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Unlocking Freedom: Reclaiming Your Energy from the Cycle of Controlling Help
If you’ve been giving advice to somebody over and over and over again and they never take it, this essay is for you. We do this in an effort to fix, rescue, and protect other people.
I was once told when I did this that I was “being helpful to be controlling.” I was aghast! I thought, “I’m just trying to help!”
If you find yourself saying that, it’s a clue that you also might be being helpful to be controlling. That is, you want things to be done your way. You’re “helping” so that things will go your way.
Stop it!
Here’s an example of what it looks like when I’m being helpful to be controlling. I was in a group of people who needed access to a building that shifted from having door codes to keys. I volunteered to be the liaison between the building owners and the group. It was brought to my attention by one of the group members that they didn’t ask for my help with the building folks.
They said I was being helpful to be controlling.
At first, I was pissed that they said that, but as I thought about it, I realized that it was true. I wanted a few things to go my way: I wanted my group to appear organized to the building owners, and I wanted to make sure my group was doing things “the right…
