Stop Harming the Ones you Love

Resiliency: the capacity to withstand or recover from difficulties.

When you shield the ones you love from experiencing hurt, sadness, disappointment, and similar feelings, you are robbing them. When you keep people from experiencing a full range of human emotions, you rob them of the chance to grow, develop resiliency, and to experience life at its fullest.

Although often birthed out of good intentions, emotional protection does more harm than good. There is so much to be learned from difficult times and hurtful experiences. When we deny people the opportunity to learn through the difficulty, we are acting out of selfishness. Because it is hard for us to watch the ones we love struggle, we jump in and remove obstacles. We selfishly deny people the opportunity to learn from the lessons that life is meant to teach them so that we don't have to sit in the discomfort of watching them grow. Imagine how much longer it would take a toddler to learn how to walk if they were never allowed to fall.

When we rob loved ones of the chance to experience difficult feelings and/or experiences, we also send the message to them that we don't think they can do it. When we step in to remove road blocks, fix problems, limit uncomfortable feelings we are saying to our loved ones, "you can't handle this so let me do it for you." And if you continually send the message of inability, people will begin to internalize and believe you.

Sometimes, the best way to love someone is to stand back, let them fall, and be there to celebrate with them when they make it out stronger on the other side.

Easiness has never built growth or resiliency the way challenges have.

Until Next Time,