“… an important teaching by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: ‘Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.’ Remen explains that helping is based on inequality: ‘When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of self-worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness of life.’
Altruism at its best is a radical expression of connection, concern, inclusivity, and a sense of responsibility regarding the well-being of others. It is about consciously not robbing others of their autonomy by ‘helping’ or ‘fixing’ them. It is about the realization that our own survival is not separate from the survival of others. … altruism is characterized by selflessness, unselfishness, courage, generosity, a sense of mutuality, and a deep regard for all of life.
I believe that our deep work is to build a strong internal infrastructure of character, recognize the perils that are disguised as goodness, and have the wherewithal to step out of the trap before it closes around us. Yet we can also fall prey to self-deception, misguided motivations, and the need for praise at one time or another. And when this happens and we recognize it, here is where we open the great gift of humility borne of failure.” Joan Halifax. “Standing at the Edge. Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.” Flatiron Books, 2018.
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” Steve Jobs, Stanford University
"Something very beautiful happens to people when
their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher
intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor.
Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're
not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender
our attacks and defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break
through into the collective beauty of who we really are."
Marianne Williamson
“My heartfelt wish for you: As you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE.” George Saunders, Syracuse University
Are you chronically crazy-busy, multi-tasking, harried, stressed-out &
sleep-deprived from work, as well as all the work you do at home? Has this now essentially become who you are - your identity (part or subpersonality)? While one part of you may be thoroughly fused with this self-concept, doesn't another part of you resent it? Are you stuck in the glory and hell of being "stressed-out, multi-tasker, super-hero"? You likely started out being altruistic, but now may be feeling the strain of this inner conflict.
Can you entertain the possibility that this is
not who you really are? Is it possible that all the drama, noise & confusion is just a collection of no-longer-helpful
habits of mind (conditioning)? Is it possible that you can notice, accept, and with self-compassion, gentleness & persistence, gradually let all of this extra stuff go?
What will be left behind? Will you be reduced to a puddle of mush unable to do anything? After releasing the noise, only your authenticity remains. Instead of being driven by fear, you will return to being unconditional love and will nurture the people, places, & projects you deal with, like a grandparent caring for a grandchild or a gardener lovingly tending a garden - spontaneously providing what is most appropriate & necessary for all to flourish. Stabilizing in, & acting from authenticity, you are being altruistic in a healthy, sustainable way. Instead of it feeling like a strain & heavy burden, authenticity feels effortless, pleasant, nourishing, right for all concerned.
"When
our altruism shifts out of selfless goodness into obligation, duty, or
fear … or we simply feel burned out from giving, we may start to churn
with negative emotions.
We may also believe that helping a
patient, student, or relative gives us permission to offer unsolicited
advice or to control their actions. … Altruism’s edge in these
situations can easily crumble when our anxiousness or need to fix take
the lead.
If we can learn to view altruism as an edge, we will
become more aware of the risk and peril of this geography, and can
realize what’s at stake: harming others, ourselves, and even the
institutions in which we serve. If we find ourselves on shaky ground,
we can learn to sense when our actions are likely to send us over the
edge. In the best of circumstances, we can pull ourselves out of our
precarious situations and move back to solid ground.
When
altruism goes over the edge and into the abyss, it becomes pathological
altruism, a term used in social psychology. Altruism that is sourced in
fear, the unconscious need for social approval, the compulsion to fix
other people, or unhealthy power dynamics easily crosses the line into
harm. And there can be tough consequences, from personal burnout to the
disempowerment of entire countries. It is important to unmask situations
where we see pathological altruism operating, whether in the lives of
parents, spouses, clinicians, educators, politicians, aid workers, or
one’s self. Recognizing and naming this phenomenon has opened the eyes
of many who have found themselves slipping down the precarious slope of
good intentions gone awry.
Pathological altruism is defined as
“behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or
others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude
was reasonably foreseeable.” (Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhavan, David Sloan Wilson eds.
“Pathological Altruism.” Oxford University Press, 2011.)
A familiar example of pathological
altruism is codependency, in which we focus on the needs of others to
the detriment of our own, often enabling addictive behavior in the
process. I knew a married couple who let their twenty-five-year-old son,
alcoholic and unemployed, live in their basement for a while. They
didn’t want to kick him out onto the street with no job or home – but
his presence strained their finances and, as a their resentment grew,
tested their marriage. They tried to make him go to AA and to inpatient
rehab, and they found temporary jobs for him, but their attempts to
control his behavior and modulate his addiction always backfired. For
their son, having a free place to stay wasn’t a good thing either,
because he had no incentive to change his situation.
Other manifestations of pathological altruism include animal hoarding and ‘helicopter’ parenting.
Parents,
teachers, health care professionals, employees within the justice
system, and activists working in crisis situations are especially at
risk of pathological altruism from exposure to others’ suffering. The
consequences can manifest as resentment, shame, and guilt, and also as
the toxic sides of the other Edge States: empathic distress, moral
suffering, disrespect, and burnout.
Also, viewing ourselves as
‘saving,’ ‘fixing,’ and ‘helping’ others can feed our latent tendencies
toward power, self-importance, narcissism, and even deception of
ourselves and others.”
Joan Halifax. “Standing at the Edge. Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.” Flatiron Books, 2018.
