Why Do We Enable Others?

Do you ever find yourself doing the same thing you swore you wouldn’t do for someone? Saying yes when you meant no? Then feeling really annoyed at yourself and the other person, only to then feel guilty for feeling annoyed? You’re not alone, we can all get stuck enabling someone at one time or another. Or you may find that your family has a pattern of this kind of enabling perhaps through people pleasing or codependency. But why do you do it?

We can find that it may be a learnt behaviour rooted in how we feel about ourselves. Somewhere along the line we learnt that if we helped others it meant we were the “good girl/boy”. It filtered into the idea that we were only “good enough” when we enabled someone. It became part of who we are. Our identity became strongly related to this idea of being a “good girl/boy” and now encapsulates our own negative thinking and responses to others. It also ensured that our emotions can keep the whole show on the road thus keeping us stuck enabling others.

Our Emotions Can Keep Us Stuck Enabling Others.

What that means is that our emotions can keep us stuck in a never ending negative cycle. We become afraid that if we don’t intervene something awful will happen to the person. We feel sick to our stomach, our heart pounds and we become terrified. So we rush in to the rescue at the least little thing.

We think that our own health, well-being, work and personal life is nothing compared to what this person needs. We begin to focus more and more on their life, health and well-being.  After all their problems are so much more important than what we could be going through.

We are after all the only person who can help. Who else has the love, patience and understanding this person needs?  So we do love them more, care for them more, have more patience and understanding. All the while we are ignoring our own mental and physical health issues, such as the lack of sleep or the increased stress and anxiety.

The only thing that seems to matter is the other person and meeting all their needs. We become obsessed with their behaviours and set unrealistic expectations on them and more importantly on ourselves.

This is just one key element that is keeping us stuck enabling others. Our emotions are triggering our negative thinking patterns and our responses will be the same until we change how we respond to the triggers. We generally want to keep responding in the same way, enabling others, so as to avoid feeling bad about ourselves and to fulfill the message we received of being the “good girl/boy”. So how do we stop this cycle?

Time To Get Unstuck.

There are a number of ways to end this negative cycle and get unstuck but all begin with awareness. So that is the first place I’d suggest you start.

Write It Down!

You cannot change anything until you become aware of it. So start by taking a few minutes each day to write down how things are going. You can use a meditation beforehand such as a 3 minute breather.

Then take about 15 minutes to write down everything that comes to mind for that day. It doesn’t matter the order in which you write, perhaps start with things that you have to do, buy, or emails/calls you need to make, etc. Then let the thoughts flow.

Now take a few minutes to reread what you wrote down. Does anything stick out to you? You are looking for thoughts, emotional, physical responses or behavioural response patterns. Once we can begin to see even one of these we can begin to change it. We get to know our triggers as well as we write it all down.

Add In Self-Acceptance

Don’t forget to bring acceptance and compassion into the equation as you work through this. Treat yourself as you would a friend who had become stuck in this emotional cycle. Now is not the time to beat yourself up, you are doing the best you can right now! It took time to get to where you are today and it will take some time and patience to get things moving forward in the right direction. Give yourself some time.

Take Some Positive Action Steps.

Bring it back to basic self-care first to give yourself something to ground you. Learn your triggers, what or who are you reacting to that is keeping you emotionally stuck in enabling someone? Now it’s time to learn to say no and minimise or delete negative people. While writing this I realize it sounds like a very quick process. It is not! You are meant to take your time and you will make mistakes. Learn from these but keep going that is what is most important here.

Talk to a therapist if you find you cannot turn things around for yourself or are feeling overwhelmed by all of it.  Always remember to stop if something triggers too many bad memories for you. You will need professional help if this is reoccurring i.e. you have flashbacks, PTSD, depression, anxiety etc., symptoms.

My Books

I offer a variety of tips and discuss a range of topics in my workbooks The Building Blocks Of Self-Care, Moving Towards Self-forgiveness, The Little Book Of Reflection And Gratitude and Building Acceptance Into Your Life. You can purchase them on Amazon or here.