Here’s a video exploring how to accept where people are at. We all have different levels of emotional and spiritual awareness. We are all healing and evolving at a rate we can handle. When those you love appear to be in a different place to you it can be tempting to rescue them or judge them as less aware, but that isn’t helpful or even true.
From a larger perspective, some of us can be very egotistical about spirituality and what we think is right. Each person has to find their own truth, their own way to their heart and to live from that space. The best thing we can do to help is to focus on love and acceptance, coming from our own hearts, so that we are anchoring that vibration for the benefit of all.
In this video, Jodi-Anne explores ‘How do you accept where people are at?’ It is one of over 100 questions she has asked about life and channelled an answer through automatic writing. All of these answers to questions about life, how to live peacefully and happily are available for free on the ‘Life Insights‘ page of her website.
Amongst your community there are many people with low levels of awareness, that does not make them wrong or less than you or others who are more aware of life and the larger reasons for it. All beings are exactly where they need to be for their evolution and growth. All are awakening and becoming conscious at the rate that is best for them.
Some who appear less conscious, actually are highly evolved beings who have chosen particularly hard life paths to attempt to master a particular skill. You cannot tell someone’s level of awareness by looking at them or analysing them with your mind. You can only glimpse it through your heart, through witnessing their heart in action, their vibration, their kindness to other beings.
Those who are lofty in knowledge are not necessarily living that knowledge. They may know what it means to be aware, conscious, God-like beings. This does not mean they do it, be it, breathe it – have embodied it. They will in time. Often gaining a lot of knowledge occurs because there is deep pain to be released and they are avoiding feeling and releasing it, by staying stuck in their heads, not in their bodies where the pain is located.
In time when they are ready they will drop down into the pain, feel it, release it and balance back up. Everyone does this when they finally feel safe enough, loved enough and trusting enough that they will cope and come out the other side.
It takes time to build emotional awareness and ability to feel what is truly going on inside, to drop down and listen, to feel into that inner silence and allow forth that which needs your presence and allowance to surface, to enable your freedom once it is released.
To do it sooner than you are truly ready for just results in fear, results in retraumatisation and disillusion. To push too far before you have the ability to process it safely harms the body, as you reattach to the emotion and the story, instead of just witnessing it and letting it go.
People need to learn these skills first, learn how to sit in the pain and not own it, just let it float by. They need to learn to trust life to hold them, care for them and provide for them.This only gets learned through experience of synchronicities and life’s majestic gifts, when things happen unexplainably showing you there is a bigger plan unfolding and you are just one small part of that.
People cannot be told about this and embody it, they have to experience it and it takes time. This is why you can plant seeds of awareness, but can’t make them blossom. Life will do that and it takes each plant a different amount of time, water, love and growth to do it.
So as an educator or helper the best thing you can do is share your story, your experiences of the mysteries of life to give another hope, inspiration and a little more faith and trust. Then let go, let life lead them forth and provide them with their own miracles, to open their hearts and let them heal. You cannot make it happen. You cannot rescue or fix anyone. God will do it perfectly at the right time for that person. So do not lose sleep worrying about others or trying to figure out how to help them realise the truth or release their pain. Life will do it, life will guide them forth.
The best you can do is vibrate in as close a state of love and acceptance as you can, then your energy will help uplift theirs and hold the space for their awakening to life and its larger mysteries. Just love and accept them and know they will be led forth to their magnificence when the time is right. Blessed BE, Amen.
The below is a wonderful post by Ally Hamilton explaining how to cope with a loved one who has addiction or mental illness. It is wise advice about not sacrificing your own life trying to rescue someone who does not want to help themselves. Thank you Ally x
People can only drive us crazy if we let them. A person can spin his or her web, but we don’t have to fly into the center of it to be stunned, stung, paralyzed and eaten. Remember that your time and your energy are the most precious gifts you have to offer anyone, and that includes those closest to you, and also total strangers. Your energy and your time are also finite, so it’s really important to be mindful about where you’re placing those gifts.
It’s hard not to get caught up when someone we love is suffering, or thrashing around, or in so much pain they don’t know what else to do but lash out. It’s hard not to take that to heart, or to defend yourself, or to try to make things better for them, but you’re not going to walk into a ring and calm a raging bull with your well-thought out dialogue. You’re just going to get kicked in the face, at best, and I use that analogy intentionally. People in pain–whether we’re talking about people with personality disorders or clinical depression, people suffering with addiction, or people who are going through mind-boggling loss–are dealing with deep and serious wounds. They didn’t wake up this way one morning. Whether it’s a chronic issue, or an acute and immediate situation, when you’re dealing with heightened emotions including rage, jealousy, or debilitating fear, you’re not going to help when a person is in the eye of the storm. If someone is irrational, trying to reason with them makes you as irrational as they are; you can’t negotiate with crazy. I’m not using the word as a dagger, I’m saying we’re all crazy sometimes, we’re all beyond reason sometimes. We all have days when we feel everyone is against us, whether that’s based in any kind of reality or not.
You can offer your love, your patience, your kindness and your compassion if someone you care for is suffering. You can try to get them the support they need. You can make them a meal, or show up and just be there to hold their hand, or take them to the window to let in a little light, but if someone is attacking you verbally or otherwise, we’re in a different territory. You are not here to be abused, mistreated, or disrespected. You are not here to defend yourself against someone’s need to make you the villain. You don’t have to give that stuff your energy, and I’d suggest that you don’t. It’s better spent in other places.
We can lose hours and days and weeks getting caught up in drama or someone else’s manipulation. That’s time we’ll never have back. Of course things happen in life; people do and say and want things that can be crushing sometimes, but the real story to examine is always the story of our participation. If someone needs you to be the bad guy, why do you keep trying to prove you’re actually wonderful? Are you wonderful? Brilliant, get back to it. If someone has a mental illness and they are incapable of controlling themselves, keeping their word, or treating you with respect, why do you keep accepting their invitation to rumble? You already know what’s going to happen. Don’t you have a better way to spend your afternoon? My point is, life is too short.
When a person is in the kind of pain that causes them to create pain around them, your job is to create boundaries if it’s someone you want to have in your life. You figure out how to live your life and honor your own well-being, and deal with the other party in a way that creates the least disharmony for you. That means you don’t get in the ring when they put their dukes up. You don’t allow yourself to get sucked in. Do you really think this is the time you’ll finally be heard or seen or understood? People who need to be angry cannot hear you. It doesn’t matter what you do or say, they have a construct they’ve built to support a story about their life that they can live with; it doesn’t have to be based in reality. Not everyone is searching for their own truth or their own peace; some people are clinging to their rage, because that feels easier or more comfortable, or because they really, truly aren’t ready to do anything else yet. You’re not going to solve that, but you can squander your time and energy trying. You can make yourself sick that way. I just don’t recommend it.
You really don’t have to allow other people to steal your peace, whether we’re talking about those closest to you, or people you don’t even know, like the guy who cuts you off on the freeway, or the woman talking loudly on her cellphone at the bank. You don’t have to let this stuff get under your skin and agitate you. You don’t have to let someone’s thoughtless comment or action rob you of a beautiful afternoon. Of course we give our time to people who need us. I’m just saying, don’t get caught up in the drama. Sending you love, Ally Hamilton
The children of alcoholics suffer ongoing pain from witnessing the chaotic behaviour of their parents. As adults it continues to affect their ability to relax and enjoy life, their ability to connect with others and trust. Many end up constantly on guard, locked in fight or flight, watching for danger, their nervous system still expecting the moment when the alcoholic snaps from being happy to emotionally abusive. It takes a long time and a lot of healing to shift this and be able to enjoy life fully.
Although there are many ways of ‘Rescuing’ an alcoholic, some ways are typical. Here are ten of them:
1. When three or more suggestions to an alcoholic have been rejected you are Rescuing. Instead, offer one or two, and wait to see whether they are acceptable. If they are not, stop making suggestions. Don’t play “Why don’t you… Yes, but…”
2. It’s O.K. to investigate possible therapists for an alcoholic, but never make an appointment for him or her. Any therapist who is willing to make an appointment with an alcoholic through a third person is probably a potential Rescuer and eventual Persecutor.
3. Do not remove liquor, pour liquor down the drain, or look for hidden stashes of liquor in an alcoholic’s house, unless you’re asked to do so by the alcoholic. Conversely, do not ever buy, serve, mix for, or offer alcohol to an alcoholic.
4. Do not engage in lengthy conversations about alcoholism or a person’s alcoholic problem while the person is drunk or drinking; that will be a waste of time and energy, and will be completely forgotten by him / her in most cases when he / she sobers up.
5. Never lend money to a drinking alcoholic. Do not allow a drunk alcoholic to come to your house, or, worse, drink in your house. Instead, in as loving and nurturing a way as possible, ask to see her again when she / he is sober.
6. Do not get involved in errands repair jobs, cleanups, long drives, pickups, or deliveries for an alcoholic who is not actively participating in fighting his / her alcoholism.
7. When you are relating to an alcoholic, do not commit the common error of seeing only the good and justifying the bad. “He’s so wonderful when he’s sober” is a common mistake people make with respect to alcoholics. The alcoholic is a whole person, and his / her personality includes both his / her good and bad parts. They cannot be separated from each other. Either take the whole person or none at all. If the balance comes out consistently in the red, it is foolish to look only on the credit side.
8. Do not remain silent on the subject of another’s alcoholism. Don’t hesitate to express yourself freely on the subject, what you don’t like, what you won’t stand for, what you think about it, what you want or how it makes you feel. But don’t do it with the expectation of being thanked or creating a change; it’s not likely to happen. Do it just to be on the record. Often your outspoken attitude will be taken seriously and appreciated, though it may not bring about any immediate changes. Just as often it will unleash a barrage of defensiveness and even anger, which you should staunchly absorb without weakening.
9. Be aware of not doing anything that you don’t want to do for the alcoholic. It is bad enough if you commit any of the above mistakes willingly. But when you add to them the complications of doing them when you would prefer not to, you are compounding your mistake and fostering an eventual Persecution.
10. Never believe that an alcoholic is hopeless. Keep your willingness to help ready, offer it often, and make it available whenever you detect a genuine interest and effort on the alcoholics part. When that happens, don’t overreact, but help cautiously and without Rescuing; doing only what you want to do, and no more than your share.
Remembering these guidelines about Rescuing will be helpful regardless of what else is done. You can’t fix the problem, the alcoholic has to do the work. By rescuing and reducing the painful impacts of the alcoholism you are allowing the alcoholic to continue to drink. Often it’s only when things hit ‘rock bottom’ that the alcoholic will decide it’s time to change. That is when you should be there for them to support them through the process.
