said
When you slow down, when you take time to get beneath the surface of a cry for help, you discover important issues, lurking in the corners of conversations, hidden in what is not said.
The immediate dilemma may be a smokescreen or a distraction from the crux of the problem.
By being alert and paying attention to these covert signs, you may be more useful. You may see opportunities the headline drama obscures.
Rather than helping to bandage the wound, you may help stop the bleeding.
A musical aide-memoire
When I struggle to understand something my mental excursions often transfigure into music.
Lost Cause is the song that emerged from trying to understand how people get trapped inside themselves, get so internalized they feel no one can hear them so no one can help them.
Many have told me this song speaks to them and helped them. Some tell me it speaks for them.
I wasn’t trying to help.
I was trying to understand.
And that helped.
Them and me.
Why can’t you hear me?
I’m talking quite loud
Is the voice in my head?
Was it lost in that crowd?Why can’t you hear me?
I’m singing it out
My lungs ache from the crying
There’s no cause for doubt.And I’ve told you I’m sorry
I’m not this girl
I’ve told you I’m trying
Not to drown in this world.Why can’t you see me?
I’m standing right here
Has the black of my shadows
Made my face disappear?Why won’t you touch me?
I’m lying so still
I won’t be any trouble
When’s the next pill.And I’ve told you I’m looking
Though it’s so very dark
I’ve told you I’ll keep searching
For our bench in the park.And I long to taste the air outside this space
To sense some warmth upon my face
But I have no feeling
I just keep falling, I’m falling, I’m falling,
Keep falling down.Why won’t you help me?
When I’m trying so hard
Are you scared I’ll drag you under?
If you let down your guard.Won’t anybody help me?
Why do you all pause?
Can you sense in the ether
That I’m a lost cause?But I promise I’m fighting
No one could do more
I promise I’m clinging on
Though my fingers are raw.Hush now, I’m talking
I can’t say it out loud
Too weak even to whisper
No strength to be proud.And you know that I’m sorry
That I can’t try anymore
You know I’m too crippled
To swim to the shore.Can anyone hear me?
Lost Cause is from my first album ‘Can’t Clip My Wings’ which you can get here.
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If you enjoyed this you may like my other storysongs
