You know those memories where you felt bad? When someone said something to you or it's something they've said multiple times to you. An instance I think of is when I was struggling with something and my mom would say,
"I don't know how to help you."
I would feel so helpless and a bit let-down, almost like she was giving up on me. It wasn't a pleasant place to be. Thinking of it now, to me it was pretty impressive that she could admit that, even though hearing it was not fun. Some parents try to just throw out some solution or tell you to get over it when really they just don't know what to do.
I wouldn't want someone else to have to feel that pain, that moment of helplessness, stuck in the goo of the problem with no solution.
I am tempted in a situation where a friend wants an answer to try to fix it or to say, "I can't talk to you about this anymore" - the former wouldn't help and the latter would certainly be giving up on her which is exactly what I do not want her to feel.
When my mom said "I don't know how to help you", maybe she wasn't giving up on me. Maybe she was just telling the truth. Maybe that gooey, tough place of turmoil is actually good. Maybe I am in the good place I'm in now because I had to go through those bad feelings, those times of helplessness and NOT having all the answers all the time!!
Oh, that we would learn to do hard things and trust that the result will be golden. If we could go through pain and have others say "I don't know how to help you" and then look back and realize things turned out ok how much more fearless would we be?
- Rachel Fagan
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