fix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our heart-felt reasons for fixing vary, but the results are the same.

"But I don't want him to hurt." Well what if he needs to hurt?

"I don't want her to be mad at me." Why not? You  don't want to feel guilty or responsible?

"I can save him some grief on this one." Maybe he needs the grief. Isn't that how you learned?

"Come here. Let me show you how that's done." Oh, and steal from them the chance to learn for themselves?

"I'm just trying to make life easy for you." And in the process protect them from the valuable lessons life is trying to give them.

My discomfort with "being still" in the face of someone else's life lesson just throws a wrench in the spokes! One of the most present and loving things I can do is to BE WITH my friend's agony or upset or fight without taking it from them. My inability to do this comes from both my "training" to do everything but be still, along with my discomfort in facing some part of myself. My activity in fixing you keeps my focus off of me and off my own issues.

Practice Listening. Without saying a word. Practice not fixing. So you have the answer? So what? This isn't about you having the answer, this is about them getting the gift. The lesson. Allow those in your life to grow and prosper through having you as their support not as their solution dispenser.

Help catapult their walk in life not by advising and fixing, but rather by asking allowing them their own pace and by asking them questions that help them remember who they are and what they value most. Retire from being Fixer and become merely an accomplice to the miracle.