Hello, dear one!
Have you tried to reach out to someone who needs help but declines your offer? If you still care about the person and feel frustrated, you may approach differently after hearing this story.
During my recent trip, I engaged in a conversation with a helicopter pilot at the hotel’s breakfast time.
He flies an emergency medical helicopter to save lives on oceans.
Most of the time, his helicopter is adequate to save lives on a mission. However, it was gut-wrenching when his team was confronted with a sinking ship.
He explained that even a large military helicopter could only carry about 30 people, and the maximum accommodation of his plane was 8 passengers.
Everyone on the ship was crying for help. How did his team handle the situation and decide who to save first?
“We first rescued the people who jumped in the water and swam toward us. They didn’t passively wait to be rescued, instead, they took actions for the rescue.”
Get it? The lucky ones were chosen because they wanted to be rescued!
Does this answer your question as to why your effort to rescue someone’s sinking ship has not been effective?
No matter how much you offer to help unless the person welcomes your charity, nothing will change in the situation.
I’m sure you’ve had this experience. The more you persuaded the person to seek help, the more the person resisted your insistence.
You were both arguing from your righteous beliefs, and that’s why the Bible says according to our beliefs, it’s done to us (Mathews 9:29).
You can gauge a person’s belief system by observing the conversations, decisions, and actions. When a person is in a dark space, influence is only possible if there is scanty light.
How do you crack the door so that the light can streak in?
In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey presented a principle that has helped me to stop proselytizing my ideas and supplanting them with desirable outcomes:
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
When I worked as a field nurse, this principle worked wonders for my “non-compliant” patients.
I had a gentleman who suffered post-surgery pain on a scare of 10 out of 10 and refused to take either prescribed narcotics or over-the-counter pills for pain management. This of course procrastinated his healing.
In addition, he also had comorbidity of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and leg wounds. With his uncontrolled pain, all of his readings were considerably out of normal range, and his wounds remained stagnant.
His case manager and the team decided to discharge him with the status of AMA (Against Medical Advice), after multiple attempts instructing him to do the right things. I was sent to him to discharge his case due to his refusal of treatment.
In his presence of suffering physical pain, I felt a deep calling for love and acceptance. I decided to listen and understand why he was adamant about risking his overall health by refusing temporary pain relief.
It turned out that his only son committed suicide from a narcotics overdose. After his son’s death, his wife sank into depression and suffered multiple organ failures from both alcohol and pain medication abuse. He had to place her in a boarding care home.
He lived alone in pain, blaming himself for his son’s death and losing his wife. He hated any pain control drug. He swore that he would never touch them again!
When I first arrived at his home, he raised his deep voice, “Where is your damn paper? Let’s get it signed and leave me alone.”
As he was recalling the past, I could see the resistant door was slowly opening with light gradually streaking in.
I asked him for one more visit and didn’t discharge him that day. That one more visit turned into seven more subsequent visits.
With each visit, he was able to open up to me a bit more. My heart melted when he said, “My pain seems to go down just talking about the stuff inside.”
By my fourth visit, he was ready to hear me out, so I suggested,
“Picture your pain is like a big tree in front of you, and your body is like your Chevy truck in the driveway. You’re now driving your truck hitting the tree as the only way out, but your goal is to minimize the damage to your truck.
It would be ideal if your truck hits the tree at 5 miles per hour. But with your excruciating pain, your truck is hitting at 85 miles per hour. Do you see how hard it is for your body?”
That day, he took a 5 mg Norco.
When I discharged him, his overall condition was stabilized. In addition, he agreed to follow up with a recommended psychologist.
Often we’re too eager to help without first accessing the person’s beliefs and diagnosing the underlining problem before giving advice. We tend to unconsciously project our own beliefs and feelings onto another person’s situation.
My patient was non-compliant because he was crying inside to be understood and accepted first.
I learned this from my mentor: All of our behaviors are either to give love or to seek love.
If you can’t first understand the person you try to help, stop helping.