When I look back, I can see how adversity and challenge really tested me or changed me, and it seems the more difficult the circumstances, the more I was strengthened or utterly broken.

It has always been the times of brokenness that I recreated myself or made changes that really needed to occur. While I don’t wish for challenges anymore, when they do come I don’t shy away from them because I know on some level that I have created exactly what it is that I am facing.

When I was working as a vocational guidance officer with abused and/or homeless teenagers, I spent so much time with them that really I was a mentor and counsellor as well. One day I was unable to console one of the young girls. A distressing situation had arisen and after I had dropped her off at her foster home I parked near the ocean and cried and cried and cried. It was during this personal period of distress because I couldn’t “fix it” that I had one of my greatest and most helpful “epiphanies”.

As I asked myself why I was taking on board her distress and suffering so badly I understood that I was wanting to “fix and rescue”. So I was feeling helpless and unable to contribute to her situation in a positive way.

Thinking more deeply on it as I stopped crying and found my inner calm through breathing mindfulness, my mind went deeper into pondering the “carers get bitten” syndrome. I was reminded of a story where someone jumped into a hole to rescue someone and the person jumped on their shoulders and got out of the hole, only to leave the “rescuer” behind.

I remembered how hard it was for me to give up smoking. I had given up many, many times. One time I had even stopped for four years but took it up again. Until one day I just stopped. I was on a self-isolating “retreat” for a weekend. I was reading a book by Alan Cohen called “Dare to Be Yourself”, and I understood in a moment of huge headaches from being dehydrated and playing golf, that I only have one body. I asked myself why did I hate myself so much I was poisoning myself? Why did I hate myself so much I was not looking after my body? This stopped me in my tracks and I realised what I was actually doing to myself.

I stopped smoking immediately and have NEVER been tempted to take it up. It has now been almost 30 years since I stopped.

So what was the difference of this time to other times?

I realised that I was sick of it for myself. I stopped when I wanted to for ME. Other times I had stopped because of pressure from others. Others who were sick of it “for” me.

Two things came to me in my time of contemplation.

One was that people only change their habits when they do it for themselves and make the choice and decision. THAT is empowerment. When others are sick of it “for” them and try to force change, that is disempowering. Also it gives a telepathic message that the “others” know how one should live their life and the person has no idea how to live their own life. Again – totally disempowering. No wonder the “carer” gets scratched. Passive aggression or downright anger is directed at the “carer”.

Think about it. Do you like someone telling you how to live your life?

It was a moment of real deep understanding that has indelibly changed me. Not that I don’t care. I am still “guilty” of offering advice or suggestions. Just I don’t have a vested interest in others changing. I stop myself often on giving unsolicited advice (not always thought), and I certainly have more tolerance of “habits” of others now too.

When I got back to the office that day, I got out my year diary. On every Monday I wrote “I am here to guide and support – NOT fix and rescue’.

This helped me to not succumb to what was very close to “burnout”. At times when I have been in “caring” positions, and have found myself feeling “burnt out”, again I have remembered about just guiding and supporting and it has helped.

Of course, eventually that led to, “whatever”.

The second thing I realised was that I understood with a new awareness that sometimes a person has to be brought to their knees. We do try to stop that. We don’t like to see people suffering. However, they need to be sick of something for themselves. Because only then do they choose for themselves to reach out for help. THAT is empowerment. Choosing a new direction. Choosing to ask for help. If we stop that process, we are hindering their growth.

I know this to be true, because it was only when life brought me to my knees that I asked for help. It has been a long haul but my goodness the gifts from those challenges have given me much more than I ever had before.

Now I can watch with compassion as someone’s life falls apart. If they ask I will help as much as I can. I see the strength of their own spirit helping them and understand too that they wouldn’t be in the situation if it actually wasn’t meant to be. But then that is a whole new blog.