I Can’t Save Everybody

One of the hardest things to learn, when you’re a counselor — intuitive counselor, guidance counselor, any of the Tribe — is that you can’t save everybody.

Oh, you want to. You know that the person in front of you who is scared, depressed, angry, lost, they COULD find a way out of their predicament. You offer ideas. You listen. You gently ask if they really believe what they are saying. And over and over they will say “I know, I know, I know you’re right.

“But…”

And they give themselves one more reason why what they want is impossible.

“My children would never forgive me.”

“I hate lawyers, but my family always thought I should be a lawyer.”

“My husband says he loves me, even though he doesn’t listen to me and treats me badly; how can I walk out on him? Maybe he’ll change.”

“No one will really want me if I stop helping them/doing for them/giving to them.”

And the truth of the matter is, they are afraid of who they will be without their story.

The story we tell ourselves is how we know who we are. It’s who we think we are permitted to be.

So even if my story-stuck client wants to leave a job, divorce a spouse, stop being the doormat, find someone to love, find out who they are if they leave all the sadness and shadows behind… there is always the BUT: what if I can’t? What if the world laughs at me? What if someone gets mad?

And I look at them and say, “If you keep saying this to yourself now, then in ten years, or twenty, you will turn around and see that what you wanted so much, that you were afraid to ask for, never happened — and then you will be too old to do anything about it, and you will feel you wasted your life. Is that what you want?”

And they are appalled, and say no, of course not.

But then they go right back to listing all the reasons why their wants will never happen, can never happen.

And eventually, the session is over, and they thank me for listening, and they go back to their shadows and sadness.

And when they do that often enough, I stop taking their appointments.

Is that mean? No. It is the recognition that they are addicted to their story, and they will never write another line until THEY are ready.

I had another one of those tonight. I have too many of them.

But don’t let yourself be one of them.

Your story can change. As long as you have breath in your body and a mind that works and a heart and a will, you can change. You are ALLOWED to change.

Sometimes change is scary. But running toward change is always better than running away from it, because change is the only constant.

Don’t be the sad story with the sad ending. Don’t be the one that the counselors shake their heads over.

Grab life. Shake it. Look yourself in the mirror and see the limitless soul in those eyes, and know that you are worthy of every single good thing you will allow yourself to have.

I may not be able to save everybody.

But I bet you can save YOU.