Do you help people suffer?

Do you help people suffer?

Sounds like a strange question, right? I invite you to think about it for a moment.

How are you navigating through these times with so many people struggling and addicted to their suffering? Meaning that many people are choosing to look at only the challenges in the world today and get stuck in the negative space of them.

Being an empath, I have found a lot of challenge with this. I want others to feel better. I have empathy and understanding for others’ situations. Many times, I would feel guilty for not struggling when others were. I would play down my happiness or good news if someone was having a difficult time.

I have learned that it is much more effective not to commiserate with people that are choosing to stay in behaviors that are not serving them. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about or have compassion for their struggles; I for sure do.

But here’s the thing: you can’t get sick enough to help a sick person get better, or poor enough to help a poor person thrive. In other words, the way we can help or inspire others is to lend them a hand up instead of jumping into their story.

When we jump into others’ stories we unknowingly, subconsciously tell them they don’t have what it takes to come out of the situation. They can become dependent on us because they don’t think they have the power to make changes.

Shining our light is about standing in our power and allowing others to stand in theirs.  And showing them what is possible if they choose to make the changes necessary to see things differently and live a life that reflects that. That can be extremely challenging, especially with the people closest to us.

Now more than ever, we are being called to stand in our power and not give it away to what does not serve us. In doing that we show others what is possible and if they want to, they can put their attention on what they want instead of what they don’t want as well. Staying out of the ‘Oh so awful’ conversations and redirecting them to what’s going well is a great way to bring some positivity.

When we change the world changes.