When Helping is Harmful
Anger is such a powerful emotion and it often triggers us to act; but do those actions create desired outcomes?
I work in the Social Services field and often find myself managing many emotions, especially anger. Unfortunately, sometimes when I start taking on the injustices of the social services system and the resulting consequences I become reactionary. I, of course, feel justified in my actions and feel compelled to tell everyone how this and that are not working right. Sometimes I find myself so activated, in fact, that my intense behaviors start to infiltrate other areas of my life. At those time, I can be experienced as off-putting rather than as the helpful soul I strive to be.
I was confronted by a superior recently and was forced to step back to examine my motives. Defensive at first, I felt a strong urge to justify my behaviors. I took a deep breath, went inside myself and realized that my emotional body was so activated that I was misinterpreting the situation and other people’s actions. I had insinuating myself into situations where no one had actually extended a hand asking for help. As a helper in the helping profession, I can get overly sympathetic and take on too much.
The decision to practice wisdom in difficult situations is something I re-commit to every day. When I contemplate the wisdom of my spiritual teacher it moves my soul and restores me to proper alignment. Below are some tools I use to reposition myself when necessary.
- Be in it but not of it
- Don’t extend help if someone isn’t asking
- Stay aligned in love and compassion
- Seek to understand before being understood
- Visualize God creation in all beings, things and activities
- Practice proper self love
Ask yourself, how are you primarily positioned in your daily activities? Is it serving you well and elevating you to higher consciousness.
5 Ingredients for Successful Collaboration
By Linda Saling
What does collaboration mean anyway? We seem to use that word so frequently in the social services field, yet we seem to be missing the true meaning of the word. My experience as a director of a foster care program is that when another agency, usually Child Protective Services, talks about collaborating, it usually means they are expecting us to attend a meeting. In these meetings information is shared, then attendees are given an opportunity to provide some feedback about the presented information, and at the end everyone goes off in their own direction, usually disgruntled, frustrated or just confused.
How can we collaborate more successfully? I have identified five ingredients necessary when setting the tone for true collaboration:
(1) There must be an agreement between the parties who are collaborating that there is a need and that each party will benefit from the effort.
(2) There must be a transparent process where there is open, genuine communication going on, not just lip service and then pushing one’s agenda forward despite the feedback.
(3) Individuals involved in collaboration need to use their best active listening skills. If we don’t understand each other than we might actually be working against each other unwittingly!
(4) Be ready for conflict – It’s part of relationship development. If conflict is done in a respectful way then more energy is released for true collaboration. Relationships usually improve when the conflicts are resolved.
(5) Be ready for good results when true collaboration is happening!!!! It’s true that together we can achieve more. Of course that means really joining together not just meeting together.
I would love to hear your feedback on this topic and on your experiences with successful collaboration.
