All my life I’ve been a fixer – I’ve listened to other people’s problems, felt that I’ve known exactly what they needed to do to resolve their issues, and been convinced that I was right, and then told them what they should do. In doing so I have taken on the responsibility for fixing whatever their problem is. I’ve spent hours thinking about different scenarios of how I could tell them, thinking of all the different things they needed to do to get a perfect result – and in doing so I have been distracted from living my own life.
I still do the fixing at times but nowadays, as I am more connected to how my body is feeling and what it is telling me, I become aware of a backache when I’m in “fixing mode”. What I’ve learnt is that this is my body’s way of telling me that I am ‘putting my back’ into, i.e. working on, something that is none of my business. And that’s not good for me or for them.
It is definitely a work-in-progress for me because I am amazed at how much my body tells me when I am willing to listen, so it feels good to develop that connection, developing my awareness of what I am feeling and sorting my own life out, rather than distracting myself trying to fix anything outside of me.
I’m not saying we should avoid helping anybody with their problems, but in my case, my arrogance in thinking I know what they should do and having no hesitation in telling them so, does not help them, especially if they haven’t asked me for help. And in any case, how I would resolve a problem may not be the way they would resolve it. My taking responsibility for fixing other people’s problems and being so forward with offering ‘solutions’ is not always the best way to support someone.
We all have free will and life is forever reflecting back to us the consequences of our choices; it is then our individual responsibility to learn from each situation. We can choose to be aware of what is going on and do something about it, or not. It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.
All my life I’ve been a fixer but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part.
I have practical role models in Serge Benhayon and the many Esoteric Practitioners who have trained with Universal Medicine. I find that their gentle presence always allows me the space to ponder my own issues. By the way they are with me I can experience how it feels to be truly helped with loving, tender care and the utmost respect. Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.
Inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine
By Carmel Reid, Somerset UK
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
I love this statement, ‘that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices’. And in that, what ever choice they make is correct for them, however we perceive it to be is a different matter, and when we perceive it with pictures, ideals and beliefs, then we are imposing. Giving them the space is honouring of their choices and a learning opportunity for them too, it is that simple.
The most beautiful gift is when we see another step up to the responsibility of doing things for themselves and in a loving way.
“fixing” other people’s problems is a convenient escape or distraction from having to deal with our own.
‘Fixing’ only satisfies that, that is within us that identifies us. Allowing them space is bringing in the responsibility.
I love this blog Carmel as it is exposing for any of us that are good at stepping in to ‘help’ another – we need to ask if this is actually what is needed, and if this is for our own feeling of being useful?
From an outside perspective, it is usually easier for us to see what it is that someone might need to do to resolve a situation – however, there is an arrogance in stepping in and doing this for another especially if they have not called out for support or are not ready for the change. Imagine others stepping in to ‘fix’ our lives when we are quiet content or comfortable with how it is? This is an imposition and is not true help on the long run.
Holding and supporting another in love gives them space to make their own choices, whereas imposing your solution denies them the space to take responsibility and grow.
I love this comment Mary, simple and to the point, saying it exactly how it is.
I’ve recently realised I’ve been in a false form of mothering others, and it is stepping in to do it for others, instead of giving the space for others to find their own way through life, and to find their own answers. Part of realising this came from an Esoteric Breast Massage session where I felt my sacredness, and it highlighted how settled I feel in the sacredness and how much I disliked attending to other people’s needs in this reactive way of helping and ‘support’. Sacredness really just leaves people to be. What I was able to feel from my body was how much I didn’t want to take on others issues as a child, but the ideal of being a ‘good girl’ was used (and encouraged by others) to override this. Being able to nominate this has been a wonderful new beginning to reconnect not just to my sacredness, but to how I truly feel and to what choices I would make from my true self.
I can relate with what you have shared Melinda, I used to step in to help fix another instead of giving them space to find their own answers; and how you got to sacredness just leaves people to be, beautiful.
Looking back over my life I can see very clearly that I used to feel fulfilled if I was able to fix someone’s problem, but today I can see that it was simply a need for recognition that was driving most of the fixing. But what I didn’t realise at the time is that by fixing for others, I was not only judging that they couldn’t do it, but that also, I was denying them the opportunity to fix it for themselves in whatever way they felt to and so they were missing out on growing their own confidence. I still feel fix-it mode sneaking in every now and then but these days I clock it and stop it in its tracks.
Yes, I can still feel fix-it mode try and sneak in; I am more aware of it, and how harming it is, so I call it out and say no to it much quicker.
Beautiful awareness Ingrid – and so true how dis-empowering it is for another when we step in to do it for them.
It is great you are developing your awareness in order to support yourself and others with more clarity and less imposition.
‘We all have free will and life is forever reflecting back to us the consequences of our choices’, yes indeed and sometimes the reflection is a big ouch, but if we do not avoid the reflection and instead accept and swallow the pill so to speak, we get the awareness or an inner knowing of our next steps as we are always fully supported to be more.
I can relate to being a ‘fixer’ in my life and I can now feel how imposing that is on another, for me it came from a lack of acceptance and appreciation of another’s choices. I have learnt over the years that being loving with myself first and foremost allows me to be with others in a very beautiful and natural way and there is no need to ‘fix’ or change another. What we offer others with our reflection is more powerful than any knowledge or empty words we may say.
I agree Anna, reflections are silently powerfully and revealing that initially we can wobble a little because they are so revealing, and very exposing, but in the exposure there is always the opportunity to evolve if we accept the expansion (and or the lesson) on offer.
Being a ‘fixer’ is a great way to seek recognition and ‘feel good’ one I can relate to have invested in. However, as you have so brilliantly shared our bodies will always reflect the truth of what we are investing in, if it truly supports us to be ourselves and evolve. When in ‘fix it’ mode I am never being myself and feeling drained, exhausted and frustrated was not uncommon. Offering a reflection of what is true from our Livingness is far more empowering, inspirational and powerful in every aspect.
Our bodies reflect the truth of what we are investing in, ‘fix it’ mode never left my body feeling good, whereas, ‘Offering a reflection of what is true from our Livingness is far more empowering, inspirational and powerful in every aspect.’
As humans we are very mastered at ‘doing’ and not so mastered at ‘being’. It is quite remarkable how our obsession with ‘doing’, overrides our being. Hence why we busy ourselves creating problems or taking on those of others simply so we can devote a great deal of time to ‘finding a solution’ rather than removing ourselves from this equation completely and supporting others through our beingness (our ability to remain connected with ourselves in all that we do).
It feels great to become more aware of when we simply live our life, or maybe a better word is love, we reflect our essence loud and clear. This is what offering space is, we don’t have to DO anything.
Yes agreed – beautifully said Annelies. When we simply offer a reflection of what is true through our Soulful way of being, the love we are, we never impose on another as to what should be done. It is simply an offering or reflection of the vibration of love, the truth of who we equally are in essence to be felt.
I have had several huge lessons around the fact that sometimes I “don’t have to DO anything” but instead simply be present. I was offered this lesson by a man I work for, who shared that just me being there with him was all the inspiration he needed to get something he had been avoiding, finally underway; that I didn’t have to do anything but just be there. Big lesson, from a most unexpected source, but oh so very welcome.
The thing is that we can’t actually fix things for someone else, we may be able to make things look better temporarily, but we can’t learn a lesson for them or initiate change for them, the best way to help someone is to stand and know who you are and inspire them to also know they are amazing.
However much we may feel we know what will ‘fix’ another, in truth the only person who can do the fixing is oneself.
Helping others to resolve their issues is nothing problematic in principle. Yet, if by virtue of this, we swim in issues all the time, how do we know that other people’s issues end up in our body? What is our primary activity, the explicit one (helping others) or the implicit one (poisoning ourselves)?
I too have tried to help out, meddling in other peoples problems… it is a double edged sword. On the one hand its exhausting because we are trying all the time, and equally how are we going to in truth fix something if we are not living it in full ourselves?
Very good point, I think there is also a difference between “help” and “support” – support is always there for someone but gives them the space and grace to pick themselves up, whereas help interferes and tries to do it for them without understanding that whatever problem or issue at hand will only make them stronger once they have mastered it.
This reminds of a time when I started a new job, and my shoulder/arm started being in a lot of pain. I sought medical advice, physio and also Universal Medicine practitioner to understand what was going on energetically. The GP and the physio gave me exercises and I came to the understanding that I was trying to fix the situation, shouldering the industry, and hence my shoulder went out. The body shares it’s wisdom when we take on what is not ours to take on.
We cannot make choices for anyone else because our bodies have not lived what they have lived.
I’m seeing with friends and family and especially with my two teenage sons that we can never do it for anyone else, we are the only ones that can make changes in our lives from our body and it is imposing when we push our ways on to them. When I take responsibility for anothers choices and lives it hurts my body and I feel it straight away. How awesome our bodies are for showing us.
How much do I relate to this?! So much, my pull to be a fixer is quite incredible really – always looking at what I can do to fix things and yet I’m starting to really enjoy not having to fix things!
I agree – telling people what to do does not help anyone. We can hide in doing and it gives us stimulation, a momentary satisfaction of ‘I am doing good’. We are responsible for what we are reflecting to others, but not responsible for others’ choices. Sympathy is another way for us not to be with ourselves and our purpose.
Every day I get another opportunity to deepen my relationship with the word ‘Surrender’, letting go of the need to control, the need to be right and the need to create any pictures of how life should or could be. Surrendering to the What Is in every moment and feeling what is appropriate to do in every situation.
Thanks Carmel for your sharing, I can add that for me the surrendering has been about allowing myself to be me in situations, instead of doing something (like fixing) and losing me… a work in progress!
I have spent a great deal of time in the past trying to help others and find solution to their problems, I know now that I was imposing on them and not allowing them the space to come to their own understanding and awareness around their own situation.
It’s a huge learning Anna, something I am still working on. I found the Women In Livingness workshop (2019) by Natalie Benhayon has really supported me to be in my power with others and support them to find their own answers… instead of jumping in to help like I’ve always done and imposing.
Being convinced we are right is already a dead giveaway for being wrong or at least not true!
Ha, well said Nicola. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are simply divisive tools we use to not remain true in all that we do.
Reading this has been helpful because I have been suffering from a backache for the past two weeks, off and on. It never occurred to me that by going into solution mode to fix a problem the back could go – something to explore here.
I have just realised that in one of my volunteering roles there is a great tendency to be ‘nice’ by being helpful, which feels yucky. There is a definite level of appropriate help that is supportive but too much and it is laden with ‘please like me’ which is totally imposing. I have had many sessions with universal medicine Esoteric practitioners and they are such great role models for allowing me to make my own decisions – they offer very clear reflections that help me to see the consequences of my choices but they never tell me what to do.
A great reminder Carmel that we can actually impose and compromise anothers development by compensating and fixing something for them that they need to learn for themselves.
I too have been a fixer thinking that being helpful was a good thing, but I realised my identity was tied up in being a helper, and in that way of being with people I was avoiding my own responsibility and taking over another’s responsibility, and in doing that was preventing them from learning their own lessons in their own way.
I have this addiction to being ‘helpful’ taking on everyone’s problems – I am way better than I used to be but I caught myself at it again only this morning. It was only when my friend said, ‘Thanks, i prefer to do it my way’ that I realised what I’d done, so it was a beautiful reflection.
‘Problems’ and their subsequent ‘solutions’ come from the same pool of energy we draw on when we do not want to live true to the simplicity that is on offer when we live life from our heart and not our head.
When we charge into another’s situation in ‘fixer’ mode we are simply getting in the way of them learning the lesson that is being presented. It is not our lesson and if we make it so we are taking on a responsibility that is not ours; our actions are therefore harming not healing.
Yes when we try to fix it for another we have already taken on their issue and we have an investment in how we want them to be, if they don’t fit into line with that, then we can have a judgement in the form of all of which is not love.
Interesting how it quickly spirals, showing there is a lot more at play than the problem in front of us… there is a whole way of living that can include a cornucopia of judgement, arrogance, being right, trying and so on. Life is not meant to be complicated, and the way to connect to that simplicity is through the body.
Letting go of the ‘fix it’ drive and offering another the opportunity to be responsible for their own decisions equally offers ourselves the awareness to not try and ‘fix’ ourselves but to feel what is true.
That is beautiful Carmel. When I am given space and love I start to feel myself again and know what to do with my problem or in some cases just by feeling my inner spark again the whole problem is not a problem anymore anyway!
Being a fixer and making of that a way of life, only guarantees choosing a fix point from which we do not want to walk away.
Giving another the space to come to their own awareness and understanding is a very beautiful way for anyone to unfold gracefully an din their own time.
Thank you Carmel – that is very openly described. It offers the other person space and to come to their realizations and clarity if we live and breathe that – that is then their reflection (the best help we can show them)..
I think its a common disease we have, wanting to fix the problems of others. At least it certainly was for me growing up. Or rather not so much offering solutions…instead trying to absorb the pain of others so they didn’t have to feel it so much. Boy did that take a massive toll on my body. I’ve learnt now that there is another way to support people that actually works rather than trying to numb them out. And that’s to allow them to feel for themselves what’s going, and not to interfere. Be there to listen and support but not get involved and try to save the world. It never ends well.
I was always trying to fix my family even in primary school, thinking I knew better. I didn’t always voice it but I would try to make things better for everyone… just another form of fixing that goes unnoticed at times.
Gorgeously shared Carmel. And as you have wisely said – ‘…by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another…’ – this is how we truly offer support to another. For when we go into ‘fix it’ mode, which I do know all about, we engage in a behaviour that conveniently distracts us from bringing awareness to how we ourselves are living, and imposes on others the pressure to fit into an outcome.
Also sometimes things do not need fixing , its just that the person observing from their judgement thinks it need fixing and therefore interfere with the natural process of free will of life and learning.
So true that trying to fix anything actually does not work, but as you say, when we provide a space in which people can come to their own understanding is much more powerful and actually a way to be with everybody we meet.
” It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation ” This is very important , people have their own learning to receive and when people interfere with this process , trying to be good or do good ,the learning takes longer for the person.
So true John. Attempting to fix another’s problems is fraught with danger. We all have life lessons to learn and every one need space – and time – to deal with it for themselves – but with support of course. As you say if we jump in trying to sort it they haven’t learned the lesson – so it will return again at some point in their life. A wasted opportunity in that moment for them to evolve. For myself too, all I want is to share my issue’ – to be listened to, not for someone to tell me what in their opinion I ‘should’ do.
Solutions are rife in society and for a solution seeker a problem fixer is the perfect person to find because a fixer is not offering true answers only providing ways of avoiding responsibility
Trying to fix another’s issue is purely a reaction to seeing them reflecting back an issue we have not truly dealt with and healed.
It is so easy to get trapped into fix it mode but what you share here is super important. To allow another space is vital to thier choices of living and what happens next, it can only come from within.
Trying to fix people and things around us is a form of control so we feel better, but has it really just kept us away, or diverted us from looking at and healing our own problems.
Great point Lorraine. Trying to control any situation, to meet any outcome, is a huge dishonoring and capping of what the real and true potential is in that moment.
It a good way to look at it Ariana – stop trying to fix everything else, just take responsibility for ourselves first and then we can feel everything that is going on. Such a better place to be coming from when we do then engage with the world.
Just give me a problem and I will don my armour, grab the tool belt and get stuck in… do I take a moment to read why something has happened, to learn something from the situation? More so now than ever, and yet there is so much more still to read in life.
You’ve just reminded me Carmel of how often someone will not directly ask for help for me, but instead complain about a situation, and I will always try and offer solutions or offer another perspective that I think would help them. However, none of that works if the other person is purely unloading and not willing to take any responsibility for what’s going on for them…and hence me trying to solve/fix the problem is a drain on my energy and a disrespect to them by way of not allowing them the space to come to it themselves.
Just reading some of the comments here really supports me to see that when we fix things we are trying to control the impossible. We all need to learn the lesson the world brings to us and trying to control everything just delays the inevitable learning. I hadn’t really understood it but your blog and all the comments really gave me so many different angles to look at it from it is now embedded in my consciousness!!
I am interested to see if my body will give me the gift of this reflection! I know I have had back ache in situations I least expect it and I often wonder what that is about. Now I will consider if I am putting my back into something that is none of my business…very possible I suspect so a great lesson to learn.
I have read this a few times Carmel and it’s positively brilliant! I was very mature as a teen and a lot of the kids would come to me for advice, I found it overwhelming actually, it set up a pattern of being there for people and responding a certain way instead of feeling what was right for me and then for them each time. This was also a great line “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.” So true, thanks Carmel.
Well summed up Carmel. “We can choose to be aware of what is going on and do something about it, or not.” Choosing to be aware gives us a greater understanding of life, each other and who we are. We ‘fix’ others through the reflection of our own livingness and awareness – the beauty we hold and retain. This speaks louder than words.
“….their gentle presence always allows me the space to ponder my own issues. By the way they are with me I can experience how it feels to be truly helped with loving, tender care and the utmost respect. Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.” This is beautiful – and magic. Telling others what to do doesn’t work – even telling myself what to do doesn’t work!. But appreciation and loving connection can melt away the resistance I and others may have.
Yes Rik, choosing to become aware of what is going on sure gives us a greater understanding. Feeling we need to ‘fix’ others carries a whiff of judgement – something I definitely used to be guilty of.
So important Carmel – this is all about not taking others stuff on.. Coming loose of the need to identify with being a helper and always good in helping people.. But to take that need away – and simply starting to understand that if we truly wanna help another or offer assistance , we should let them have their way and allow others to unfold in the way they need to – hence to let us not hold onto anything others are choosing but let them free, let yourself free – being you is enough.
Beautifully put, Danna: ‘we should let them have their way and allow others to unfold in the way they need to’ this is still a big lesson for me, especially waiting for others – I am using the time to feel me, so that they can feel me, if I am living and breathing truth, they will feel it. If I am not then all I am presenting is an illusion and they will never feel the inspiration to change.
I can relate to what you have shared in this blog Carmel, yes trying to fix another is a distraction from looking and healing what is going on with self, ‘I am amazed at how much my body tells me when I am willing to listen, so it feels good to develop that connection, developing my awareness of what I am feeling and sorting my own life out, rather than distracting myself trying to fix anything outside of me.’
A great way to distract ourselves from what is there in our own life that needs our loving attention.True change comes always from within so why would we impose our way on someone else, what do we get out of that, security? control? recognition? It is certainly a delay of our own evolution.
The way we listen and respond with our body are powerful ways of being there for others. Ultimately, it comes down to our reflection, what we choose to live that supports one another.
I’ve been fixing less but still wanting people to change and correcting when things are ‘wrong’ so that means I am still judging and needing to be more allowing – it’s a work in progress, but I’m catching myself at it now so I have an opportunity to stop and stand back and appreciate that we are all on a path of development and in our own time…
When we try and ‘fix’ people we are saying wet think something is wrong with them. It’s a judgemental act, that from personal experience does not feel nice to be on the receiving end of.
I’ve found some of the greatest support from others has been that detachment from trying to fix my issues. Even when I would be in a full blown tantrum by them ignoring my antics I was allowed to feel how such drama felt in my body as opposed to distracting me from feeling this with listening to solutions. If I feel it I also get to be aware of how to get out of the issue myself.
Wow, interesting Carmel! Your story shows just about anything can become an addiction.
Dare I say it, but – a fixer fix!
Fixing is assuming that there is a problem or someone is broken. Supporting someone is very different as it confirms the person as a whole being with nothing wrong with them first.
Oh dear this brings back memories of the bad old days of being the fixer upper person. Not only did I water myself so thinly, but set myself up in such a way that I couldn’t allow people see me needing help too – wow what a mess I was in.
Now if I go into that mode of helping from my need or sympathy, then you might as well hit me with a double decker bus!……I’m left feeling absolutely smashed. So I’m certainly learning more about my body. There is a fine balance of thinking your fixing people to helping people to see it for themselves, I know which one I choose more and more these days.
I can relate Carmel, I was a fixer of sorts too in my capacity as a health practitioner… feeling responsible for solving every client’s problems in their entirety, in a single session! Little wonder I was burnt out after 10 years of that. Giving back responsibility to the client for their own health and understanding my role came through what I learnt from Universal Medicine about what healing actually is, and what it entails. Today I don’t try to fix, and I don’t get exhausted.
It is interesting coming back to this blog as I used to think I tried to fix everything for everyone else but now see it is for me so I could have things a certain way and sustain a picture or image I had. And I have also found how much I have tried to fix choices I have made in the past rather than living the future and who I am now irrespective of what I have done in the past. We can never change the past but we can change the present and future the key is how willing are we to let go of the past and surrender to the love that we are. Only then we we realise that ‘fixing’ things without truth or love is never the answer it is only a temporary band aid and can actually make things worse for all involved.
I can relate my ”fixing other people’s problems’ with the sympathy I felt with people, and thus seeing them equal to me but trying to solve something that did not needed solving as we all learn from our mistakes/problems in life and have to feel the consequences of our own choices. Why interfere in a plan that is so much bigger than our narrow minds can ever comprehend.
Asides from the need to be needed, I feel my going into “fixing” mode has a lot to do with not approaching people as all knowing and equally able to heal themselves. It’s a lack of understanding in that moment that I and they are equal Sons of God simply making choices. Thank you too Carmel for sharing about your back pain, I must pay more attention to what my choices are where my own back gets sore.
Attempting to ‘fix’ another’s problems assumes that they are incapable of knowing what to do themselves and doing it. If they think they don’t know, there is always good reason for that, but it never has anything to do with actually not knowing, just with being unwilling to do what it is that is truly needed.
It is truly loving when we can allow another the space and grace to grow and evolve, when we get into ‘trying’ to help them we are often imposing and interfering – this is not loving as it often comes from us judging and an arrogance that feels it knows best.
Well said Anna – the imposition and interfering is a very self centred way of being with another. It’s wanting them to be a certain way, a way that suits us and perhaps not them.
It’s funny, I think I’ve cracked this ‘trying to fix people’ and then find myself interfering again in other ways – so for me this is an ever deepening program of awareness of what true support really means. Sometimes not being there is support, sometimes being there and tenderly standing by but doing nothing else is support, and sometimes working alongside is support. We can support when we challenge patterns of behaviour, or be honest about how we feel, but the key thing is to feel what is appropriate in each moment before we get sucked in.
Hi Carmel, I can relate to the experience of an issue feeling complete only for it to rear its head again. I have noticed when I find myself focusing on another persons life and not my own I’ve allowed low worth to come in, and it’s also part of me choosing to not focus on my own self love. The low worth is about me not feeling my life is equally valuable, yet at other times going into fixing is me not holding that other person as equal to me and equally able to heal themselves. It’s me stepping into their life in an imposing way, and usually because of an investment I have in needing the situation to be a certain way. The absence of love has many different faces doesn’t it? Love is the ultimate simplicity, imagine letting go of all these differing behaviours to just be love in every moment. Thanks Carmel, a great topic you have opened for conversation.
People are always going to need support and just being there for someone is quite often all that is needed to support them, but at the end of the day it is up to each of us to truly feel the right way to tackle our issues and be responsible for the decisions we make.
I agree, it is not saying we cannot support anyone – I love the word beholding as we can hold another in the absolute love that they are irrespective of the choices they are making or have made – then they have the space to choose love for themselves. If we impose anything onto anyone, I know from my experience, we run a million miles away!
I love how your body tells you in the form of a backache when you are in “fixer” mode. Another lived example of the wisdom of our body and how it is always giving us messages; we simply need to stop, feel and listen. What we do next of course is our choice.
Sometimes its good for people not to have things fixed for them, it opens up a whole new world of what we are capable of.
This is true, Heather, when we interfere it leaves them no space to sort their own issues and as a result they do not develop confidence in themselves.
I can relate to this article and the roll of the “fixer”, it’s sounds like a great movie title actually. I thought that life was about going out of your way to help others with their problems. I was constantly taking on more and more in the hope I was going to be better at doing this. More and more I couldn’t see what was going on for me and I was living from conversation to conversation trying to make myself better. It never occurred to me from everything I saw that I needed to support myself first. I mean it absolutely makes sense now that how can I give something to someone that I first haven’t delivered to myself. After all, if we act more on what we see rather then what we are told, then the ‘action speaks louder than the words’. So to deeply care for someone, bring that action to yourself, and allow yourself to do all the talking when you are around others. People, we are always watching one and other through feeling how we are. The Way of The Livingness really put this home and it’s not something that I hadn’t seen, or most of the world doesn’t realise. It’s just we have never put it into action consistently enough.
When I go into any kind of thinking that I want to help others to change, I can now reflect on what’s going on. For starters I am judging that their way of being is not as good as mine so that’s comparison; I am approaching with absolutely no understanding of why they are choosing to live that way, and most of all I am not treating them as an equal. Everyone will make their own choices in their own time and according to their own experiences, and of course their choices will be different from mine. So a big lesson for me is to develop patience and understanding. Understanding also that the way I am with them now will affect them for lifetimes to come. I may not see any changes in my lifetime, they may not change for another five lifetimes, the timing of that is not my responsibility, it is their choice what to do and when. I can model behaviour but it does not serve if it is done with the intention to change another, it needs to be to simply live love for that is who I am.
It is interesting to question and ponder why we choose to go into ‘fixer’ mode. For are we truly seeking to support another or are we investing in avoidance, distraction or seeking recognition or a sense of purpose in order to delay embracing the responsibility of living our truth. The illusion is that we a trying to ‘help’ another but really we indulging in identification. I have been guilty of going into ‘fixer’ mode but realise now that this is not truly offering loving support or evolution to anyone or myself. As you have shared Carmel, the greatest support is offered when we bring our presence in full to another, as then they are met in equalness, held in equal love allowing the opportunity for their love within to also be felt, in their own time. It is our responsibility to simply reflect who we are in essence, this is the gift we all have the opportunity to share.
I recently had someone asking me to help them fix a computer problem – and in the end, it didn’t get fixed. At one point, I noticed how I was starting to feel responsible for how long it was taking for me to try fixing it and that I should know the answer and be able to fix it – which was completely insane. Sure, I wanted to help them, but what I sensed was the sense of achievement and recognition I felt I had to gain in order to maintain a good relationship with this person – and right now I am feeling how draining that was.
Putting my “fixer” hand up here too Carmel, although these days I am more likely to support and encourage others to do their own fixing. Today I was with someone who has been a big time fixer ever since I have known her and she hasn’t changed her ways one little bit; she loves saving people. I loved the fact that I had not one ounce of judgment towards her but instead was aware of the beautiful reflection she was offering me as to how much I have let go of my fixing and saving ways, and how life is so much more simple as a result.
What Serge Benhayon always reflects to me is the power of being love with others, and respecting that despite how they choose to live they are equally divine, powerful and all knowing. I have not lived this and had been very entangled in others lives, and from my own healing on this what I came to was that I saw myself as worthless, and so my role to have use or importance to others by “helping”. There was also a need and dependence in me to have others a certain way, which meant I never addressed the underlying anxiety or hurts behind this by focusing on others. What this has all shown me, and still does, is that I don’t hold myself as a divine soul, and that there are still many unhealed hurts to resolve to live the divinity we all actually are. Once I can live it with me then I can live it with others and let them be. And I can stop fixing myself too. Work in progress!
A profound reminder of the importance of providing another the space to have the awareness of their choices rather than to attempt to control them in any way…. Anything less is just an imposition that will not truly support them.
Taking on other peoples issues, problems or life leads to ill health, misery and exhaustion. It is also a way of creating drama, complication, excess motion and stimulation by going off into our heads trying to work other peoples stuff out, when we have not even been asked to or need to, instead of being in the stillness, simplicity and joy of being with God, ourself, and our body.
I am great at fixing things, in the physical world, but if I am not attentive by being with the job at hand then it will go wrong. My problem seems to be when I get caught in ‘I know best’ I lose my ability to be present with whatever task is at hand. When I listen to another’s issues and if I am not attentive to listening to what is being shared and run off looking for an answer, then I feel I become lost and thus a part of the problem for the other person. When I stay present with the person as they are sharing, I feel whether to say something or not to say anything and to just acknowledge their situation – I do not get caught in thinking ‘I know better’. In the past I had no such discipline and was always looking for the right answers to fix things, now I know staying present with what is at hand makes a huge difference.
‘It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.’ Very true Carmel and also with going into this fixing mode we avoid awareness how it feels for us what the other person is doing or not doing with his life. It is about accepting we all make our own choices.
The fix it mentality never really feels complete for when we look at life from this view we are always looking for and expecting something more to breakdown and are hence are not focused on our very foundations that build ourselves up.
We also think we need to fix ourselves, which means we are starting from a position of not being right in the first place, whereas simply allowing ourselves to be and accepting, appreciating that enables us to live more fully who we truly are. There is nothing to ‘do’ only ourselves to ‘be’.
We may think we have the solution to their problems but after reading this again I can see how limp those solutions can be if I myself am not living what I am suggesting. This bit me in the bum today as I felt how I could tell another how to get out their situation but in applying it to myself I had not lived it to the depth that I know I can. This is not a criticism but it shows that to be the best support I need to walk my talk and that this is an ongoing, expanding process. No something you master, nail it, move on. It continues to grow.
It can be super healing for someone when we communicate with no attachment or investment into an outcome. Simply allowing them space to feel that a different choice can be made.
Thankyou Michael, I had two experiences this week where firstly someone had expectations on me and was critical, and the second was where another just sat present with themselves and me, and listened without any expectations, leaving me to just be and feel for myself. The first situation was awful to feel and was not at all supportive, the second experience was almost miraculous in the healing offered as I was held as an equal, and not labelled by mistakes or judgements. The simplicity of allowing others to be and have space means the space is filled with something beautiful – love. Imposing expectations and judgements takes up that same space – love is not present.
Carmel I have become to understand more over the last few years its not about fixing other peoples problem or trying to find a solution for them. But more about living our truth and in that being able to reflect to others and inspire others. This allows space for others to feel and connect to their truth and then choose another way possibly more loving during challenging times. So no need to fix, but live in a way that inspires.
As a fixer too I always thought I was helping people. No – I was imposing my beliefs onto them. Love how you live now – “Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.” Inspiring.
Reading this blog Carmel I can see that as a past “fixer”, being so busy fixing others gave me the hugest excuse not to look at what needed fixing in my life; and I am sure that it actually made me feel good as it offered me the recognition that I was obviously craving. Now I am learning, as you so beautiful expressed; “ that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices”. And of course it also gives me the space to stop and observe my life and what choices are asking to be made, after all I am responsible for my life as others are for theirs
Yes Carmel, offering that clear reflection inspires others to fix their own problems
The temptation to fix someone under the illusion of supporting them fools many of us, but in truth being who we are, standing alongside those around us, supports them in all that is needed just by being us.
It is truly remarkable how much Serge Benhayon or Natalie Benhayon can let you be without any need to offer you a solution. I know they have a lot of insight and observe a lot, but they would never interfere with someones process or endeavour (unless of course it becomes abusive) and they would never try to fix it for you. You actually have to ask them to access what they know and then they give you just enough to support you in the right direction and let you figure out the rest for yourself and learn your own stuff as well as take full responsibility for your choices.
From the other side of this, it is always so much more harmonious to speak to someone who is not investing in what you are saying and calculating solutions
This is cool Carmen, as this is a topic that is not usually seen as a hinderance for someone. For in our wider community/society there is a movement towards finding solutions, to fixing things, instead of first feeling what needs to be felt then allowing what is needed to unfold.
Just gorgeous Carmel. Our support is felt from our movements and care for ourselves. It has a ripple effect on everyone around us because we are living from our own inner wisdom and connection and that is how we learn and teach others.
This is great for me to read today, Carmel, as I am staying with my family where I so easily go into fixit mode. I get so much recognition from my family for doing this but this recognition does not always sit well with me now as I feel that often I am losing myself in this fixing. Sometimes it feels hard to see others having such pain and difficulty in the choices that they are making but I feel that I am more allowing in this process now and can support them in the learning rather than the fixing.
Trying to fix other peoples problems never really works, we think we are helping, but in truth it just makes us feel better. I have noticed that when I am trying to fix or offer a solution, that is usually to distract me from looking at my own issues.
Trying to ‘fix’ things for others denies them the learning that they have a choice and feeling it for themselves. I know I have always felt a resistance to accept a ‘fix it’ solution voiced by another, even when I knew it may be good advice.
Love what you say about the importance of not intervening in someone’s own process of evolution unless they ask for assistance. Even then, giving an opinion can sometimes be enough to lead the witness, so it requires discernment and an honesty about when we’re in danger of getting off on the sound of our own knowingness.
It’s always easier to see and focus on the “mistakes” that others are making than it is our own.
Love your blog Carmel, there is so much space in not feeling we have to fix everything for everyone. I loved reading this as it is breath of fresh air to let go of our own sometimes heavy expectations of ourselves.
The title says it all for me, I too can related to this, being a fixer all my life. Wanting to fix others, help them, please them, yet in the process negating my own needs. But more importantly, I subscribed to the ideal and belief that it was in some way my responsibility to ‘fix’ others, when in fact that is not my business nor responsibility to do that. Not for anyone, only oneself.
I too have been a fixer Carmel, thinking that by helping them with their problems that it was a loving thing to do, not realising that back then ,I was taking their power away and ignoring the responsibility i have for my own life. This is simply it in a nut shell “Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.”
Offering a reflection to another is so much more powerful than trying to impose a solution that usually comes with an in-built agenda.
I can really relate to distracting myself from my own issues by focussing on trying to fix the things that I perceived as problems for other people whether they recognised them or not! My body also gave me lots of signals which for many years I chose to ignore and arrogantly persist in my ‘fixer’ persona. Choosing to heal my issues and being available to support others if they ask for it is still a work in progress for me but taking responsibility for myself allows more space for others to do the same.
Great blog Carmel thanks, ‘taking on’ another’s problems is a great energy drain as you suggest and leaves both people feeling powerless. I have been amazed at the alternative way of being where you simply support someone with presence and connection and you feel how this is deeply appreciated and allows another the space to see the simple way forward.
Being in sympathy is actually a really horrible feeling when we connect to ourselves. It’s a huge giving up of responsibility and something as a society we grossly over look.
You’ve really called something out here Carmel! It is amazing how much fixing some of us think we’re doing. I too used to be a huge fixer. I remember literally losing sleep over other peoples problems and so desperately wanting to be the knight in shining armour that resolves it all. I feel sick at the thought of it to be honest. Being so invested in other peoples problems is a bit off. These days I’m able to stand back and observe and let others deal with their own stuff. I’m not completely free of this need to want to add my two bobs in however, but I’m much much more aware of it now.
I can totally relate to this. The sad part in trying to be a fixer was that it was only ever for me, never to truly support the other. It’s like fixing someone who I deemed to be broken (judged) was used to feel good about myself and also to avoid truly connecting to another in an unloving and unprotected way to feel how I could truly support them. It’s amazing how much ‘being good’ or ‘nice’ is used as a way to hold walls up between people.
Sympathy in truth only ever serves to bring both people down – the sympathiser and sympathised – to a state of being below that which they truly deserve.
Recently I became aware of how much time I spend on finding ‘solutions’ for myself and with others. Letting go of this pattern has been interesting as it has been so ingrained in me for a long time, it has been a way of protecting myself from any hurt. Of course this doesn’t truly work or support me in anyway to live with this level of control or look for ‘solutions’ anymore, it feels empowering when I allow the space for things to naturally unfold.
Carmel you describe the art of true support: “Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.”
For most of my life I also have been a chronic fixer, rescuer and problem solver; not any more. Thanks to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and my own choices I am now able to let go and allow others (and myself) to just be. What you have written here is the key;
“Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another. “
Thank you Carmel for starting the conversation! There are so many great comments also. I agree that trying to be a Mrs. Fix it in the past was not as great success . The need for someone to see from your (my) perspective is definitely arrogant and not respecting someone else’s ability to work through their own issues in their own way at their own pace!
Carmel I can so much relate to what you’re written, I too have been a fixer and I’m learning to let go and allow others to come to their own thing in their own time, as I’ve learned and realised that my wanting to fix is all about control and an outcome I want or a picture I have which is nothing to do with what may be needed for the other at all – effectively when I am in fixing mode I take over and make it about me ‘rescuing’ them and it’s not about their learning and their evolving, ouch I’ve just felt how much I’ve lived this energy and how in it, I’ve avoided my own things that need to be addressed so super gorgeous timing to read this blog, thank you.
This is a huge learning Carmel, not to think I can fix others or myself, as I have thought I could in the past but to be more connected to myself, live it by simply be me. Then we can all see the changes that are made by observing each other and the reflections we emanate.
Not only is it incredibly arrogant to think we have the solution to other peoples problems, by trying to ‘fix’ them we are communicating to them that we think they are ‘broken’. So not only are we denying them the opportunity to learn what any particular situation/issue is there to expose, we are also basically saying that they aren’t capable of sorting it out for themselves.
The arrogance of we can always help can come from trying to be that awful word ‘nice’ to everyone. There are things that everyone needs to experience for himself or herself that are the consequences of their choices. Only by reading and feeling can we support or offer things for others to as you have said Carmel things others can ponder on.
Thank you Carmel for your story. This is a subject that I have had situations play out on both sides of the fence. As the fixer of a situation and to be fixed. Both is not supportive and allows no space to move.
Being a fixer can also be controlling. This tends to be related to needing things to be a certain way, without allowing the space and grace for all that is to take place.
We can only be responsible for fixing our own problems and in doing that offer a positive example to others.
Thank you Carmel for a great article and one I can relate to. I have become aware that when i go into fixing mode I am avoiding being with me, that there is something there I do not want to feel, avoiding my own responsibility. This is the key “Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another. “
A really honest account about realising the true impact of our actions on others. We may be able to tell, see or know exactly what the right solution might be for another, but if we try to fix it, we are imposing our will. In so doing, we take away another’s personal growth and instead replace it with disempowerment and dependency, slowing down their choice over when and how to take responsibility and ownership for their issues.
Providing solutions to another is a way of protection and control that comes from images we hold about how life should be, this is very taxing in our bodies and constricting of the essence we are all made of – love.
Fixing ourselves or ‘self-improvement’ is a massive world-wide hobby for many people, I know I have played that game, and you are absolutely right, if we connect to what is already inside us no fixing needs to be done.
Like you Carmel I too am a notorious fixer upper but I am starting to realise just like you did that when we take on and absorb the problems of others and the problems of the world, it does not in any way allow others to let go of the old and work through what they need to learn. Great blog.
Absolutely spot on Rachel Mascord! I know exactly what you mean from repeated experience!
A great and timely reread Carmel about poking my nose into other people’s business! I am finding that it is much more tempting to do so in the most subtle ways with elderly people, my parents included. They may not be up on all the current worldly resources available to them but they can feel what is true for them and however their decisions unfold, is absolutely their right to choose! The subtle thoughts I may have about their choices can be an intrusion too.
It is truly insidious, Bernadette, I keep catching myself leaning in to impose . . .
“I keep catching myself leaning in to impose” A big one for me also to watch out for as this can, just creep up into an old familiar pattern when I feel that my choices could help another. When in fact it has the opposite effect.
Yes, I know that one all too well bernadetteglass. It is extraordinary how ‘clear’ we can be about what everyone else should do, but so blurry with our own issues!
I am reminded of Shakespeare’s line in Macbeth “If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me… ”
Our solution based minds reduce everything into a line from problem A to obvious answer B, but who knows what the person with problem A needs for their true development, their evolution? Solutions followed like the recipe in a cookbook do not develop our potential. Sometimes it is the meandering path, populated with wrong turns, that wakes us up. A waste of time? Yes, but surely what we need is to be really woken up..not just clever with what someone else told us to do.
Everyone is a better observer of others than they are of themselves. This is why in order to truly understand life you have to be willing to look within, for your ability to observe another is always tainted by your perception of how you see yourself.
That takes some courage Adam, honesty and the will to see our warts that are so easily ignored when focussing on the “warts and all” of others.
or you could say that more than courage, it just takes devotion to knowing love.
Absolutely.
I had to laugh when I read this blog, because it reminded me of the Australian politician Christopher Pyne, who when challenged on his handling of a political issue, replied ” I fixed it. I fixed the problem.” It was such a male way of looking at the world, and so ludicrous as to be funny. That said, yes, our propensity to want to “fix things” often comes from a place of needing to control things so we don’t get hurt. As men especially, we care deeply for the world, but are equally hurt by it, and so we often fall for the trap of showing our care by wanting to “fix the problem.”
. . . and when it comes to home life, sometimes women don’t want a solution, we just want him to listen . . . and I am aware that for some men, feeling helpless is not a comfortable place to be, not realising that just by being there, they ARE helping. Many of us women have such low self worth we are great at making our problems small, whereas a man listening and giving us space to explore, can be so affirming, and gives us the opportunity to value what we have to say.
very true Carmel. Except when the sharing is simply done for indulgence. Men and women seemingly deal with their issue differently, and yet both methods rarely bring them to truth. Men tend to take time to themselves and keep it within. Women tend to want to talk it out. We could learn from each other here, for within both is a grain of truth, and a grain of bastardisation.
In the case of men, what is most important is that we learn to express with others, and not be so inward. For self reflection and pondering is great, but so often this is turned into burying on’e issues and isolating oneself from others – not so great.
In the case of women, it would serve sometimes to reflect more inwardly, rather than looking for the relief of sharing an issue with someone else. Talking it out with others is great, if such an action is designed to assist one to get to the bottom of something, and to draw on the combined wisdom of both parties. But if talking it out is just done to bring relief (which it often is), or to find solace in another’s sympathy (which it also often is), then no truth can ever be found, and more often than not the conversation becomes about a whole series of “issues” that are not even real.
So…sometimes a man’s resistance to a woman’s want for him to listen is actually true, for he can sense the need for the woman to offload her day and gain relief from the tension of what she is not coping with. Similarly, a woman’s call for a man to come out of his shell and express his day is also often true, for she knows how the tension he carries but does not nominate will invariably play out should he not express what is truly going on for him.
I am having an “oh dear” moment, having read your comment Adam. Yes, I can relate to the talking for relief and the talking done to deliberately shore up the magnitude of the problem and enshrine it. Solutions are met with lashing out….”i don’t want answers!! I want my problem thank you very much!”
Solutions can be imposing and can also expose a tendency by men to trivialise, but they can also reveal that the enormous problem we are discussing is not enormous at all and can be very simply resolved.
We have a great deal to learn from each other, men and women. In observing each other we can sift the grains of truth from the multitude of grains of falsehood…none so ingrained that they cannot be healed and released.
And the frustration that ensues when they cannot is something to behold! Please don’t read the word “they” and imagine I am pointing a finger. A lot of women (hands up by the writer) have the same approach of taking a spanner to life to make it all better. And if we don’t we have other ways of dealing with it that are, if it may be said so bluntly, equally ineffective, imposing and sometimes downright destructive.
when you think about it, it is quite imposing to “offer a fix it solution” to another’s problems, just as it is just as imposing to expect someone to listen to your problems if you are not expecting them to give honest feedback on how they see it.
We are responsible whenever we open our mouths, whatever our intent.
We are responsible full stop.
I love your perspective of “fixing it” from a man’s perspective Adam, I’ve noticed too that especially when men try to fix problems, there is a huge amount of care behind it, it’s just slightly misplaced.
‘Fixers’ in the corporate and political worlds (as I’ve seen them depicted in fiction) seem to be very scary types, expert at making problems ‘go away’…
In all honesty this blog has got me processing like heck, I choose to try and fix so much stuff, from the kids at school, family, relationships, friendships, basically other peoples stuff, whilst all along this is deliberately taking me away from me, my body and something I don’t want to feel. Could it be how simple life is?
I actually saw this blog and wanted to avoid reading it – I knew there something there. I didn’t think I was a fixer but I am! Not to the same extent as you have shared, but fixing energy or wanting to get involved dare I say it in other peoples stuff has been and is still there at times, but getting involved doesn’t help anybody. It is actually a chosen complication, a distraction to take me away from simplicity. I also wonder if it comes from a lack of self worth. It’s amazing how subtle and sneaky this energy can be. I actually don’t need to do anything apart from be me – and allow others to make their own choices with understudying and grace.
It is indeed a subtle and sneaky energy, recently I was talking with a friend about our current issues and I was sharing how I was dealing with my stuff. After our meeting I felt hungry and it wasn’t mealtime, so I knew something was up. When I allowed myself to feel what was going on, I realised it was because as I was talking I had gone into ‘fixit’ mode instead of staying connected with my own body. Obviously I am still hooked on other people getting it my way instead of allowing them to feel and find their own solutions. It was uncomfortable but great to feel and showed me how, even when I think I’ve let go of a particular issue, there is always another layer to explore and release.
Carmel, the fixing behaviour is a massive problem for so many people. I can get a sense that it is a form of control, not allowing another the space to come to their own understanding in their own time. As in-truth all they need in that moment is the holding of our love and understanding. This is what truly supports another to grow.
I agree, Joshua, it’s as if the fixer is uncomfortable with another’s angst, maybe absorbing it instead of simply observing, and the trying to fix is a way of restoring comfort. As you say, all they need is ‘the holding of our love and understanding’ and then miracles can happen.
Beautifully said Joshua and Carmel as holding and supporting others nourishes them to learn and grow. Taking away what they need to learn themselves not only burdens you with their issues but is not truly healthy for anyone.
Agreed Joshua, fixing can be quite imposing on another’s evolution as it voids them of true understanding of self-responsibility in life, also we need to understand and accept that sometimes people are not ready to make certain choices and that is totally ok as long we offer a true reflection of who we are.
Yes and fixing is also an avoidance of our own evolution as we are negating the true learning an understanding that such a reflection offers
Thank you Carmel this is an awesome article and a great reminder to allow others the space to learn form their mistakes. In the past I have always played the role of ‘fixer’ as well, it made me feel better about myself and I thought I was actually helping people. Letting go of this role and seeing it is not truly supporting another but rather controlling the situation for my own needs has been huge and allowing others the space to unfold in their own time is certainly a wiser choice for all involved.
Yes, I like happy endings but trying to force one does’t give space for people to learn for themselves whatever it is they need to learn. Like many who have commented above,I find it amazing how many times I/we try to control an outcome instead of allowing things to unfold in the grace of their own time.
Like you Carmel, in the past, I have alway been a fixer; today that fixer energy no longer plagues me. I can support, encourage, appreciate and speak my truth without having a need to control, fix and find solutions. A huge heavy energy has been lifted. Thank you Carmel for helping me appreciate this fact.
What a wonderful saviour complex fixing things feeds. I find that if I want to fix something, then I have not listened and if I have not listened then I am not supporting the person who I am supposed to be helping by fixing…. I really have to discern before fixing anything.
Yes indeed Lucy, it is important to discern first before any ‘fixing’ takes place. Sometimes stepping aside and letting things unfold is actually the healing.
Good point, Lucy, ‘If I want to fix something, then I have not listened’ and when we understand that simply by being there and listening, with no attachment, we go a long way to truly supporting others, because if we listen, they listen too and in that still silence they can hear the wisdom within themselves.
This weekend past I have come to realise that I still play ball with the “wanting to fix things”. I have noticed I can identify what I need to work through for myself but the pull was still there to do that to others. There is no support in fixing as this limits another’s potential to grow even though it is often masked as doing the “right thing”. It is when we identity what we need to work on that we then have a choice to make changes and that can only come from each individual for themselves.
It is a great help to have someone who is just there, not trying to fix your problems, but just supporting in making your own choices. I can feel that there are so many moments that people try to solve our problems, which really doesnt work. They are not your own choices but ones from someone else and so you are not empowered to truly change something.
In a recent clear up at home, I came across an old school report that, despite all the ‘Good’ and ‘Very Good’ comments, there was one that said: ‘Carmel has worked well and steadily but time is sometimes wasted on the affairs of others’. I was 8 years and 4 months at the time, so getting involved in other people’s problems was a pattern already well established. It could well have been a distraction along with trying to be good, from the misery of being a boarder at such an early age, desperate to feel some kind of ‘love’.
I too have spent a fair amount of time getting caught up in the affairs of others and have come to see that it is a complete waste of time. It neither supports myself nor the other person. There is a still small voice within each of us who knows exactly what to do in any given situation and when we rush in and try and fix things for others we deny them their right to exercise their own innate knowing. This in fact is complete arrogance on our part and something to be avoided.
I can relate to what you have shared here Carmel with “fixing” starting at an early age, it’s an opportunity to be seen, to feel needed, and to feel of use when underneath we just want to be met and loved for who we truly are, not for what we do.
Thank you Carmel, I can relate to what you are saying, I have been a fixer in my life and I feel I have taken on a responsibility that was not mine, which took away the opportunity for the person to learn from their mistakes and take responsibility for their choices. These days I understand that is ” Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.”
There is a certain level of respect lacking when we launch in to fix someone else’s problem and it’s a whole new perspective to consider that by not doing this we allow them to grow. We have been tricked by the idea of doing good rather than feeling what was true and necessary. Thanks Carmel for your blog. It presents this other perspective so clearly and well.
Well said Carmel ‘ how I would resolve a problem may not be the way they would resolve it. My taking responsibility for fixing other people’s problems and being so forward with offering ‘solutions’ is not always the best way to support someone.’
Beautiful reminder here Gyl, that sometimes we do not even have to say anything to another to suport them, but we can simply be a ‘living reflection of God’, showing that they too are equally a divine being, with access to the same love, wisdom and truth.
Absolutely Sandra, massive reconfiguring happens just by true presence. As Serge Benhayon states ‘ If everything is energy, then everything is because of energy’, and our energetic state of being reflects much.
It still amazes me sometime that our reflection of being is enough. I have been a fixer too with a big controller behind it. I now realize there was a lack of understanding and an arrogance behind it. The idea that everybody should get it, but also a disregard of the proces e.g.that we all have our own time and space to learn, grow to come to an awareness of something. Deep down it was my own impatience with myself that I was not living perfectly without the messiness of learning/life. Now I just take myself, others and situations (more) as they are. It is the love within this aceptance that transforms.
Fixing another comes from our own lack of self worth.
The power of clarity in another can offer us a truly deep healing. Words need not even be shared, but simply by their living reflection of God, they show us we are, by the grace of God, that same love, truth, deep wisdom and care.
Carmel, I have not been a fixer in this sense as offering everyone else solutions to their problems, but I have and do know at times I can still put other people before my own well being and health, this helps nobody, I actually get exhausted and in turn the space that is required for all both of us to learn is not there. I find when I am still and connected deeply to myself then I observe and allow things to just pass by me.
I love reading about letting go of being a fixer… Having been a deeply entrenched fixer myself ☺, and to know how this seemingly intractable pattern of behaviour can be let go of is something that really does need to be retold again and again, to inspire others that it is possible to let go of the old controlling paradigms
Carmel I appreciate that what you shared in your blog is perfect timing for me just now. These words are so important ” Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems but simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another” Thank you Carmel.
Carmel, I too have a been fixer, and probably for the recognition I have had from doing this. I am so much more aware of this now but it still creeps in occasionally, especially as some around me still expect it of me! I created that dependence. I am also using my reflection when with others rather than “helping” them. Very revealing for me!!
Its true Ariana, fixing the problems of the world around us is only us reacting to and trying to control the world around us. Good call.
Many of us make judgements about other people and I love you words Ariana, ‘all we have to do is let it be and others come to their own way of being, whatever that is for them.’ That reminds me to be more accepting – the other night I was woken by neighbours having a shouting match in the street – it’s happened before – it felt horrible and I had an urge to get involved but didn’t for my own safety and also because it wouldn’t have resolved anything, just interfered and probably caused more shouting. What it did, though, was make me reflect on how I had been living and how I have lived and argued in the past, and what I can choose to change in my own life now.
Great blog Carmel, thank you. It raises the question that if we have always been a fixer of another person’s problems… what then is the investment we have in being in that role?
If we put as much investment in ourselves as we do in another, there would be so much ease in reflecting to another that there is another way, another choice that they come to in their own time and way. How empowering it is for both. People helping people in this way, shows me that living in brotherhood is our natural way.
I loved your honesty Carmel as you spoke of fixing other peoples lives or situations as a ‘Distraction’ from your own life. It is so easy to believe we have all the answers and know what is best. As a parent I quickly learned to allow others the space to consider their options after being told clearly as my children moved into adulthood – to mind my own business and that they will ask if they need help. The body is a great communicator and to become aware when your body was clearly letting you know you were over stepping a boundary is just another way we are truly supported. Thanks for sharing.
Assuming that I have the answers to what another person needs has been one of my greatest downfalls, it comes perhaps from being able to see the bigger picture of what is going on around me, being able to feel the underlying intentions and choices. But where I went wrong was to choose to step in and think that that gave me a right to get involved, because not only does this create a drain on me, it is disempowering for another person. Now, I am learning to allow the awareness that I have to be a part of my expression and not a tool for control.
This comment is so relevant for me today – especially when what another is dealing with is similar to an issue of my own – it is me I need to focus on, not them. They have everything they need and I have everything I need – our needs are different, how we resolve it is different, and it is great to be reminded how draining it can be for us to get involved and how disempowering for them to impose our fix-it solutions. It drains me because I find myself thinking of ways to help instead of focusing on reconnecting with myself, and knowing that my still presence is enough.
Agreed Bendan, fixing, band aiding may feel like temporary relief when in fact it walks us further away from the core issue.
My children have taught me so much about intimacy and allowing me the space to arrive at truth. When i have openly wept in front of them they have not jumped in to fix me or placate me, or sympathise, they have simply held me in love and allowed me to feel everything that has bought me to that point.
Yes Lucindag, our children can be our greatest reflection can’t they? From that place of innocence, we are given the permission to just be, and then all that is reflected back to us is pure and simple love in its truest sense. And dogs can do the same.
Trying to fix anything for anyone means at the same time trying to deprive them of the chance of learning what would have to be gotten out of this situation for them. We can be there and lovingly hold and support, but fixing in truth means simply imposing to gain something out of a situation for ourselves.
‘We all have free will and life is forever reflecting back to us the consequences of our choices; it is then our individual responsibility to learn from each situation. We can choose to be aware of what is going on and do something about it, or not. It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.’ Thank you for this reminder. I will start paying attention to the messages my body sends me to help me to become aware of my behavior.
Reading your blog I have come to realise that for a great part of my life I allowed others to come and be the ‘Fixer” in relationships. It left me feeling less than or that what I was doing was never good enough. This blog has shown the effects it has on both parties when they both choose to not expose what is truly going on.
Carmel, I know exactly what you mean about being a “fixer”. I used to carry the burdens of the world on my shoulders so to speak and think that I had to make things right for people. That just led to stress and burnout. Learning true compassion, which is to simply be with another and observe and not absorb what is going on for them allows people to find their own solutions which is so much more empowering for them and for myself. This I have learned through applying the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom as presented by Serge Benhayon.
That’s the point, Brendan, it is a great distraction from our own issues and we often do not allow people to learn for themselves. I like what Joseph says just above, ‘feeling this tender quality of presence is all we truly need to do’.
Yes Carmel Joseph and Brendan I very much agree and it is indeed a beautiful reminder.
I love what you have written here Ariana – so well said. We do do exactly that when we try to fix another, instead of first looking at ourselves and asking, so what is it about another that I want to fix and why? If it is something that I don’t like about how they are, then should I not be looking at myself first and asking why it makes me uncomfortable? And if this is the case, then perhaps I should consider addressing that discomfort within me first. Now that would be a great place to start and once dealt with would then have the potential to bring about a change in another through a true reflection rather than a need to fix.
Reading this blog has been like been given a simple, loving space to reflect and connect to how I am living. What you say is a beautiful reminder, that feeling this tender quality of presence is all we truly need to do. Thank you for your “clear reflection” Carmel.
“… but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices.” I can feel the true allowing and love in this sentence, Carmel, and am inspired to do the same, rather than feel sorry for someone and try to ‘fix’ them.
Thank you Carmel a timely reminder to let everyone be and stay with my own body and understanding of truth.
Carmel what a honest blog – it was so beautiful to read about your change and also very inspirational. My feeling is that in most of us lives a little fixer and therefore your amazing blog is a good read for all of us. The key sentences for me was: “Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.” What a great way to life our lives!
Hi Ester, I agree, it is a great way to live our lives and offers the sense of responsibility that we need to stay steady in order for that clear reflection to be felt – what we do at home behind closed doors (watch TV in my case) still affects how we feel to others when we go out there. And learning acceptance of where we are at can also be felt – we can pull each other up with the lessons we have learned and are living – that’s why our expression is so important (and perfection is not a requirement).
Perfect timing for me to have read your blog this morning Carmel, thank you. I am supporting my friend through something at the moment and have realised that most people around her are in fix it mode which really doesnt support her at all. As you shared Carmel, true support is through our livingness.
When I am disconnected or out of sorts it can be hard to pull myself out of whatever the situation is on hand. I love what you have said and it also my experiences with the practitioners and the Universal medicine Modalities “I find that their gentle presence always allows me the space to ponder my own issues. By the way they are with me I can experience how it feels to be truly helped with loving, tender care and the utmost respect”
I agree Carmel, ‘telling’ others what they could do to ‘fix’ themselves helps them not.
When we build a relationship with ourselves first, this is what we offer to others- how it looks and feels to live from self-care and self-love.
Walking the talk, as Serge Benhayon and other Practitioners are showing us is what allows us to make choices that bring about true change,
No need to ‘fix’ anything or anyone but a continuation of a deeper loving relationship with all.
We also have to not try to fix ourselves – accepting that we are enough is challenging for anyone who has spent a lifetime depending the ‘good’ opinion of others – developing a deeper loving relationship with ourselves first is key – because when we live true love in that way, others will feel it and there’s no need to say anything, but when we do speak, it can be felt, even in a simple ‘Hello’. When I see others who are living that true love within themselves, I can feel it as they walk by, it’s amazing.
How amazing that if we are willing to listen and pay attention our body can be such a wonderful instrument to guide us in our choices. Like you discovered the choices are ours to be made and not to be dictated by others. Thank you Carmel for this great blog.
Carmel I too have been a fixer. It’s a wonderful distraction from getting on with my life, and as you say, imposing on the other. Layer by layer this pattern of behaviour reveals itself to me as I take more responsibility for my life and offer a supportive space to others, but I was caught out again recently – a pattern sneaked through unnoticed by me, but thankfully was called out by the other person.
Well said Anne, we distract ourselves from our own issues by indulging in others and trying to ‘fix’ them, responsibility for ourselves is more practical and supportive not only for us but for others as well.
Carmel, this has been a big thing for me, with helping people de-clutter their homes, I had taken control of the situation, thinking that I knew what was right for them. I now know that I am only responsible for me, I now give people space to feel what is going on under the clutter, and then offer support. This is all that I have to do. It takes the pressure off and lets people naturally unfold.
Hi Denise, what your comment reminded me of is what I feel when I work with someone like you, who helps us de-clutter – we can feel how you live and that is what inspires us. I am changing my approach to food and have already made a number of changes; when I work at a checkout in a supermarket, people sometimes apologise for the junk food they just bought, and I haven’t said anything! We forget that everybody already knows whatever it is they need to know and our livingness simply enables them to feel their choices at a deeper level. They can then choose to react and make themselves less or they could simply feel inspired to choose differently. I like your phrase ‘let people naturally unfold’ I am working on that with myself!
How important it is to knock out the ‘I know” and ‘I know best’. We hear that a lot as children from parents and perhaps go on to model the same to our friends and family.
How can we possibly know how it is for another if we don’t live their life, know their choices, stumbling blocks and learning and if we don’t stop to appreciate and allow true understanding of another?
I know. this fixing mode very well, Carmel. I loved to” live other peoples lifes” and from this point receive recognition. It is another story to take care of my own life and deal with hurts and issues there, not to fix them, but to feel and heal them and grow out of them.
Awesome blog – my 10 year old daughter who was 9 at the time said ‘you’re not the boss of this family mum’. I pondered on what she was saying and felt how I had taken on the role of ‘fixer’ in our family which in fact held everyone lesser, and had the ‘benefit’ of distracting me from what I needed to address in my own life. In a moment I got all of this, and said to my daughter ‘you’re right – I do think I am boss.. and I’m not’. As soon as I said this my whole body relaxed and in an instant I came more into myself.. This shift has changed the whole family, where there was a dynamic of me as mum sorting out and fixing problems, whereas now I am choosing to firstly accept the situation as it is – which allows for an honouring of the other’s freewill in any situation. As Carmel said it is then about holding the other in love – which allows where they are at with no need for them to be any different – however the magic is that through holding another in love they get to feel my fullness and it is this feeling that creates a pull back to the truth, love and wisdom within them… So love really the only ‘solution’ so to speak – and the outcome of any situation for the other person is simply a matter of what they choose.
I had the same experience with my daughter who is six telling me exactly the same, you are not the boss on which I replied, “I am you know” to which she yelled “YOU ARE NOT”, I had been told and this made me ponder on how frustrating it can be being a child and being told what to do all the time.
That’s beautiful Sara – thank you for sharing how you completely changed the dynamic in your family by simply being love – and well done to your daughter for being so wise and expressing what she felt.
This is exactly what I have done as a mother and I completely identified myself with this role and made my life about family instead of living my own life being me and giving my family the space to come to their own choices and learnings in life. it was distracting me from my responsibility to look at my choices and to feel the lovelessness and emptiness I was living in. This pattern has had a strong hold on me and I would have not able to look at it without the support of Universal Medicine practitioners and my own willingness to start healing what was not love.
This blog has certainly given me something to reflect on. Work and all the things I need to do is one way that I find I distract myself from being present and connected to my body. These days it feels awful and actually leaves me exhausted to live in a constant state of worry and anxiety, but I have made the decision to do something about it as there is another way to live and I see this very clearly through Universal Medicine Practitioners who don’t live with that anxiety and definitely don’t bring it into the treatment room.
I agree Brendan, it seems that if the solution doesn’t come from inside us then the change can’t happen.
Carmel I had the same realization about myself lately. I’ve just started a counselling course and being a fixer was one area we had to look out for. By being a fixer we take away our own power and wisdom. A beautiful way to help another is by helping them find the solution within themselves. Start by knowing that we all hold the answers within -we just sometimes need help finding them.
Simply being there allows more room for others to spend time working through their issues. The sayings “right by your side”, “You can lean on me”, is just that, being there, not fixing others.
Carmel, I have also been a fixer, spending a lot of time in my head sorting out other peoples stuff. What I think is wrong and what I think They Should do, they don’t need to ask me, I can work it out anyway. Today I was told something and I really felt that I just listened and observed and let it go, they have to feel for themselves what to do, that is there right to sort out there stuff. It felt so lovely in my body to have just let go. I hadn’t realised how far this fixing had spread through my life.
I too in the past have been a fixer not wanting to feel their pain. I have gradually learnt to let go of this fixing and allow another to make their own choice. Now when I find my mind going into what I want to say to them, I just see what I am doing and say to myself ,” not going there.” Instead, I am learning that compassion is understanding and allowing the person time and space to make their own choices.
This has been a trap I have also fallen into, wanting to fix things for other people so that I didn’t feel their hurt, or wanting to rescue them because I couldn’t bear to see them in their misery and sorrow. Now I understand that trying to rescue does not really help anyone, and in fact can harm even more, and that it is actually quite a selfish thing, and not allowing the free choice of another. I can also see that fixing and rescuing have more to do with not wanting to face things that I am holding onto, and hurts that get triggered in myself. The rescue thing is imposing on another, and they know it, so they will usually either play the game and manipulate the situation or dig their heels in, or rebel – and a dynamic gets set up to keep everyone in a spin. It’s distracting and a huge waste of energy – and obscures the space for true understanding to be possible.
I have been a fixer since very young as I was the eldest of four children and always given that responsibility to look after the others. My fixing is a way of controlling others so then everything runs smoothly. This is so disempowering for both parties as this doesn’t create the space for myself and others to feel what is truly going on. I have come to realise that by just listening and allowing things to flow is a greater support than any advice given or trying to control situations.
I am experiencing that it is actually quite a challenge to just be, don’t do anything, not even thinking about it….and to just listen to people their situations, issues and/or problems, without any need whatsoever to fix or help. The great thing is, when I do, and this is work in progress, I realize the enormity of just being and listening and what this does for the other and myself. The level of openness expands and there is just this moment where there is far more room for stillness and intimacy. Until my mind kicks in thinking that I should come up with this brilliant piece of advice…
I agree, Mariette, when we are used to providing solutions for every problem, it’s a challenge to let go and allow . . . It can be very subtle – I think I’ve cracked it and then I find myself coming up with all sorts of ideas that only cause complication and confusion. Stillness is definitely a key requirement.
This is great Mariette, and something I also find myself doing. We can so easily go into our minds and ‘think’ that we need to say something to help or support another, whereas if we just listened and stayed with the other and let them be, there is far more opportunity for them to speak and as a result reflect on their own words. When I do do this, I have experienced revelations from others that they have come to on thier own. So often we want to interrupt someone who is talking and give some advice or go into sympathy with them. Allowing another person the space to simply be is a beautiful gift we can give to all.
Beautiful conversation here amongst you Mariette, Carmel and Sandra, I can so relate. I can feel my investment in the other getting it or understanding something when I do this. What I get out of it is “the credit” that I helped them (with an advice or a solution). In the scenario that Sandra describes, where I just allow myself to be a reflection and the other can arrive to their own realization – self is not involved, no “credit”, no “brownie points” – the other may not even be aware that it had anything to do with me. Haha – selflessness is key here.
Yes, selflessness is indeed key Judith!
“It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.” Carmel I feel that this is absolutely true. I had also been the fixer and I have to stop myself now if I find myself going there, a constant awareness.
Carmel I can relate to this, the fixer. “And in doing so I have been distracted from living my own life.” I can now see how I have used fixing others as a distraction to not feel me, not feel what ever it was that I didn’t want to feel. Instead look at others to fix them then I don’t have to deal with my stuff.
By fixing ‘problems’ for others we ostensively send the message that they are unable to fix them themselves. This is so disempowering. To empower another by giving loving support so they can take responsibility and work through their own ‘problems’ is a real gift. As you say Carmel, “Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.”
I realised a while ago how much I am trying to change other people, I wasn’t aware that this was a constant drive in me. And I absorbed all the problems, the emotions others were in, instead of observing and feeling where they were. A very comfortable way of living and arrogant to assume I have the answer because I know it all. To feel the choices of others makes me less comfortable because I get to feel my choices at the same time but the great thing is I let people in and they get to see me!
“All my life I’ve been a fixer but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there … ”
Carmel, I too am learning this and am finding it a relief both emotionally and physically to not be overly responsible anymore, but also that it makes me feel special and honouring of myself to see that just by being there I’m ‘fixing’.
I have had some big lessons on being a fixer. Accepting and allowing another to be where they are at helps me and also as you have shared in your experience, Carmel, to support someone with “…loving, tender care and the utmost respect. Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.” This is allows an opportunity for healing.
I so love this blog, that I felt like writing another comment. Yesterday my focus was to not fix or having the need to change while visiting my parents. First thing I noticed, I was very relaxed when I arrived, like making that choice already put me in a very still, loving and supporting state of being. I had told myself: Mariette, you don’t have to do anything. I have had such a beautiful time with my parents and yes, I could observe where the tendency came in to advice or wanting to do something, but most of all, I could feel I was just there, being me and my parents being themselves. On the way back I felt very fulfilled and felt a lot of love. I could feel that with the wanting things to change and wanting to fix, you don’t let people in.
‘ I could feel that with the wanting things to change and wanting to fix, you don’t let people in.’ Aha! That makes sense – the controlling is also not wanting to let people in – as Paula said above, we’re wanting everyone around to be OK – in which case that means letting them in means we would feel all our hurts, which of course we don’t want to do. Good call, Mariette, thank you, and gorgeous your experience with your parents.
Marietta that just gave me an ‘aha’ moment as well. I can feel how fixing puts up a wall so I don’t have to feel….wow, very cool. Thank you xx
“Can we fix it?” maybe we don’t have to.
I know my definition has been flipped in recent years.
In the past it use to be a resolution of no tension and every one was happy.
However I’ve come to the understanding there can be tension for a resolution to arise in the future as everyone has the right to go through their issues at their own pace and time.
Also a quick fix solution, as good as it may seem, is usually not something that works.
Again it comes into respect of the time that is needed for an individual person is willing to go into their issues and how much they are willing to understand and disperse it.
Great point Luke. Going into the fixing mode when it doesn’t need to be fixed. It is simple as that.
It is always for security as we don’t really want to feel the under lying real issue.
It feels very wrong to make a statement saying that the other is not doing right – no human can ever be perfect in this world, but the divine and nature is, and everything that is totally aligned with both.
Life is not about perfection, as in getting things right or wrong, as what really matters is truth and what is true for us. When we live from this, in true connection with nature and the divine, all is perfect.
Powerful words Ariana, I have come out of this fixer state myself and I can see how harmful and arrogant it is talking to others from a place of ignorance of true compassion and understanding.
I really like your blog Carmel, “true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where everyone can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part.” I have found that this allows everyone to be accepted for who they are without the need to change anyone or anything.
The subtle ways in wanting to fix people or situations shows me that it is me who cannot be with the situation or the person (and their issue). It is indeed my own discomfort. And yes, there is an arrogance in thinking that we can fix or solve things. We put ourselves higher up the ladder so to speak whilst there is no such thing, as we are all the same and equal. Great blog, great comments, and going to observe today where I am going into a fixing mode.
I so agree with you Mariette, I too have been a fixer, wanting to fix people, situations all my life, less so these days. But I definitely have felt that there wasn’t a trust in people that they will ‘get it’, get that there is more to life, that I can somehow show them a different way to resolve something or be more of who they are. Which I have since felt is hugely arrogant, but also not allowing people to be where they are at. This is much more of an observation now, understanding that we all have to make our own choices and take responsibility for those and part of all our growth is to not going into fixing, but allow people to develop in their own time.
It is indeed our own discomfort, Mariette, and when we offer solutions they are from our own expression – the person we are supporting has a completely different set of experiences and expression and the way they will accept or resolve things is therefore also completely different. Even if we have experienced something similar, it is not the same and when we project our stuff onto other people, that is hugely imposing.
Being ‘a fixer’ started for me as a very young child, and feeling how little love was in the world, I decided to fix everything and everyone around me so they were all ok – and then I would be ok too. An absolutely exhausting way of living and very controlling…however through Universal medicine I have come to realise it wasn’t really about the world but my own lack of self love.
Carmel I can so relate to what you are sharing and what’s been expanded on with so many of the comments. I all been rather tempting, over the years to develop the “fix it” approach. In fact I feel that most of us have developed ourselves to be that way inclined, as Ariana said earlier to “relieve ourselves from the discomfort and tension the world”. Its like we feel so hurt by being so disconnected from ourselves and hence each other that we try to do good to cover up this hurt, without really considering the consequences of this.
The disconnection from ourselves really does hurt – I am only now truly beginning to allow myself to feel this – every time I eat I question – is this because I need food or am I trying not to feel something? Often I still eat but the awareness is developing and I know the less I eat the more I can feel. I just have to let go of a few old patterns and beliefs around food and how much we do or don’t need to eat.
‘Fixing’ for others just allowed me to bury all my issues that really required my full attention. I would listen to their every detail in their stories – I was focused. Little realising not an ounce of my input was serving them or myself to move forward. A beautiful sharing with us all Carmel thank you.
I spent six years training as a counsellor, so that I could sit and let other people talk about their issues, many of which would reflect my own, but in making it THEIR problem, never truly dealt with my own. Now I know that until I have fully dealt with an issue in my own life, I cannot help another, because the energy of truly letting it go is not in my body and that is what people feel. I can talk about weight loss and giving up cigarettes and alcohol, because I’ve done that, but I can’t talk to someone about their livingness, relationships, rhythm, or self-love, because my own is not yet true. When I look back on the self-esteem courses I used to run, I shudder to think of the harm I might have done, because my own lack of self-worth and appreciation at the time meant I offered head knowledge of what to do, but not the deeply embodied self-care package that I am beginning to live now.
This rings true for me too Carmel. When we have dealt with a similar aspect we can then bring a deeper understanding and awareness of ways we can support on another.
‘ I am special because I know how to fix’ – I don’t know if helping comes under the same banner as fixing but recently I’ve realised how much of my self-esteem was set by how helpful I’d been. Given any opportunity to help another, I’d light up, whereas any situation where I felt useless was an opportunity to wallow in depression and ‘who am I?’ thoughts. I was identified with the doing and being helpful, instead of feeling the true me. I know now that simply being me, even if I’m doing nothing other than walking around being me in full, can have a profound effect.
Beautiful comment Carmel…all these ideals and beliefs around fixing and helping others only distracts us from being who we truly are.
Carmel, I’m loving your sharing, every time I read another comment I’m finding more out about myself. Keep it coming.
Exactly, Ariana, our fixing is laced with and undercurrent of judgement
Yes and underneath the undercurrent of judgement is the protecting of something in ourselves we don’t want to be looking at.
I love what you have expressed here Ariana, and put succinctly I feel it says it the way it is “..that fixing the other makes us feel less uncomfortable about the world…” and especially “Fixing others is a real statement about how WE are in the world, Not the other!” I find there is much to ponder on in your comment to in this great blog.
Great blog Carmel, you have hit the nail on the head for so many. I used to be a bit of a fix-it person when it came to my work, after all people would come to me ‘to be fixed’. It is quite a responsibility to take on and because it isn’t right to do, was/is very draining. It took Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal Medicine for me to learn too what true help actually is, and how to offer that without taking on responsibility to fix anyone. Irony is I am way more effective at helping others who come to me for help than I ever was then.
“All my life I’ve been a fixer”… I am realising more and more how I carry the ideal of fixing everything and wanting to change everything. Someone inspired me recently to look at instead of trying to change everything (including negative thoughts about myself) that I simply accept that they are there. This feels much less exhausting and much less of a battle.
Rachel, your comment is timely as I’ve been feeling pretty low about myself and the way I live and I’ve been ‘trying’ (and failing) to change my pattern of living. When I appreciate who I am, warts and all, then the self care happens naturally. We sometimes start at the wrong end of the problem, with the symptoms (result) instead of the root cause.
In coming back to reread this blog, what really stood out for me in relating to my own experience, is the arrogance of sometimes thinking I’m right and that I know what’s best for someone else. This arrogance I’ve found comes from my own lack of self worth and my own hurts and any advice offered from this energy can be felt as imposing (even when all the words and actions sound, or come across as right or logical). True support can only be offered when I am first connected to myself, and have no ‘need’ for things to be a certain way. True support comes when I support myself first and take responsibility for my choices, and in this I can provide this reflection and understanding for another… This is something that for me has no ‘end’ or ‘mastery’ date but is something I can continue and work on every day!
Angela, your description of the ‘arrogance’ is very apt – when we see ourselves as absolutely equal to all others, there is no room for any kind of arrogance, and true self worth comes with that feeling of equality as we walk beside each other, neither ahead nor behind.
I can relate to this arrogance. I recognize this tendency of thinking I know what is good for the other. I hear somebody say something about his/her life and a certain situation or problem. It is incredible how quickly my mind puts the pieces together -as if I have an overview of the puzzle – and know what is good for the other. I realize now it is in fact going into a doing, wanting to be there for others by an act of support. Deep down it is indeed a lack of self worth e.g. I am not enough just by being there for the other. As you beautifully describe: have patience, understanding and allowing – not only for the other, but also – perhaps first – for myself.
I agree. In my experience this arrogance simply puts another more deeply at odds with us and may drive them further into a behaviour by digging their heels in.
Well said Ariana. I suspect that is the point, that while we focus on fixing others we don’t need to address anything going on within ourselves. We also get to feel that we are doing ok in comparison to those who have an issue, offering a false sense of being ok.
that’s what I have found also Angela, there is an arrogance and we are not fully accepting the free will of another to be able to make their own choices and in their own time which is a form of control and imposition, and people do feel it.
Thank you Carmel for bringing this foray to light in your blog – and yes, I also was a ‘fixer’ and even often had the belief that I had been of some sort of service when people left ‘feeling better’ after I had put my own two-penneth in with some sort of solution. I at that time was ignorant of the fact of there being two distinct arenas to being influenced/impressed by – and had no idea that my problem solving and solution offered often did not allow true reflection nor healing to take place. I appreciate now that much has been revealed through my own continuing process of healing as I continue to attend the presentations of Serge Benhayon at the Universal Medicine presentations.
I love it: being a clear reflection (mirror) instead of a fixer (stitcher). It makes so much sence, the greater space we offer for that person to share of let out whatever they feel, the greater the support and healing we can offer them. Universal Medicine is a great example of this. In everyway they let the client be themselves (with everything they feel or not feel) and let them choose whatever that is right for them.
The fixing is exactly what happens everywhere at dinner tables, in bars, on phone-calls, at the doctor’s – and it just adds to the resistance of being myself. With Serge Benhayon I learned a kind of listening that is just beholding and thus allowing the other to connect to the wisdom within. Having the blessing of a non-imposing listener stops the constant judgements that are going on in my head.
What I also noticed with dropping the fixer, it also gives space to me and my body. I don’t have to ‘work’ any longer. Just be with the other and whenever something comes up to share, I will express that, but not any longer in a ‘I have to solve your problems’ way.
“I’ve spent hours thinking about different scenarios of how I could tell them, thinking of all the different things they needed to do to get a perfect result – and in doing so I have been distracted from living my own life.” I can relate to this in a big way, feeling how I have checked out and left my life unlived by doing this. This felt like I had given up on me in order to fix others. I now choose to connect to me, and allow others to live there own lives.
‘I am amazed at how much my body tells me when I am willing to listen, so it feels good to develop that connection, developing my awareness of what I am feeling and sorting my own life out’. . . “way to go” Carmel, as they say in Australia – I wholeheartedly agree with what you say. It is so great to have this written reminder from you, as I read it again this morning, to take with me on my day. Thank you.
“I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices”. I love your definition of compassion Carmel, nothing to do with sympathy or fixing, it feels empowering to trust that the other person can deal with their own situation in their own way.
I love that you have exposed how focusing on fixing another person’s issues is not only an arrogant imposition that does not support another’s life but also an unsupportive distraction from living your own. An awesome reminder.
Great blog Carmel. Thank you.
I too have felt the beautiful space and claimed living loving way from the practitioners at Universal Medicine. I always feel held in an equality that says you are of this same knowing and you will come to the answers because you can feel the truth too.
As people we create our own problems, we each know how we got there and we are really the best ones to get ourselves out and back to a place of harmony. It is arrogance and a belittling for us to push help or a solution onto someone because it does not hold them in the equal knowing or give them the space or free will to work it out and feel it for themselves. Which also holds back their learning and evolving for themselves.
This is a great thought for the day – holding people in equality because they have the same knowing – it takes away the arrogance of thinking we know better than someone else.
Fixing others to make ourselves feel more comfortable? Ouch! A point worth pondering on – what are our true reasons for helping others?
Reflecting on this fixer business what came to me is that we have to understand that helping someone to fix their problems is, on the one hand, a great help, but, in a deeper way, it is not help at all, since it is condemning them to remain fixed in a point of their evolution (learning) they cannot go past in a true way.
Thanks Carmel, this is a classic! ☺ and totally relatable… there’s no stillness in ‘fixing’ or the mindset of fixing. It is almost a cliché that this is what men do, when the partner just wants to talk , and the male jumps in and wants to fix, but its so true, and I lived that and couldn’t really shift this paradigm UNTIL I reconnected with true stillness, and this was the bridge. Thank you again Universal Medicine.
And I in my turn have wanted to fix all men from their ‘wrong’ approach of offering solutions instead of listening – it is so great now to see you guys and your tender ways and to feel the stillness. We women can be so judgemental of men for not understanding us, we forget it is often our lack of stillness and true expression that allows that misunderstanding to happen.
Another gem of truth and wisdom from you Carmel (and Chris but I am identifying with the woman’s part this time). We women often do conveniently jump on the judgment of and frustration with men bandwagon ignoring the fact that to do so we have allowed something to take us from our own power and stillness and with that we lose our understanding.
It is so easy to fall into fixing without really considering a bigger picture. There may be something really important to be learned and when we step in to fix this lesson is delayed and suppressed. We can be very supportive without needing to be the solution. This is so worth considering, thank you Carmel.
I discovered that focusing on other people was a very good way to not have to look at my own. I have seen this in many therapists in different fields and it shows what makes Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine so different; it is about what we live and deal with ourselves first and foremost, for the quality we live will determine if we can be a true support for another while they themselves deal with their problems.
Indeed, Carolien, we are masters of distraction and can find many ways to avoid looking at our own choices and way of being. I love your words, ‘the quality we live will determine if we can be a true support for another while they themselves deal with their problems.’
I have always been the type of person who, when faced with a problem, gets on with ‘fixing it’, rather than just ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Most of my family are like this also so it would come as no surprise to anyone that I have a major ‘fixer’ habit. I am slowly learning to keep my opinions to myself and to listen respectfully and allow others to reach their own conclusions about what their next step is. Definitely a long term project!!! Thanks Carmel for your blog – it is time to reflect further on how my behaviour is acting as a distraction from my own issues and what the body signals are that I may be overlooking.
I have just re-read this amazing blog Carmel – amazing because to me it offers true wisdom and understanding of life. Many times I have offered advice that has been un-asked for and it is only now that I ponder on why I do this and what does this actually mean. Have I too been doing this so to be distracted from my own life? I also have sporadic back soreness – I shall now notice more when the pain comes and if it is related to me trying to solve other people’s problems instead of simply being compassionate and allowing of the other to come to their own conclusion that is right for them. A very timely read, thank you.
Hi Suzanne, I find your interest in your body’s signals inspiring – and I am finding the same – our bodies are amazingly communicative if only we are prepared to listen – they can help us to identify behaviours we do that are not truly appropriate simply because it starts to feel uncomfortable or, as is often the case with me, I can feel/hear it in my voice and if I catch it, I stop mid-sentence and back off.
‘We can choose to be aware of what is going on and do something about it, or not. It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.’ Beautifully said, Carmel. It reminds me of the all knowing quote “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”
Gosh Carmel how many things we can find to distract ourselves from our own lives and be busy with other peoples! I know I have done this in the past and still occasionally get drawn in but how crazy to have the arrogance to think I know better than someone else what is right for them! As you say simply supporting another in coming to their own realisations of what is true for them is so much more healthy for everyone.
I’ve come back to add another comment as this is my ‘Achilles heal’ to be healed. I’m laughing at myself as I yet again am aware of an issue with a friend that needs ‘fixing’ and as the ‘solving’ mode tries to kick in I can feel the internal pull and the mind wants to take over. So now I am giving myself the grace to observe and not absorb.
It’s a real talent to just be there for someone and create a space for someone. I have too been a fixer, arrogantly thinking I know best with my solution driven approach. I am slowly coming to see the power in not doing this but just being there, just listening. Thanks Carmel for your wise words.
Thanks Carmel. This article made me wince as I too was a fixer. It took me a long time to realize that I was doing a dis-service by preventing someone from making their own decision and learn for themselves how to make choices. It has also changed how I make my own choices and don’t go instantly into ‘fix it’ mode but look at why I have the issue that needs resolving.
It is so easy to see what others are doing wrong….not so easy to see in ourselves. I am learning that the moment I start making a mental list of what another person ought to be doing I need to put the brakes on, and look at what is going on in my life that is the same or very similar. I almost always find that there is some sort of mischief going on in my life that requires attention.
The saying physician heal thyself can be applied here…
Fixer, get thou own act together….
Thanks Carmel for this. It is a really important reminder for me that true compassion is letting people be where they are, to not fix, but to hold them as equal.. Allowing space and continually bringing patience and understanding to their choices.
It is important topic, Carmel, thank you for expressing your views and sharing changes you are making.
I am learning to observe people and situations without judging and without trying to fix them. Sometimes I find it difficult and I can see how much I invested in humanity, how many ideals and beliefs I still hold onto. And every time when I realize that I can choose not to follow the pattern but simply listen. It feels so much more loving just to give a person the space to be and express. It gives us both freedom of choice and deeper understanding.
At some point in my life I realised that focussing on others peoples problems is the best way of not having to deal with my own. And so what I for a long time felt was me being ‘good’ and selfless in helping others was actually very selfish as it was not only about distracting me from dealing with my own stuff, made me feel good for being ‘good’ but even more so it was because i did not want to feel the discomfort or even hurt from seeing and feeling what others chose. A great wake up call and a revelation about all the ‘good’ many of us are doing in this world.
Yes having been a ‘professional home’ fixer . I would come in and solve all the immediate problems and make it look perfect. I would always think I had given them the opportunity to live a different way but in actual fact I imprinted the home with my longing for order in my own life. I could never work out why I always ended up with the worst messy houses you could imagine, I always took it on with gusto and now I clearly see the bigger the job the bigger the distraction. My own life was needing an overhaul and I wasn’t ready to go there. What a great opportunity to reflect Carmel and see what lengths I went to in distracting from my own hurts.
“Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another”, Carmel these are powerful words “And in doing so I have been distracted from living my own life.” I can feel Carmel that by doing this also I had put my life on hold. I wasn’t truly living. Now my body tells me also when I am trying to arrogantly trying to fix another, not allowing them to live their lives.
Maybe we could rename the role of ‘fixer’ to that of ‘distractor’ in disguise.
Or perhaps “Imposer” would work just as well Vicky.
Thank you Carmel for sharing your experiences and learning around being a fixer. It is a role that I have very much taken on in my life from a very young age and I am building my awareness of how it plats out in my life. The learning that I have witnessed others develop since I have allowed and not imposed my ideals and opinions of the best outcome or solution should be has been really huge. And great for me to let go of the heaviness and arrogance of feeling responsible for others.
“True compassion”: this makes my body let go of any tension or hardness when I read this – why? Because I can feel how deeply honouring and non-imposing this is, and how much space this creates for me. Therefore if I am met with true compassion this allows me the space to just be me, and feel freely, with no imposing force or pressure, the choices and decisions that I want to make, that feel true for me. So if this is what I feel from reading these words, then this is what I can bring to another by meeting them with true compassion and not a need to fix things or be seen. This understanding and feeling of true comapssion is definitely something that will stay with me.
“Developing my awareness of what I am feeling and sorting my own life out, rather than distracting myself trying to fix anything outside of me.” This is an amazing line Carmel, and one that supports me, as I can often distract myself with stuff outside of me. It would be amazing for many people to read this, as so often we try to fix or sort things outside of us, which really isn’t needed, and actually takes us further away from our innate knowing and deep trust that is inside of us. Never mind the exhausting momentum and merry-go-round this can also create.
Your comment here Gyl encourages me to look at my own momentum and ‘merry-go-round’ way of living that I fall easily into. It is exhausting and could well be the reason I am feeling back pain too, as I live outside myself, wanting to feel better about myself by solving another’s issue.
Ouch, was the first thing I said when reading the title of this blog, a little home truth for me. I have a tendency to try and fix things as well, and in truth this is so imposing and not helping anybody, plus it just adds to the heaviness I can feel at times in my body, as I can end up taking on the other person’s emotions.
Yes Carmel, it can become very easy to focus on someone else’s problems so that we don’t have to truly feel what is going on for ourselves. I have noticed now that if I am focussing on an issue that someone else has that this is a good indication that I need to come back to me and have a look at what is going on for myself.
Yes, Donna, it is a great distraction from dealing with our own issues. I too am learning to look at the reflection and what it is teaching me instead.
I could say for myself that, ‘all my life I have a been a sitter on the fence’ person and got embroiled in other peoples problems wanting to fix them as an antidote to not speaking absolute truth. Its the comfort of wanting to people please combined with wanting to solve other people’s problems so I don’t need to face my own that has capped me in my expression. This does not ‘offer a clear reflection for another’.
Carmel, I was also distracting myself trying to ‘fix’ other people’s problems until I saw how I was interfering by offering ‘solutions’. It has not been easy to stand by and watch people suffer but if we can allow them the space to feel the consequences of their choices they may eventually take responsibility for them and take action to make changes. It is true that our best support is to live in a way so we can demonstrate another way of being ‘that offers a clear reflection for another’.
I too have also been a fixer in the past, when I look back I wonder what I was trying to fix, their problem or perhaps the more honest answer would be it made me feel good about myself, because at the time I was needing people to make me feel more worthy.
I have always been the fixer in the family, right from day one so I know exactly where you’re coming from. I also know that it doesn’t help anyone apart from making me feel better and giving me a sense of control. What’s even better is that I’ve learnt so much from Serge Benhayon and his family that I now know when I’m in ‘fixing’ mode and what it feels like and can stop and take a moment to allow and simply be there. It’s work in progress but thank you Carmel for your clarity.
This comment Michael and Lucia’s above has just given me a valuable aha moment. Wanting to fix someone is about needing to control or be in control. Wanting to fix someone or offer advice is not coming from compassion or understanding; rather from expectations and ideals and beliefs, wanting and actually needing things to be a certain way, My way. Could this be because I do not think I am enough just for being me I wonder? I feel I am heading down the road towards not just an aha, but now an ouch. I welcome it, thank you Carmel for writing this.
true Suzanne and also i feel that the wanting to control it comes from not actually wanting to feel what the other person is choosing in their life and for me at times also avoiding the reflection of where i do not fully take responsibility for everything in my life and the fact that i have the power to change what is not loving. Because..are we not in a way saying to the other you are not capable of doing this yourself without help from the outside when we go into the fixing mode?
Wanting to fix situations and people can be very subtle sometimes and also feels like a form of control. I love the way you describe the best way to support someone without trying to fix their problems “but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part.” This is something I am also learning… Thank you Carmel
I caught myself out the other day doing the opposite – I ran away when a situation felt uncomfortable – that wasn’t helpful at all – I could have stayed and just been there in a supportive way, just breathing quietly and staying connected with me, no need to say anything. It was interesting to reflect on what I did and the old patterns of behaviour that I can now choose to let go of.
I guess sometimes we go to the other extreme before we nail just be-ing. At least that’s been my experience 🙂
Ha ha yes, there is definitely somewhere in the middle isn’t there. Running away is just as unhelpful and taking over.
I’m learning more and more that I don’t even need to say anything, just live and be. It’s all about energy and people will feel the truth of how I am living and be inspired or not, it’s as simple as that, and if I am not living myself fully, then how can i possibly judge another?
Thank you Carmel, that is a great reminder – just live and be is the key and all the expression that is needed will derive from that place.
I am sometimes surprised by the way I am just appreciated by people for just being me, and cannot believe that it is as simple as that. For me this tells me that I do not appreciate myself enough for just being myself and still cary the belief that life should be complicated in any way.
Carmel, I could so relate to this. I am also known for being quite direct and I can definitely say that I have gone into ‘fix it’ mode quite a lot. It has been a great process for me too in developing supporting others, simply by being me and not having to ‘do’ anything in most situations. Serge Benhayon, his family and many Esoteric practitioners have been great support and role models for me in this, as they have supported me and not tried to ‘fix’ me over the years.
I wholeheartedly agree with you Amelia, in that I too have been supported by esoteric practitioners to feel my own way out of a hole, instead of being told how to fix myself or what I need to do. Carmel’s blog has really opened my eyes to my behaviour, stuff that I am still doing but need not. I have that choice now. hurray 🙂
I love what you write. It is so simple ‘to offer a reflection by the way we live and are with others’, yet so hard, I guess for many of us. We like to fix others lives, but actually I realized we judge their choices instead of accept them who they are including the choices they make from where they are at. Let’s face it, I am sure a lot of people think a lot of my choices and what inspires me most is people who live their lives in a way that makes me ponder about my way of living and eventually try something out because I see it has an effect in other peoples life.
What a great reminder Carmel Reid, that we do not have to have the solution for other peoples issues. It is indeed more about being fully present with the other person when they ask for any help in order to assist them in becoming more aware of the power of their own choices in life.
So beautifully put nvanhaastrecht. I have been on the receiving end of someone being fully present when I am the one asking for help and it is a very special feeling; I feel much more clarity as I speak of my problems, and usually end up answering my own questions. It feels so empowering to be able to figure things out for myself, but with the support of someone else being simply their loving selves to enact this outcome. Such magic.
So true Carmel, taking responsibility to fix other’s problem has only ever been a big distraction for me so I don’t feel my own emptiness and get a feel good from helping others.
I agree, Jenny, we use it to feel good and avoid our own emptiness – I’m finding it’s very subtle, this helping – so ingrained that sometimes I don’t even realise I’m doing it, until my body says ‘I don’t feel very well’ or I feel tired, then I know.
Worrying about other people and wondering what can be done to help has been a huge distraction for me too. Now I offer help and support should they need it, and get on with sorting my own life in a loving and caring way.
Yes the old ‘feel good I helped someone out’ chestnut! We have to discern whether we are supporting someone or just distracting ourselves from what is going on in our own lives.
Interestingly what I could feel when I read your blog Carmel was that it must be somewhat of a relief to not feel like you have to fix everyone’s problems! All that time to spend on being the lovely you, and offering support where needed. Wonderful.
So fixing others problems is another avoidance technique I have used to not fix me!
Absolutely – it is easy to try and “fix” other people but avoid going deeper with ourselves. Once we understand how to truly connect to who we are, we stop trying to fix others and just lead by example/reflection.
Absolutely Catherine I know this very well. A huge distraction for me to try and fix others who were perceived to be worse off than me. Apart from the distraction I can feel the arrogance of this now. Its is great to feel this and life is much more truthful and responsible.
Me too Catherine! Having the constant need to save, fix and take on the responsibilities of others is kind of like going out and renovating everyone elses home while keeping your own home in complete disrepair. How disrespectful to yourself is that!
I would often step in and try to fix a problem that either one of my daughters had, this did not support them to take responsibility for their actions. Since I have stepped back from this they are discovering that they are very, very capable young women. I learnt …..mind you it has taken me a while… that I was actually crippling their development when I went into fix it mode.
I have the same experience with a family member Mary-Louisemyers. I spent a great part of my life trying to keep their head above the water and now realise they therefore never really learned to swim. It may be hard to witness at times, when somebody seems to be drowning in their own choices but as Carmel described it is not up to us to interfere with their free will. We do however have the power of reflection and by holding another in love and understanding, we support them so much more then by offering solutions or taking on their problems and trying to fix them.
‘We do however have the power of reflection and by holding another in love and understanding, we support them’ Beautifully said, Carolien, and Mary-Louise’s words ‘crippling their development’ are a great way for us to pull ourselves up short, because, of course, that was never our intention – or was it? Could it be that we were invested in being needed? It’s great to let go of old beliefs around what actually helps people and to watch them grow through reflection and experience, and not to be attached to our part in that.
i would say definitely so in my experience Carmel. At some point in my life i clearly felt how i would get a feeling of worthiness by being able to help others which was filling up the lack of self worth within me. And looking at that more closely showed me how that automatically meant i needed people to have problems. Ouch!
Great points Carolien and Carmel, yes there is the urge to rescue people and help to fix things, but is that coming from a true intention? It could be there is an investment in it because of identity or worthiness, or as I have found for me, that I don’t want to feel uncomfortable because of anothers hurt which is really because it is tapping into hurts I have unresolved in me.. So the easiest course of action is to go into sympathy and rescue. Which doesn’t truly heal anything.
That is so true marylouisemyers and something for all parents to consider. The tricky part is seeing other people, especially close family members, make choices which are not in their best interests and not try to ‘fix’ their problems. Otherwise as I know happened with me, I do not learn and then go onto make the same choices just more extreme ones!
Yes absolutely James, learning not to fix our kids, but allowing them to develop responsibility for themselves is what true parenting is all about.
It is amazing the different way children and even adults respond when you give them the space to take responsibility for themselves and actions and do not simply tell them do this or don’t do that.
I have had this experience too marylouisemyers. Their learning has taken twice as long in certain aspects than it would have done had I let them work it out for themselves… I have realised they are also far smarter for having had to work it out for themselves and very capable when out with friends in situations that I would have thought I needed to fix in the past.
Like so many of these blogs, this article offers true wisdom coming from a well lived experience. Nice one Carmel.
Carmel’s blogs are so rich and so very clear. I always settle in when I read them because I feel the depth of experience and truth in them. They also deepen my appreciation of people and life.
Well said kevmchardy, and when we learn from others lived experience sometimes it helps us to break that very same pattern ourselves or even better, learn how not to go down that path ourselves in the first place. Sharing the wisdom from what we learn from our mistakes and imperfections can be priceless for everyone.
Great article true reflection.
I agree definitely agree it is a great article with a true reflection, something i can resonate with .
Yes I agree this is a great article and offers true wisdom and reflection.
Thanks Carmel, this is really interesting because for me I had beliefs that being involved (or enmeshed) was an expression of love, not standing back. For me going into fixing mode with others usually involves some need on my part for that person to be a certain way. The worst part of this for me is feeling I know better, instead of remaining open to learn from that person exactly as they are. Fixing for me means I have often stepped into judging that person as needing to be fixed instead of accepting and loving them exactly as they are. When I’m in fixing mode I miss out on receiving the person, and instead am fixated (pun intended!) on the details of their life. Missing out on being with the essence of that person is what hurts the most. Thanks for the opportunity to look at all this. Please keep writing!
In the past I would have been flat out listening to someone, thought that they were whinging or a being a sook but all the time knew if I listened it would trigger something for me and I didn’t want to hear it, thankfully these days I have my listening ears on and they are like satellite dishes…. It’s amazing what you actually hear when you listen.
I can so relate Carmel, only in my case you could add a bit of martyr to the mix. In fact if I had been at the crucifixion I possibly would have fixed the situation by getting onto the cross! That was before Universal Medicine and the inspiration of Serge Benhayon.
Thanks for sharing Carmel. I can relate to the fixing peoples problems to make it easier for them, but in fact I was trying to make it easier for me in a lot of circumstances to avoid how uncomfortable I was feeling.
I now understand we can’t see where the issue is necessarily coming from, this life, past lives etc. – that really helped me look at it differently.
I still catch myself though and then it’s a case of… next time connect & feel
This is one such loving reflection for me Carmel, thank you for sharing.
This is a great blog, in reading it I considered my own job. While teaching I often find I speak too much when so many words are not needed nor helpful. Just having my presence to support them along with a few simple instructions. This is a great learning to observe myself in teaching and see that the skill is in less is more. That way I am not fixing but allowing and that is far more powerful for all concerned.
“It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.”
Carmel I love what you have presented here and it reflects how the best help we can offer is to listen and to also take care of my own issues. I know I have often been willing to jump in and help a friend (and still would) but I can clearly feel how I used helping with everyone else’s problems as a way to avoid looking at my own. I also never considered how it felt in my body.
I relate to this Carmel as I feel like I have done exactly the same thing. Dishonoured my body and gone into saving mode. My tactic is a little different though… It’s been about pleasing the other person and telling them what they want to hear in order to appease them so they think or feel they are fixed or feel better. Crazy tactics I have that stop me truly being there and giving them my whole self.
Something cool happened to me the other day – I was having a moment of trying to fix someone and your blog came to mind and helped me to see it for what it was. Underneath my suggestions to make the person feel better was a need for me to not feel anxious. Thanks Carmel.
Carmel I can so relate to what you are saying. I have also been a fixer so much so that if there is a problem in my family (parents, 8 brothers and sisters) it was usually me that they called!. For many years this was part of my fulfilment in life and I loved it even though in hindsight it really drained me. I now realise what a disservice this is for everyone including me and the needing to be needed was just another way of avoiding me!
Life is forever a feedback of the consequences… my willingness and presence of being to listen is the growing gift that I am developing.
Thanks Carmel. Other people’s problems are so much easier to handle, and a great distraction from having to take that deeper awareness to one’s own issues. I have also found myself wanting to ‘fix’ things so that I can feel more comfortable with a situation rather than allowing others to play out their own learnings, but it’s always interesting to explore why it makes me feel uncomfortable. Everything has a way of teaching us something.
Such wisdom Carmel – indeed, the gentle presence heals all.
Thank you Carmel, a light bulb moment happened when you described getting backache when being in fix it mode. It made me more aware of my own past behaviours of “needing to fix” others. This was coming from wanting acceptance & recognition and needing control of the situation so I could feel ‘safe’.
Letting go of being a “ fixer” has been one of the best steps I have made in having a loving relationship with my wife. Instead of just listening when something was being expressed, I would immediately construct scenarios of fixing… missing the point totally ☺ It has been great to be able to let go of this old pattern by being able to reconnect to my inner self. Thank you Universal Medicine for the constant reflection of truth.
I can relate to your story Carmel. I have been a fixer, but never took the time to ponder on my own problems as I gave the time to everyone else’s. Now it is time for me and it feels great.
I am with you Carmel. I was a compulsive ‘fixer’ not that I really cared about the fixing part, I was more interested in not fixing my own life – it was far easier (?) to distract myself with other people’s problems than to actually work on myself and my own life. Your last sentence, ‘Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another’, is also how it is for me. Thank you.
The problem I had with ‘fixing’ in the past is that it distracted me from looking at what was going on with me, or appreciating what didn’t need to be ‘fixed’ in a person or situation.
It is actually quiet self indulgent to behave this way.
Thank you Carmel for taking the time to share your incredible and amazing insights about having once been in the role of, ‘being a fixer’.
Reading this blog has given me such insight into my helping and fixing of other, you have helped me see my arrogance that I too think I know what’s best for another and impose my ideas on them (at times very forcefully).
When you said, ‘”It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.”
It made me realise the harm I cause to another by jumping in and helping them and imposing what I think is best, it’s also a way I avoid taking responsibility by avoiding the areas of my life that need my attention.
Carmel when I read the title to your article I flashed forward a few hundred years and envisaged a time when every single person on the planet will be able to write a blog titled ‘All my life I’ve been me’. Glorious days ahead!
Totally agree Brendan. To just listen to someone and not offer a solution is so powerful as it holds them in absolute respect and love – knowing that they have or will have their own way forward with the issue at hand.
I can relate to your story of being a ‘fixer’ Carmel, and as I’ve read through some of the comments, a memory of this started when I was a child. When there was disharmony at home, I used to call on my cuteness and sweetness and would distract the adults by this. After an argument between my parents, I could feel their unhappiness and dis-ease with what was going on, and I would come in to make them feel better, or attempt to diffuse the situation to prevent it getting worse. Thank you Carmel for the reflection.
You raise some great points here Carmel, and ones that I’ve no doubt many people, myself included, can really relate to and can learn from. As a friend and mother, I’ve often gone into fix it mode, instead of listening mode, thinking I had the tools and wisdom that the other needed to hear. Sometimes I do, but I have been realising that it is often much more helpful for me to listen and allow the other to come to their own solutions or understanding of their own predicament. I’ve worked out that this really is the way for real change to come about and be permanent. Thank you for your clarity here.
Spot on Brendan, it’s in the quality of presence that we offer to another that allows them to connect to their inner wisdom allowing true inspiration to occur.
Carmel, this had also been something that I had done in my life, wanting to fix everyone’s problems because I thought I knew better.
But now seeing as you said.” Being distracted from living my own life “in the process. Now because I am listening to my body I get the opportunity to catch myself and make a different choice. A more loving choice for myself and others.
I love this blog Carmel and all the comments and discussions it has opened up. Thank you again for bringing this up.
Thank you Carmel. Fixing, as well as keeping us very busy and distracted, takes another’s power away. As a mother I have had to learn how to step back and allow my child to make his own way. How amazing it is when we do – far less exhausting for us, and watching the expansion and self development that occurs is beautiful.
Dear Carmel, I can so relate to this, as I have been quite a bit of a fixer myself. Then my body started to show me as well that this was hurting me. So if it’s hurting me it must be not supportive to the person I’m trying to ‘fix’. It is very freeing to become aware of this, and to take responsibility for myself, and allowing others to take responsibility for themselves as well.
Thank you Carmel, a light bulb moment happened when you described getting backache when being in fix it mode. It made me more aware of my own past behaviours of “needing to fix” others. This was coming from wanting acceptance & recognition, and needing control of the situation so I could feel ‘safe’.
Yes Carmel I can be a fixer at times too, but for me I feel I am more a “over helper.” I sometimes go way out of my way to help others and this not only exhausts me but doesn’t allow others to evolve and take responsibility for themselves. I am learning to be much more aware of this and taking a much bigger step back from over doing things for others and it feels a lot better in my body.
Great article Carmel. Other peoples problems can be a great distraction. “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.” Absolutely, it’s actually very disempowering and retards their own evolution. The only way to grow from a situation is to have the awareness and honesty to see what is really going on, then what to do about it becomes the easy part.
Nice one Carmel, I was a rescuer – never thinking for a moment I was the one who should need rescuing! So easy to live ‘outside ourselves’ and tsk tsk at the world around us. Living vicariously is what every soap opera is wanting us to do. Great article and agree that the loving acceptance and judgement free world of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine is simply the way. The amazing relationship with self and just being present with self amongst others is enormously lightening. Pesky soap operas – they seem to run for so long!
I can relate to this on both sides and it doesn’t feel equal from either end of it. You’re either less or more than and neither really allows for true connection.
I’m amused by your article Carmel as I too used to also use this tactic – enjoy fixing other peoples problems, but in doing so distracting myself from living my own life. Fixing is a great way to not address areas of our own lives that may not feel so good but need to eventually be looked at.
Absolutely Rosanna, ‘fixing’ other people’s problems has been a great distraction for me for not living my own life or looking at areas in my life that needed looking at. How awesome is it to support somebody by just being there fully, allowing the person to find their own answers.
After many years of ‘fixing’ life I have come to see that issues and ‘problems’ are not wrong at all but gifts for us all to unwrap, in our own time. If you truly want to help someone the greatest gift you can offer is the tenderness of your presence and an open heart. When I see you Carmel this is exactly what I feel.
Beautiful Joseph!
Joseph, that is so beautiful what you are saying here: Issues and problems are not wrong at all, but gifts for us all to unwrap, in our own time. And if you truly want to help someone the greatest gift you offer is the tenderness of your presence and an open heart.
I totally agree with what you wrote and especially “true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices”. Thank you for writing this.
Thanks Carmel! I have much to learn from this article. Whilst I’m aware of my ‘fixing’ tendencies….I still find myself offering solutions constantly to those around me, namely my family, and I’m pretty sure they have never actually asked me for advice and I’m also pretty sure they don’t want my advice, especially in the frustration and arrogance with which I offer it…for free of course!
It is definitely something I am working on as it’s been a very very ingrained pattern of behaviour.
Thank you for a great blog Carmel, I can relate to what you have shared. I too was known in the family as wanting to be a fixer, not always appreciated.
Another related trait I suddenly remembered was when listening to Serge Benhayon presenting something important, I would then go straight into my head, thinking how important it was to tell one or other of my sons about this, then immediately losing the thread of what Serge was presenting through going into my head, in the wish to ‘fix’ my sons, whereas the real help for them at that moment would have been to listen and feel very carefully into what was being shared, and put into practice what felt right for me. That way, I would have been able to be a reflection to them of another way to live, rather than telling them what to do.
Beverley, I can relate to what you shared about when being at a presentation and hearing something that is so inspiring there is a part that seems to hone in and wish “if only that ‘so and so’, friend, family member, or whoever could hear this”, but of course time and a developing awareness has shown me that that very rarely works, for it can be seen or received as an imposition…and, at a deeper level, my having to accept that oftentimes it is not yet time for this or that friend/family member to be exposed to such a piece of information per se – however, what I am learning over time is that it is enough for me to be inspired, and from that inspiration my own evolving way of livingness may be all that is required to thus be the inspiration for others. How simple it is really -not complicated at all – just remembering to be the love that we truly are within, as has been shared with us many times through the presentations of Universal Medicine.
Wow Beverley, I love what you express here and I can totally relate. It’s such a familiar way – we already jump to the ‘solution’ for somebody else, rather than letting the new learning and knowing really get embodied within ourselves, so we reflect that true way of being ourselves from here on. Healing ourselves first is so important, instead of trying to get somebody else/everybody to get there, so we don’t have to be uncomfortable with where we judge them to be at.
We must perhaps have a lot of arrogance to be trying to fix someone else’s issues when we are not prepared to even glance at our own.
Good one Josh.
Yes, when our own way of being is far from healed – where exactly do these solutions come from? and with what energy? When we address things in our own life we support everyone and inspire them to do the same.
I felt more than a bit of an ouch! reading this again, Carmel. The words, “my arrogance in thinking I know what they should do and having no hesitation in telling them so,” really hit home. For how can I assume to know what is right for another? And when we understand that no one actually ‘needs to be fixed’, just the time and space to come to their own understandings, then all the pressure to be right and to carry the burden of other peoples problems, goes away and makes room for the true compassion you write about. I’m learning, albeit slowly, that this compassion is what is most worth having when faced with the problems of others.
When I go into fixing, I feel there’s a sense of self-righteous, and also a kind of distrust, or should I say a lack of understanding of the others’ ability to find a way to heal themselves, which feels suffocating when I am on the receiving end of it. So, that which may appear to be a kind gesture has no love in it.
Hi Fumiyo, yes, I can feel I’ve done that too – the sense of self-righteousness – just making ourselves feel ‘better’ but at another’s expense. How much greater to allow that they DO know and to support them in that.
I can just see a street filled with beautiful houses that are clean and constantly being fixed by bob the builder, bob represents us, however when you go to bobs house, your house, you see so much dirt, paint peeling off, windows smashed, and a broken fence but we cant fix or look at our houses issues because we are so busy with everyone else’s.
Such an awesome learning, thanks Carmel.
Fantastic image and example Madeline. I can see it this way too.
Brilliant Madeline and so true!
Woao, I need to come back to this blog again and I can see on the number of comments that many have.
I am realizing how much I have identified myself by being the Fixer and doing Good for others. I am in the process of letting that go and it is very liberating. But really, can I just be me and that will be enough? There is such a strong belief in me that I have to try to be more.
Yep I can relate to that, Judith. Trying to be more, and always be ahead of others, with the right suggestions and solutions, is very exhausting and in the meantime we lose our connection to our own life.
I can relate to much you have expressed here Carmel. When I slip back into solution or ‘fix it’ mode, usually around family it is often because I don’t want feel something in me, or want to relieve the tension their challenging situation is bringing up in me. It is all about acceptance…or lack of it. It is actually an arrogance to think we ‘know better’ or have the solutions for another and it doesn’t leave space for true communication or equality. I am coming to appreciate it is enough to simply be myself while allowing another the same grace.
Very true Victoria, I can relate to not wanting to accept and feel what is happening in a challenging situation and that trying to fix it or offer a solution relieves me of that tension. To develop the art of allowing another to be but still offering a reflection is that the solution? Oops I fell into trying to fix it again!
I can relate to your last sentence, Jenny, think I am getting on top of not trying to fix family things, but it creeps back in in very subtle ways, back into trying to fix it again.
Great blog for all us ‘fixers’ thank you Carmel. And Victoria, I think you’ve really nailed it and especially for me, ‘It is all about acceptance’. Jumping straight in with ‘solutions’ is still something I have to watch out for, but now if I do, it actually doesn’t feel too nice. The old pattern of needing to ‘fix’ other people’s issues and problems sure is a drain on oneself, as well as being imposing, and coming from an emptiness that is needy of recognition; and avoids feeling what is really going on. How much lovelier is it to simply listen with understanding.
Victoria, I have also been a fixer, and mostly with family, as well as others. I can feel now how if I try to fix others that I’m am not allowing them the space or the joy of feeling what is right for them. And as you say to just be myself and allow them to feel this is all that is needed.
Wow I can really relate here Carmel. I too have fallen victim to being a ‘fixer’, I have know it to be, yes, around arrogance – but also control; needing others to understand something as I do so I can relax! It really is about being able to demonstrate the truth by the way we live, not so much in what we say.
to the point Carmel ! Thanks for your reflections around ‘ fixing others ‘.
Thank you Carmel for this honest blog about a subject that I can certainly relate to very well. Especially the part how it affects the body – I am becoming more and more aware of how much hardness this attempt of fixing and doing good for others creates in my body. I am enough and I bring so much to humanity just by being who I truly am. I need to remind myself of this truth daily.
I smiled as I read this Carmel (a kind of cringey smile) as I can totally relate to what you’ve shared. I catch myself going into fix it mode when someone is talking with me about a situation or problem…but they are just expressing, not asking for a solution. I’ve realised that I am not actually helping them by offering a solution and that just listening is way more helpful as it provides an opportunity for them to talk and hear what they’re saying, and invariably they come up with their own answers, or just feel more resolved by having had someone listen to them.
Thank you Carmel, I can definitely can relate to your story. Most of my life I too wanted to fix everybody’s problems, and created it in a way that everyone knew I was the person that they could come to when they needed help. I lived this way until I started to connect and honour my body and then the pin dropped, as you shared it is just about the connection to our bodies and the honouring of that and to know that’s what is simply needed for others to feel.
So true Francisco, it is liberating to know that my responsibility is to be all of me and honour my body and that is what others can feel and enquire about.
I often feeI compelled to try to fix people, specially the ones close to me, I almost get anxious about it, as if they would be totally lost in their pain without me, and I find it so hard to see them suffer or being stuck. So this blog is very supportive for me to look at what’s going on with me. I am grateful for your clarity on this, Carmel, I can now relax a bit more and trust that my loved ones do have their own wisdom and awareness, in their own way.
Hi Carmel, this blog is a great reminder to all of us that rushing in and ‘helping ‘ someone is not necessarily the best thing to do. Everybody has a responsibility to learn from each situation and if we step in and provide solutions and not allow them the opportunity to learn, then these situations will reoccur until they learn what they need to.
Thank you Carmel for this beautiful blog. I could not but start smiling, because I know this “fixing mode” so well.
I have done this a lot, especially with my family. But it was more a very refined way of manipulating people to what I felt to be right rather than openly saying it. This gave me the feeling of being good, loving and caring and afterwards I could feel altruistic, happy or disgruntled if my plans had not worked out.
Looking back I am just stunned how arrogant, abusive and limiting this was. In fact it only helped me not to take the responsibility for my life and work on my own issues and hurts.
In the past I was often frustrated with my family and their patterns – now I know that I was hurting myself even more then they did at that time, though less obvious.
Since stopping this habit about three quarters of a year ago amazing things have happened. My relationships have deepened and blossomed, the love for myself is growing day by day and my family has made loving choices and started to blossom in a way I never would have thought to be possible. It is so beautiful to feel the true equalness and love when we are meeting now.
Ask any man whether ‘fixing’ mode ever works, ask any woman whether ‘fixing’ mode ever works – same answer. Since insanity is to repeat a task the same way, getting the same outcome but then to continue repeating it again and again in the hope of something different well….
Carmel this used to be my way of living in the past i.e. Living in Fixing Other People’s problems, I didn’t have any cause I was always too busy helping or in that arrogant way of fixing things for others. Sometimes it came from truth and feeling my body and sometimes it didn’t but I didn’t know the difference. I too had back problems, in fact a conversation with someone or at times thinking of certain people would trigger a back ache..I had tried all sorts of therapies like physio, chiro that was out there to support my back.. It was only through Universal Medicine practitioner’s support and Serge Benhayon that I could see how I was living and how that was affecting my body. I am free from that way of old living (well not to perfection) and forever learning to listen to my body and express and live from there. Reading your blog really took me back to where I was and also appreciating where I am at now.
wow Carmel, I just feel a weight drop off my shoulders when I realise that I don’t need to fix other people’s problems and that in fact it is more important to get on with my own life. The only way that others are helped in their life is by seeing another person who is living truth and consistency in their own life.
This is so true Carmel! I have also learned that to truly help someone does not mean to give them a solution for their woes. Sometimes just being there and feeling what is going on but not choosing to take it on in any way is what is truly needed. Like you beautifully said: “All my life I’ve been a fixer but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices.”
I am really beginning to understand that I am enough without fixing anything for anyone else.
Being a ‘fixer’ robs the other person from feeling their choices along the way. When I remain present and deeply connected with who I am then my reflection can offer true support.
Carmel this is a great article. Thank you.
“By simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another!” I loved this summary to your blog Carmel.
I can remember someone that I thought I was helping recoil as I was showing them what to do to ‘solve’ their problem I could feel at that moment how I was imposing on them and what I was offering was neither helping or needed. It is so easy to think we are helping someone without stopping to feel if that is what they really want and then wonder why communications break down or things go wrong and frustration turns into resentment. A great blog Carmel I could recognise many of the fixer’s ways in me.
What a great reflection this is. This has really made me consider how I easily go into fixer mode, thinking I know what is a good idea or something that will really help. What I really can do is be living my own life and inspire from a true foundation of living well and taking responsibility for my own stuff. Thanks Carmel. Well called.
Thank you Carmel – this was how I had chosen to live my life in the past as well; but,
it was very exhausting on my body. It is wonderful to make changes in our lives that
everyone will benefit from.
This is such a great article and I can so relate to this as I have spent years taking on other family and friends problems and so not getting on with my own life .Since meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I too have learnt to listen and to not try and fix their problems and that by simply living a way lovingly this then offers a clear reflection for another.Thank you Carmel for sharing this wisdom.
It’s fascinating to read how you can feel through your body when you are not on the right track..”I become aware of a backache when I’m in “fixing mode”. What I’ve learnt is that this is my body’s way of telling me that I am ‘putting my back’ into, i.e. working on, something that is none of my business” Love it!
Yes, your post is a good reminder to me that I don’t need to be the one to fix all my children’s problems.
Carmel – great article. Going into ‘fixing someone else’s problem mode’ is familiar to me too. I still sometimes slip into that, most recently with my partner – telling him “what I’d do if I were him” rather than just letting him share without such imposition – and I immediately felt tension in my body. It took me a bit to realize what had happened, and then I went back to him and apologized and re-committed to my intention to, as you said so beautifully, “simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices.”
Awesome contribution, Carmel – and great that your body is letting you know when you are in fixing mode. Anybody who has had that kind of fixing mode inflicted upon them, knows how truly awful it feels, getting swamped with unsolicited advice and solutions.
I can so relate to this article as I find it is so easy to go into fixing mode, fixing and solutions. I often find myself offering fixes before I am consciously aware of the fact. It’s good to catch these moments and bring a deeper listening to what is being shared with me.
I often to refer to ‘fix it’ mode as ‘shut down’ mode. I notice when I go into fix it or offering solutions it is because I don’t want to feel what is being presented. Sometimes it is really hard to sit with a loved one whilst they are in pain, or listen to someone share something that also triggers a hurt in us, so our first protective behavior is to go into fix it mode, offer solutions so we no longer have to feel it. But as you have beautifully shared this does not support anyone. Here is to a world with a lot more feeling and a lot less fixing, as you have expressed beautifully Carmel that is true support.
Reading the first paragraph of this article made me feel tired, all that thinking and worrying about fixing people’s issues. I was then deeply touched about relating this to the body, seeing how I may have given up on the really obvious trying to fix people, but at times I have still lost myself, or give my energy away by trying to ‘support’ people – thinking this is not trying to ‘fix’ them, but it’s actually just a better or less obvious version of fixing. From this article I can clearly feel that my body is the marker, of feeling if I am just being me, and allowing my presence and grace to be the power, or if I am trying to do or be something for someone.
Thank you Danielle, this resonates for me too – ” if I am just being me, and allowing my presence and grace to be the power, or if I am trying to do or be something for someone”.
The trying to do or be….brings on exhaustion as a marker in my body I am off track.
Absolutely Danielle, a powerful point, trying to do for someone else is such a draining experience for my body and often imposing. Whilst the power of being me requires no effort or force.
Thank you Carmel. I too was in the arrogance for many, many years that I knew how people needed to ‘fix’ their problems – and told them so. In this way I alienated and sent people running in the opposite direction which I then criticised them for, but I have come to realise that the way I was delivering what I was picking up on was hard and bossy (to say the least), especially when the ‘advice’ wasn’t asked for. Nowadays, I too am feeling the amazingness of true compassion – understanding – and simply allowing myself to BE myself with them. This way is a billion times more supportive and healing for me and them, and if there is something to be said then I deliver it with the tenderness of a feather, instead of the force of a plank of timber to the head! “…now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part.”
Thanks for this blog Carmel. It offers a clear reflection of what true support is in helping others, as opposed to the other version of ‘helping’ that we know to be an imposition on another – which serves no one…
THIS. IS. ME. Or at least it was! I am also a ‘work in progress’ Carmel. What has tripped me up in the past and if I’m completely honest, still does, is when I sense the pain of another I want to rush in and ‘make it all better’. I don’t want them to feel the pain. Not only is taking on the woes of another exhausting for me, it is deeply insulting to them. Although on the surface they may enjoy the relief afforded when someone else does their ‘dirty work’ for them, deep down they are denied, or even ‘robbed’ of the beauty of feeling and dealing with the problem in their own unique way and the personal evolution (growth) thereby on offer. By having an agenda to ‘fix’, I am effectively stunting their growth – hardly a loving thing to do. Far better to listen, feel and speak from the heart when it feels true, rather than rush in with a heady mix of solutions and fixer-uppering! Sometimes we can caught being identified with such roles instead of simply being love.
“…taking responsibility for fixing other people’s problems and being so forward with offering ‘solutions’ is not always the best way to support someone” and “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.” These really hit the nail on the head! I was ‘guilty’ of this for years, not understanding that there is a different and much more effective way to truly help another. No-one until Serge Benhayon had ever communicated this to me, or was this way when I went for help with my problems, and I’m very grateful to him for being an example and opening my eyes to being with myself first and feeling every situation.
I too have been a ‘fixer’ and have felt how I’ve interfered with the process of supporting others to come to their own place of understanding.
I would be most put out when I’d share what others needed to do to fix their problem and they didn’t follow my excellent advice.
Of course there were times when the advice I’d be giving would not be what I’d be living, but we were fixing their problems, not mine!
How crazy the mind works. The beauty of where I’m now at with the support of Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and it’s many practitioners is that I connect to my body to really feel the truth of what’s going on.
Through the teachings of Ageless Wisdom I embrace that it’s all about the walk I’m walking.
Seeing others in pain and understanding that I can’t fix it can still bring up sympathy in me. By taking the time to pause and connect to my breath I allow myself a moment to remember that it’s all about allowing the space for others to feel the truth for themselves.
Carmel, you have just taken a page out of my life. I have always wanted to fix others.
But now I feel how imposing that is. I’m actually saying to them I don’t think you know the right thing to do, so I’ll just tell you what I think – not allowing them to come to something for themselves. We all have our our journey and only each of us can feel how to make a different choice that is right for us. So many points you said bought me to a stop.. Realising what I was doing to myself every time I tried to fix someone else and the effect it was having on me too. A great list of markers to remind me that I can only take responsibility for MY LIFE…
# I’ve spent hours thinking about different scenarios of how I could tell them, thinking of all the different things they needed to do to get a perfect result – and in doing so I have been distracted from living my own life
# Developing my awareness of what I am feeling and sorting my own life out, rather than distracting myself trying to fix anything outside of me. It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation
# My taking responsibility for fixing other people’s problems and being so forward with offering ‘solutions’ is not always the best way to support someone
# Not telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.
Interesting if not shocking that something that can be seen as a good, important thing to do – helping someone with all one´s engagement – can turn out to be a very arrogant and loveless behaviour that only serves oneself. Fixing gives a kick.
It is only with love that we start to see truth and allow each other to simply be – and it is so beautiful what can happen from there. Thanks Carmel for a great reflection.
‘All my life I’ve been a fixer but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part’.
I love the revelation in these words you bring Carmel, for I too have always been ‘a fixer’ but I now have come to realise that it is very arrogant and also comes with a good dose of control and judgement from me. By allowing a person to make their own choices offers true equality for they too are an equal Son of God.
It is never what I think that is right for this person; it is always what is true. A huge difference between right/wrong and true. And I love that your body is telling you when you go into your fixing mode. Listening to our bodies will make us the wise people we innately are.
Beautifully articulated Carmel. In ‘fixing’ we are seeing the other as less capable of their own awareness than we are… he or she is in no way empowered. Every day, I become more aware of the subtleties involved in expressing in a way that truly honours myself and others. In holding others as equally knowing of the same truth I may feel, or indeed a deeper truth, I needn’t impose one iota by ‘fixing’, or taking on someone’s issues.
Reading your words Victoria, I can feel how I have (cringe) played a part in ‘disempowering’ others by being the ‘fixer’ and how this position has made me feel ‘powerful’ because it becomes a substitute for the power I have relinquished by not living true to myself. Oh dear…thankyou x
The realisations, if we are willing, can be deeply powerful can’t they Liane… I remember looking at my husband one day, years ago, and realising that I’d been subtly (yet it was there…) seeing him as not having the same ability to be as aware as I felt I was, of what was underlying certain ‘issues’ in life he was dealing with. Monumental ouch! And how awfully arrogant that I hadn’t fully honoured his own learning and the opportunity for true wisdom through his own experiences, in his own way.
All that, when I know that for me, I most definitely learn in my own way! And that there is a marked difference between how it feels when someone tries to ‘fix me’, as opposed to when someone offers me a loving truth that comes with nil imposition, no need for self-gain on their part, and only holding me in a light I may not have yet held myself. The same is felt when someone just lets me be, and sees me for all that I am, without a word…
What continual opportunities for learning we have – if we are willing… 🙂
Thank you Carmel, I can truly relate to this article. I have in particular imposed my “fixing” on my daughters, telling them what they should do and how they should do it, always as I believed with nothing but the most loving intentions – to save them the hurts I had experienced in life. It has taken me a long time to understand and start letting go of this control. I felt I needed to “keep everything together”, unaware that behind all the “helpful fixing” was a need for my daughters to not be hurt, or for me to stop the hurt and make things better, so that I wouldn’t have to feel their pain (my own pain).We are all so ingenious at creating ways to distract ourselves from our own feelings!
Hi Rosemary, yes, it hurts to see those close to us hurting and there’s a kind of helpless feeling knowing that we can’t do anything to make it all better. But once we remember they have chosen their path – all the way – and we are simply there for support, and that we can all learn from each other, then it becomes much simpler. Once we stop offering solutions, it’s amazing what they come up with. It might not be what we would have chosen, but it is THEIR choice.
I found a while ago that it is so easy to get caught up in other peoples problems but isn’t this the easiest way to avoid our own?
Well said Carolien
So true Carolien. I used this tactic for years. Getting involved in others peoples lives whom I perceived as worse off than me to avoid my own issues. I am now struck by the arrogance of this and the many ways that we can distract ourselves from taking responsibility for our own lives.
Thanks Carmel, I completely resonate with this, the ease with which I can distract myself by going into fix it mode…when I do this, more often than not there is something that I am trying to avoid feeling. This blog is a timely reminder…to feel and not fix.
I love the way you write with such simplicity Carmel. I always learn something about myself form your blogs. I was never a fixer…I was the “fixee”, wanting others to tell me what to do and run my show for me.
Result = miserable life
Payoff = it is someone else’s fault.
Oh that feels awful to acknowledge, but how empowering to see it and feel it at last.
Finally I have taken ownership of my life. I have made quite a few mistakes along the way, but they are my mistakes, and I learn form them.
It is so freeing to take self-responsibility; freeing for myself and for the others I use to saddle with my neediness and unwillingness to commit.
Carmel, Thank you. I go into the fixing mode as well and have have been thinking about this over the last few weeks. As you have said, going into solutions and trying to fix the problem doesn’t help the other person at all, and doesn’t allow them to just be. Often people just want someone to be there not judging when something is going on for them, and if they want help, they will ask for it. I think for me, I don’t like seeing or hearing about when something is wrong with someone so i try to find a solution to whats going on so i don’t have to deal with it anymore or what its bringing up. I wonder why we do this ?
Thanks Carmel,
I too am a fixer in withdrawal. I still get the urge to fix every now and then – kind of a fixer’s fix of fixing! Like you, I suffer if I decide to have a little fix, and often find it quite difficult to get back to feeling my body again after the rush, leaving me tired and a bit numb.
Fortunately, I have found something even better, that is, the joy that I feel when I see someone I care about make a loving choice for themselves.
I feel my fixing days are nearly over – thank goodness for me and everyone else!!!
Hi Rob, I love your humour, and interesting the way you describe it as a ‘rush’. Fixing others is definitely addictive. And yes, I agree, it is great to observe when others make their own healthy choices – amazingly, the more I change my own way of living, I can see its direct effect as those around me begin to make changes in their lives – especially when I haven’t said a word!!!!
Carmel I have experienced the same, the more I have made changes in my life, others have began to make changes in their lives, without me having said a word to change.
I love they way you express this so playfully and I can feel the truth in it!
🙂 gorgeous Rob 🙂
There was a bit of a cringe factor going on for me when I read this amazing piece Carmel because that was me too. You have further expressed so well. Simply be there, be yourself and allow the loving space for others to connect to their own inner wisdom. It is beautiful and we all benefit.
‘We all have free will and life is forever reflecting back to us the consequences of our choices’ – Beautiful point Carmel. I have spent a long time trying to fix other people’s problems and ended up being exhausted as I became the ‘go to girl’ for advice. I fed on recognition at the cost of my own energy. Yes, I can naturally see things and understand situations with the clarity I bring, however and as you say Carmel, ‘people must develop their OWN awareness’. I can be there to offer expansion or another perspective but not take on the responsibility of ‘fixer’.
I can so relate to this article. I loved to help people with solutions or give advice. As you say, it is incredibly arrogant to assume that I have the answers and they dont! The more I have reclaimed my relationship with me and built my own self-worth, the less I have needed to fix other people to get my fix – of feeling needed, wise, supportive etc.
Hi Fiona, this is so true, that helping others is a kind of ‘fix’ for ourselves, but it is masking the problem of our own neediness. I still catch myself offering help and then realising that it was really for my own recognition or appreciation and not truly supportive. The wisdom is in being able to sense and know what is truly needed by another in each moment.
Beautiful and wise words Carmel, I am learning this too.
Hi Carmel, a very simple but important point you have raised in your blog, thank you.
Thank you Carmel, your article is a great read. Reminding us that by just simply being yourself, is more than enough.
Carmel, I needed to learn not to impose the hard way. Somebody asked me for help some years ago but didn’t want to follow my advice and was about to have a lot of trouble so I imposed myself on them. I got a fierce headache for three days until I apologised – That taught me.
Thank you Carmel. I,too, lived my life as a ‘fixer’, whether I was asked or not, and I wondered why people were resentful! I had not realised that ‘fixing it/them’ was a distraction that I was using to avoid ‘fixing’ (feeling) my own life.
Beautiful Janne – it’s amazing how many distractions we use to avoid looking at ourselves
Carmel thanks for showing me that the best solution to provide to another person for their problem is to allow them the space to just be.
A lot of people have taken on the role of fixer, I imagine I have done some of that myself, it’s hard not to when you think you know everything! 😉 My counselling style was all about telling another how it is, eventually I worked out that my particular style wasn’t working very well. To simply be who I am and allow another to be who they are, is still a work in progress, but the results so far are encouraging. Thanks Carmel, your honesty and awareness covered fixing others beautifully.
Stated beautifully Mark, ‘to simply be who I am and allow another to be who they are’ = acceptance, presence, equality, respect, simplicity all in one line.
Absolutely Alan and how powerful.
This is the key to so much isn’t it, simply allowing another to be who they are, however that may be, and not reacting to it, or hoping that they will change. I can feel as I write how much more free my body would feel, and how much more easily life would flow the more I stayed with this. It takes a lot of effort and holding to want people to change, or to be a different way.
I really recognise a lot of what you are saying Mark and also simply being who I am and allowing another to be who they are, is also a work in progress for me.
I too can relate to what you have written Carmel and how I have chosen this as a way of distracting me from dealing with my own problems. This way doesn’t serve anyone including myself. I also thank Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine Practitioners who don’t pander to me but allow me the space to ponder on my issues and to be more honest with myself and take responsibility for my choices.
I love this blog. To allow others the space and understanding is so very loving.
Thank you Carmel, this is very much what I have learnt or been reminded of through Serge Benhayon and the workshops I have done as well, “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.” This is parenting 101…if we fix all our children’s problems they never learnt that awareness for themselves and are therefore much more likely to repeat choices and end up with the same consequences that we tried to fix in the first place!!! oh me oh my 🙂
Thank you Carmel, for showing so clearly the issues with being a fixer for others. What it has highlighted for me is that I was a fixer in that I spent time going over other peoples problems and trying to figure out how to fix them. What a waste of energy, as all I have to do is feel and express. How simple is that!
Carmel this is such an important reminder – who are we to think we know what’s the ‘right’ choice for anyone other than ourselves. I love the simple way in which you point this out.
While I was reading your blog I was thinking of how I am with my children. You have just reflected for me to really look deep and be aware of my parenting. Do I really truly listen to them and how often do I become the ‘fixer’ in our relationship? Thank you for your reflection.
Thank you for your blog Carmel. It has been a process of letting go of wanting to fix ‘problems’ in my family for me, so when you say “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation” it reiterates my feelings that it can be imposing by not letting them make their own choices even if it appears that they are suffering. Through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have found a way to support others through having a deeper connection to myself first, and in this way I can offer support and thus allowing them to make their own choices.
Like so many others I can relate to your blog to the point that fixing had become my whole identity especially as a guy where what you did and how well you did it defines who you are. Being defined by what you do – that’s not a truth but definitely something I have fallen for and am still in the process of disentangling from.
Great work Dean. I had also become a professional fixer, and yes it is something that I feel men have become adept at. So adept, it just happens before we realise it’s going on. The great part about understanding this is that we have the opportunity to change.
We need to change, there is so much for men to offer as we get past our tough facade.
I welcome the change. There is something inside all men that is very beautiful and waiting to come out and I am determined to fully embrace it and make it my life.
Thank you Carmel for a great blog. I too have been a “fixer”, especially with the family. It has taken me a long while, with the realisations developed while working on me, with the great support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine practitioners, to realise that to some extent I was trying to control things around me, i.e. to make things feel more comfortable with family all being okay. All to keep the ‘peace’. Now I have learned to let them be, they have their journey to make and I need to leave them the space for their own realisations, IN THEIR OWN TIME.
Love this blog Carmel thank you! I can relate to so much of what you have written. I too have spent a lot of my life being a “Fixer” and can feel that I choose this so I didn’t have to feel the emptiness that I had inside. The more I choose to live in connection to my body the easier I find it to detach and allow people to have their own life experience without me having to come in and save them. I am committed to continuing to live with observation and detachment as this is such a deeply caring way to live for all.
thank you Carmel I can so relate when you write “My taking responsibility for fixing other people’s problems and being so forward with offering ‘solutions’ is not always the best way to support someone.”
Thank you Carmel for your wisdom about not choosing to be a “fixer” for others. I have recently witnessed the power and presence in a group when each can stay present, patient and loving for each other.
Thanks Carmel , As a self confessed fixer the big ouch for me has been understanding how much I have imposed and then interfered with the persons own natural evolution. By me telling them how to fix and sort something from my way/ideals beliefs or wisdoms it can in fact disempower or retard someone’s ability to grow through learning one of life’s lessons.
Beautifully said Carmel. It is so true fixing other peoples problems takes the responsibility away from them and hence the evolution or ‘healing’ they can get from a particular situation. It is particularly relevant for me to read at the moment as a parent with young teenagers (“tweens”)…letting them make their own choices so they can learn from their mistakes…it is a difficult one to do but as you say, providing them a loving space and a role model in me, they have the opportunity to stop and question what is supportive or not for them. There choices then come from them and not a direction from me, thus it far more empowering.
How great that you can see the part you have been playing as a ‘Fixer’ in peoples lives in the past. Connecting to how your body speaks to you everyday is a great loving tool to have. Well done Carmel
There is an arrogance in thinking I can fix someone else’s problem, I know I have done it, but I have also been on the other end of someone wanting to fix my supposed problems. In the past I would react, feeling like a frustrated angry child ready to throw a tantrum. Nowadays I try to listen to the wisdom of what they are communicating or expressing and not react from that.
Our bodies hold such profound wisdom, like how you said that you get back ache when you go into fixing. I am loving starting to listen to my body again for it is in this listening that I can understand whether situations, people, food are right for me. Thank you for your blog Carmel.
I too used to be a fixer and felt I always knew what was needed to ‘help’ someone with their situation. Through the loving support of Serge Benhayon and other Universal Medicine practitioners I came to see that it was really about proving to people I had value and I felt it gave them a reason for liking me or being friends with me. I have since come to know that I don’t need to have a reason for people to like me other than just being me nor do I have to prove anything. I have also come to learn how honouring it is to truly support someone. To listen to them if asked and to just hold them in a way that allows them to come to what they need themselves. You see I learnt that we all know what is needed (not just me!) and it is truly empowering for someone to get to it themselves and that I can support them in this process if they ask for it. A beautiful healing for both of us.
Thank you Carmel, I love the way you share that the only thing you have to do is to create a loving atmosphere for the other to make their own decisions. Its really only that, what’s needed, that’s a great realization.
Great sharing Carmel , to allow someone the space to express to truly listen and feel their expression does away with the need to control an outcome and leaves both in the freedom to be themselves.
I too can totally relate and would want to fix other people’s situations. I convinced myself that I was helping them and championed that for a long time until I felt that arrogance in me and chose to look at why I needed to do that for myself. And I too am learning to accept that I don’t have to have the answers and that in my just being present and allowing them to share what is going on for them, can bring their own realisations.
It’s so time consuming focusing on everyone else and their problems, avoiding our own needs. What is even worse is that we are so focused on finding the solution or answer for them immediately that we don’t even truly listen to what they really require. They don’t even get the opportunity to talk it though and come to the answer themselves.
We take another’s personal power away from them.
Being the fixer can be an easy trap to fall into. As a husband I felt it was my responsibility to be the fixer, to make everything right. Then if everything was right and good then my marriage would be good. This never worked and has prevented myself and my wife at the time from growing and taking responsibility for our own choices. I could hide behind the role of the fixer as it was easily seen that I was trying to do good, however, the true responsibility would have been to express what I knew to be true and deal with whatever was thrown at me. This is what I avoided from being the fixer.
Great article Carmel, I was once a member of the fixer club too. My compulsion to fix others usually came on the form of my trying to fix my wife. Sounds funny, but that is how my brain would operate when she would share her feelings or things that happened during the day. Instead of being present and truly listening to her, my mind would be busy coming up with solutions and usually my mouth would follow. These days I realise that this is not truly listening or caring about another, it is just coming up with fixes so I don’t have to be uncomfortable about another persons feelings.
I can totally relate. That feeling of when someone is sharing what’s going on for them and in my mind I am trying to think of the best advice to give them, or at least say something… anything at all.. that shows I am ‘trying to help’ or at least shows I am a decent person. But there are many times that it is not my place to say anything at all but to just be there providing the space for them to share and feel what is really going on for them.
I’ve learnt and beginning to accept that I don’t always need the answers.. I am allowed to just say ‘ok’ or ‘I don’t know’
I like to think of my self as a ‘reforming’ fixer too! Concentrating on others has allowed me to avoid feeling what is truly going on for me. I have never really considered how ‘disempowering’ this is for the receiver. Thank you.
Thank you Carmel and all contributing to this thread. I also have been a fixer, with friends, family and I even created a career around it. I have come to realize, as others have that it is actually pretty off to think that I know better than someone and that I need to tell them how to live. It may be true that there is support for another that could help the situation we see in front of us but there is a fine line between being the support they are asking for and telling them what they need. It is a worthwhile skill to learn as there are many who do need support.
Carmel as a reforming fixer myself I can completely relate and love what you have shared. For me being the fixer was like drug that gave me a sense that I had some worth. As I have let my fixing ways go and concentrated more on fixing what was going on for me, I have began to develop a true sense of worth that has nothing to do with what I can do for another!
Thank you for this Carmel, I can totally relate to taking a heavy responsibility for others and the choices they are making or have made in their own lives and what I am coming to realise more is that I don’t always come out and try to offer solutions but I do often go over the solutions in my own head, distracting and draining me from what it is that I need to be doing at the time – which is staying present with me, in my own body and becoming more aware of the choice I am making in each moment to actually choose this presence. Without this presence, something that is a natural way for me to live, the quality of compassion and understanding that I end up bringing to any other person doesn’t do what it naturally can – which is hold them in love and allow them to be themselves too.
‘Fixing’ is an old pattern that I can return to if I lose my awareness, because I’ve done it for so long. I used to love feeling that I was helping people, it made me feel good and was always so much easier to do than looking at my own issues. Now I realise I’m retarding others development by not allowing them to look at and solve their own issues, and I am also delaying my own development. I have the understanding now, not to fix, but just to be there in support, allowing them to take their own path. It is true compassion, to simply be there.
Thank you for sharing this Carmel. I can totally relate to what your saying here and whilst my “fix anything or anyone” mentality may have been a little more subtle, I realise now how it was all pervasive and often still imposing on another. I can occasionally still go into “fix it autopilot” but overall have a far greater awareness now and therefore it feels so much more natural and loving to just be there and allow people the space and time to come to their own understanding and choices.
Gorgeous! I love the simplicity of your revelations – to be a fixer is to not allow another to be responsible for their own choices, but being a reflection for others just in the way we live gives everyone the opportunity to truly feel for themselves, and perhaps in this space know that there might just maybe be another way of living.
Wunderbare Carmel, thank you so much for your amazing blog. I really like what you wrote about being a fixer and I find it very inspiring what you so clearly expose and your words: “now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part” This helps me as well – to stop and let people be.
This is so beautiful Carmel. I have been really seeing this and learning from it at the moment… so this has been a great confirmation reading your blog, of what I have felt. “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.” – so true, and I’m also seeing that when I’m in the role of ‘fixer’ it is usually when I don’t want to see or understand my situation, so then I jump in and focus and get involved in ‘fixing’ someone or something. Once I realise this I usually laugh and go oops did it again, and say “I should of just said it to myself in the mirror!”
It is lovely to feel the honesty with which you share. I, too, have been a ‘fixer’ and “true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices” is such a profound realisation.
Just reading a blog that’s written openly like this, is so supportive for others like myself, learning to use my body as the thermometer it is. Thank you for sharing your experience.
It is amazing how many of us can relate to what Carmel has said. Even though I am working on changing this pattern, I still catch myself trying to convince others to be like-minded with my way of thinking; a type of ‘my way is best (for you)’ or ‘see, I’m the expert so listen to me’. Such arrogance and disregard!
So true that letting go of control allows both another and ourselves to truly feel what is there to be felt and to be said. And that allowing opens up the space for true communication and connection with another.
Thank you Carmel for sharing your life as a fixer (I put my hand up for that one too!) and in doing so allowing so much more sharing to come forth in these comments.
Carmel I love what you say using that phrase “c’mon put your back into it”, meaning give it some effort and proper support, and yet the very thing that you feel in your body whenever you do this, is the pain that arises in your back! Isn’t the body such a reminder of what’s not working!
Great blog Carmel, I can completely relate to this. Some years ago I became aware of the arrogance of my “fixing” and wanting to make everything ok. Suppose someone is divinely given a situation for them to lovingly learn and evolve from and I come along and say no, “no let me take that situation away from you as I don’t like to see you in that discomfort” – then basically I am saying I know better than God – how arrogant and unloving is that!? It is only when I started to see the true harm I was causing to others and myself in always wanting to make things better that I got on top of it although the tendency still is there but much, much less. Since I fix less these days, more and more people actually come to me asking for support which I lovingly share but now from a completely different place and with far less need from my side for them to get it!
I never realised the correlation between backache and the ‘fixing’ mode and working on something that is not my business. Thank you for this awareness.
Thank you for this blog Carmel.
When I feel something, but ignore it, it leads to complications further down the line. I am learning to allow the discomfort, pay attention to what it is that I am truly feeling, and to honour it by expressing it in full without judgment.
Great to re-read your blog Carmel. I can feel that whenever I go into fixing mode there is not only an arrogance that ‘I have the answer’ but also a desire to control the situation. I too have been letting this go and can feel that by doing so creates a space for us both – the person has the space to feel what is true for them and I have space to feel from my body, what is true for me.
Beautifully expressed Jane, about how so much space is created for both parties when we let go of control and any arrogance that we have the answers to another’s problem.
Hi Jane, yes, the desire to ‘control the situation’ is something we can all experience as a way to ensure our own comfort, but allowing ourselves the space to feel what is true helps everyone to evolve.
that rings home to me Carmel – ‘control the situation’ to ensure I have my own comfort…. one that I have started to let go of and with that the protection and hardness drops away as well.
“Control” now that did ring a few bells with me Jane. Many a time in the past and even in the odd slip up now and then I’d felt that I knew better. I would be putting on others what I felt to be right from my own experiences not allowing them the freedom of choice. Like you mentioned it does create a “space” for them and me.
Yes, totally agree. Trying to fix someone else, not only distracts me from living my own life, but gives me the perfect excuse for delaying my own growth and whatever I need to deal with at that moment, It is a checking out mechanism. It is a way to hold back my evolution. And many times it can ruin relationships. I have good role models now (including you, Carmel!) that can actually show me how stepping back and allowing and listening and supporting with my loving presence is much more helpful than trying to fix. If I think I can do it for you or I know what you need to do, I lose myself, and then who is there to support you anyway? There can only be inspiration and reflection if I stay with me.
Distraction, yes I agree, Julia, I am learning how my being ‘helpful’ to others can be a cover-up for my own neediness – it makes me feel good temporarily but that feeling isn’t true and doesn’t satisfy my deep inner need to feel the love that I truly am.
Thank you, Carmel for your honesty and the amazing insights you share here. And yes, we do stop another from bringing awareness to their choices and the situation they then find themselves in by always jumping in and rescuing. And isn’t this also very condescending in that we are telling them by our actions that they are not capable of doing it (for) themselves?
I agree, Gabriele, ‘And isn’t this also very condescending in that we are telling them by our actions that they are not capable of doing it (for) themselves?’ Seeing each person we meet as awesome and powerful in their own right enables us to leave them alone to resolve their own issues – not doing so shows up how we still go into comparison, and adopt an ‘I know something you don’t know’ attitude, whereas in fact, we all have access to everything we need to know all of the time!
This is so true Gabriele. It is a thing that I have done a lot of in the past, thinking that I know better / wiser. When I have gone through situations and come through the other side, the learning and empowerment gained goes much further in developing my awareness than if someone had come along and tried to give me all the answers.
Great point Gabriele, such a rounded way of looking at the whole instead of being in it to fix the issue, really only to fill your own fix of being a ‘good’ friend. This really allows the person space but they are still supported with your Love – thanks for this.
It’s a great thing to let go of trying and fixing! Creates so many more opportunities to be just you!
Beautifully and simply put, Vanessa, thank you
I couldn’t agree more Vanessa, and the bonus is life becomes simple, less complicated and much more enjoyable.
Carmel, I love your honesty and can relate to the fixer fixation. I have been there myself and recognise the arrogance you speak of. For years I tried to save others when it was I that needed saving from myself!
Hi Kehinde, yes, it is so easy to focus on everything outside ourselves and miss the glory that is within
Hi Carmel, I can relate to what you have shared so far with us as well. I am a fixer, too and I can’t help it!!! It is a bit like a disease. Wanting to be nice, wanting to be loved and then we do the exact opposite to what we are trying to do instead of looking at our own issues!
Yes, wanting to be nice can be like a disease when we allow it to fester inside us. People can react when they hear truth and others hold back so they don’t have to deal with that reaction. Many of us have not yet learned to speak truth with love, or even truly feel what is truth, so there is much for us to feel and learn.
Love this comment and deepening Carmel, it really is so true – niceness is a disease and we are all learning a lot on how to speak what we feel without measuring how it will be recieved.
Good point Alex. Fixing another and offering solutions on the outside seems like you are trying to help them, but really it is quite selfish. All we are trying to do when we try to fix people’s problems is feel good about ourselves and control situations around us. I too, used to be a fixer upper!
I can relate to everything in your blog, Carmel. For as long as I can remember, I have always had this thing that I have to help people which means providing solutions to their problems. It was a great distraction which took the focus off my own issues and problems. I can feel now how imposing that was for people as if they don’t have the ability to sort out their own lives and problems. Thank you for sharing, Carmel.
Everyone has their own way of dealing with issues and problems and it can be empowering to appreciate that, allowing that we all equally have our own answers and innate wisdom within.
‘Allowing that we all equally have our own answers and innate wisdom within’, is a great reminder, and all we have to do is just be our true selves, it is that simple!
Such an amazing blog Carmel so many pointers for me and how in the past I’ve allowed myself to be caught up in being Mrs. Fix it. If I catch myself getting a bit too involved particularly with family members/situations i’m actually aware now and take a step back – either wait to be asked for help or allow them to do/feel what’s right for themselves. Phew! the weight on my shoulders/back has so lifted and I feel in a much better place to be in a position to “help” if asked and not so worn out with the fixing and doing. Thank you for sharing Carmel.
Carmel that is a great reminder, as I have always had a pattern to try and fix it – issue or problem. But when I try and do that I am not really helping anyone, and the pattern will repeat again at a later date. I have realised I need to stop, take a step back and allow others to take responsibility.
Me too Doug, although I reckon there is no easy way to learn this while there is any attachment to having things the way we ‘want’ them.
Hi Carmel, trying to solve other peoples’ problems was a big one for me also. When I look back and see how arrogant I was to try to take away someone else’s experience and actually believe that I could do their life better than they could – all in an attempt to not look at my own mess and meet what I needed.
This is a great subject, which initially on reading the title seems harmless enough, as fixing others can be seen as harmless or helpful but has far reaching implications.
Hi Jane – I feel a bit of an ouch as you explain how your brothers called you self-righteous – I’m sure people felt that about me as I was always so sure I was right in telling them what to do – and who was I to know what choices they had made that led them to where they were and what lessons they needed to learn. It’s like the joke about giving directions: “If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here” How do we know where they started from? How great to ‘take a moment to observe and understand rather than jump in and fix.’
I love this blog also Carmel with your honesty and down to earth way of writing.
Well said Kevin and about a topic that I know inside out. Fixing things occupied so much of my time and can easily still take up a lot of it if I let it – especially when it’s about other people – I’ve found it to be a big deliberate distraction. Since reading this blog a while back I notice how different it can be not to try and fix but allow the other person the space.
Hi David and Kevin, yes, these comments have helped me to develop my awareness to how often I still try to fix things, and it can be quite subtle, like reassuring someone who isn’t confident about a situation, whereas I could let them feel all their anxiety and support them through it instead of trying to relieve it for them.
Great point Jane. How easy it is to dive in and offer a fix for others when perhaps we need to look after ourselves and not interfere. There is a saying relating to this along the lines of “you look after your own knitting and I shall look after mine” I love the playfulness of this saying around a much deeper topic. As you say Jane, if others are left to fix what they can themselves, they build confidence and feel empowered to take more responsibility for themselves too.
“…. how I would resolve a problem may not be the way they would resolve it. My taking responsibility for fixing other people’s problems and being so forward with offering ‘solutions’ is not always the best way to support someone.” I can relate to this Carmel. trying to fix other people led me down the path of then not looking at where I needed to fix myself – or rather fix the issues that I had. I have found that having more presence with myself – being with me – and appreciating myself more, then some issues just faded away. Also when I am with myself and also with another, knowing that they do have the answers to their predicament themselves, helps to remove the arrogance of ‘I know how to solve it’!.
Hi Sue, that’s beautiful – having more presence with yourself and with another, knowing they already have all the answers, saves all that frustration and bother that is so exhausting!
I loved reading this blog and the comments again. As an ex-‘fixaholic’ myself it is great to be reminded of how exhausting and taxing on me and my body it is to try to rescue or save someone or take on the responsibility of coming up with a solution for someone. No good for me and no good for them. True compassion and sympathy are not the same thing.
Great word – ‘fixaholic’ – and it is like a drug; you feel so good for helping – but it’s not a true feeling, it is an illusion.
Hi Vanessa, this is a great point well worth remembering: ‘allowing others to connect to the innate wisdom they hold within themselves’ – we all have this, equally.
Totally relate to this Carmel, fixing to distract from self! And changing this way of being is a real challenge when it has been your mode operandi! It is worth changing though and I am committed to stepping back and allowing others to connect to the innate wisdom they hold within themselves. The more I do, the more I am proved right and this is not age limited – young children are often extremely wise and knowing of the big picture of life and their part in it, if we allow them the grace to connect to what is there to be known.
I have also changed the way I offer help to others, instead of the old way of telling someone the best way forward for themselves, now I am offering choices for them to ponder on with no attachments to their choice.
That’s beautiful, Elaine, Amina and Sjmatsonuk, the old way was so exhausting. It is so much simpler to stay present and connected and allow what they choose to be their responsibility.
I realise I can sometimes get drawn in to wanting to fix things for another but the more I hold steady with myself the less I feel the need to get involved and the more I feel true compassion for the other. I know that when I was small, helping was a way to feel worthy and appreciated by my mother and then I used this behaviour as I grew up to elicit the same response from others. As my self-worth and appreciation for myself grows I do not need to help in the same way.
An important process to work on Elaine, for ‘fixing’ is an exhausting action that does not help in the way we would image and in my experience it actually can interfere in someone’s life and/or your own.
Hi Carmel, I can definitely relate to what you have shared here. I still catch myself doing it but the ways in which I go about ‘fixing’ have definitely become a lot more subtle and it is sometimes a challenge to be honest about what is going on – but I am practicing and feeling the signs in my body too which is miraculous. I didn’t get a back ache, but notice more that my way of fixing is actually to make myself get emotional too so the other person doesn’t have to be in their miserable emotion all by themselves. What a horrible idea! Then I end up feeling yucky too but without the same reason as the other person – just because I was trying to help them. It actually sounds funny to write about it here because the whole idea sounds so absurd!
I am practicing now to just be myself and, as you said, allow the other person to feel however they are feeling. I just keep coming back to myself – not in a selfish or disconnected way – on the contrary, but staying connected to me and not imposing my ideas of wanting the other person to be another way, I am really there for them. I say exactly what needs to be said or nothing at all. But by offering myself in my stability, I am actually being there more for them than by any trying or needing. As you so beautifully put it: ‘true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices’. So true. Thank you Carmel.
Ouch, Simone, I can certainly recognise this one: ‘that my way of fixing is actually to make myself get emotional too so the other person doesn’t have to be in their miserable emotion all by themselves.’ As I get less knotted up in my own emotions, and simply feel what’s going on, it becomes easier to be with another in their distress and stay calm.
I love this blog Carmel and all the comments. To me when I try and fix things I feel that I am coming from a place of wanting the other person to need me! Ouch. And I feel good when I get that recognition because I want that acceptance from somebody else. Another ouch. It also takes away any self confidence and disempowers the person to truly feel what is needed for them to evolve.
Hi Fiona, well said, and it disempowers us as well because we depend on helping another to feel good about ourselves.
Jane I can completely resonate with what you shared, I did the same with my sisters for many years; it caused a lot of tension and periods of times when we all became distant. Now I am very different, I observe what’s going on and allow them to come up with solutions to support themselves. This has allowed us to heal our relationships giving them the power to make choices in their own lives.
I had it revealed to me this week about how I still seriously want to fix my body! The feeling of that was so ludicrous it was funny and awesome at the same moment. How can I fix my body? It is not possible, so why try? I’ve spent a lifetime of doing this, and our whole society tries to as well, along with all the other things we try and fix – what a waste of time. Now I know I can embrace my body for everything it shows me, and love its deep intelligence and wisdom that are beyond my human understanding but always available to me through the way it speaks to me.
Beautiful words, Joan: ‘Now I know I can embrace my body for everything it shows me, and love its deep intelligence and wisdom that are beyond my human understanding but always available to me through the way it speaks to me.’
It is great to be reminded about what I experienced and wrote Carmel, and I feel that I have made a change in the way I listen to my body, but there are still many other areas I need to work with, for instance holding onto fixed ideas about the way to do things. (“My way of doing things”) How much more playful to be spontaneous and experiment with new and different ways.
I love this, learning “that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices”, rather than trying to fix people , because ‘I know best’! Ouch! I am learning it is about supporting people in a new way – and not wanting or being attached to an outcome. Thanks for the post Carmel.
Great point Sue as Carmel has pointed out trying to fix people because “I know best!” is something that I’ve found myself doing. It takes away any focus from what is really going on and can become quite judgemental. Learning to simply be there would make a world of difference I am sure but shows how much investment there can be in an outcome.
Yes, investment with the outcome is very strong because we are always more comfortable with things being done OUR WAY. Who are we to judge others? We have not had the same experiences or made the same choices, we have no idea what they have been through or what hurts they still have to deal with, but we can deal with our own and not get distracted by looking outwards all the time.
Yes, I feel the same way Sue. It is so great not wanting to be fixing everything and being able to stand back for others to make their own choices and learn from them. Letting go of wanting outcomes is so freeing!
Thank you, Jane, I feel that it is definitely a matter of timing, as in, if we can work on ourselves now, others may feel how we are living and may choose to be inspired or not. When/if they make any changes will be entirely their choice – this lifetime, next lifetime – but if we are not living in full now, we are causing unnecessary delay. This is a bit of an ouch for me, as I know I’ve been holding back and my body is now reflecting that. Time to come out – be all of who I am.
This is such a great reminder Carmel, ‘sorting my own life out, rather than distracting myself trying to fix anything outside of me.’ Thank you.
What an honest and reflective blog, Carmel. I too, have been the consummate ‘fixer’, for no other reason than to get people ‘where they needed to be!’ I look at many relationships I have been in and realise that whilst there was some good, there was also a good amount of harm. I have been assisted to come to know and feel that I was the one who needed to actually accept where I was, rather than get everyone else to do the changing. I recognise your honesty Carmel, thank you.
‘I was the one who needed to actually accept where I was, rather than get everyone else to do the changing’ These are lovely words that to me mean we can choose to appreciate ourselves instead of judging everybody else.
I read this again with a wry smile, because there are so many ‘helpful’ people I’m meeting recently, attempting to fix others problems just like I was. I’ve realised how it’s allowed me to put my head in the sand about my own issues, basically delaying me from looking at my own stuff for years. It’s great to be able to feel a different way of being that lifts a burden that was not even mine in the first place.
Thanks for a great blog Carmel. I can feel that my need to fix things has been based on my need to be needed. It feels like a clever ploy not to feel what I need to look at in my own life whilst at the same time making me feel and look good because I think I have helped another. It is great to see how this has played out, how it has been changing in certain areas of my life but how it still plays out subtly in my relationship with my sons at times.
Hi Jane, I think many of us have been driven by ‘feeling good because we have helped another’, and it feels great to recognise that and truly help by letting others be.
Great blog Carmel I love it. We all spend so much of our time trying to fix things for other people and help others and this is how we have been brought up as the good way to be. However, it makes sense that if we all simply looked after ourselves lovingly and gave ourselves the time for this we would all be living full lives in a true sense. We would then find real purpose in our lives and how the world is and have the time and energy to assist with this, in not accepting all that is not loving any longer.
Hi Tricia, ‘simply looking after ourselves lovingly’ – that’s it, it really is very simple. For me this means eating in a nurturing way, taking appropriate time to rest, listening to our innermost feelings, acting upon/expressing them, and being ourselves in full.
I really enjoyed reading this blog again Carmel. I can see that fixing people’s problems is like saying, ‘Don’t worry I’ll do it for you!’ – how exhausting and it takes away that person’s own responsibility for that situation so the lessons aren’t learnt and will no doubt return at a later date. Great to recognise that fixing is like a temporary quick fix which may look good but does not necessarily resolve the issue.
Ah Susan I so recognise that one – over the years I have chaired many committees and often said ‘OK, leave it with me’ and then gone into overwhelm and burnout trying to do everything and/or worrying about not having done it. Delegating can be empowering and feels great! They can often do it better than we can, so it’s great to let go of trying to control everything.
Looking through this again, it also occurred to me that one of the other things about the ‘fix it’ mentality is that it can so easily rob you or someone else of the lesson to be learned. And so whatever created the problem in the first place will most certainly return… until that is looked at properly and resolved.
Yep, life keeps reflecting our choices back to us until we eventually have to take notice!
I agree Simon, in our eagerness to brush it under the carpet and make it better, we possibly miss the opportunity on offer to take stock and change how we have been living, which doesn’t mean fixing the situation but truly learning and moving on from it.
The other day I realised sometimes I can be so caught up in fixing people, I try and fix things that aren’t broken, especially about myself. I am really learning to let go a bit more 🙂
I too can relate to trying to fix what is not broken Rebecca and are realising more and more that it is coming from my not accepting when enough is simply enough.
I feel that there are possibly two sorts of ‘fixer’. One, possessing the genuine concern born of altruism, and the love of humanity, and the other, someone so convinced of their own unassailable position on any subject, that they have an irresistible craving to straighten out everyone else’s affairs. Thankfully, Universal Medicine shows another way. That of allowing the space for people to sort their own problems, knowing that each one of us contains all we need to know.
To “fix” something or somebody feels like a trying to make things good, or right or proper, very often without really looking into the cause of what needed mending, adjusting, or curing in the first place. Whereas stopping, taking the time and space to feel what is happening and what is really needed, is ultimately more likely to deal with the underlying problem. In practical terms I know this with my boiler which was “fixed” several times last winter, but never properly mended so it always went wrong again until the real reason had to be attended to. It feels the same with our relationships. If we just try to fix the uncomfortable moment we are in, it glosses over the opportunity for real change and mutual support.
Well said, Joan, I agree, we can always choose to deal with everything at a surface level and the issues keep returning or we can go deeper and the changes are more permanent, because the underlying cause is revolved. Allowing myself to truly feel the uncomfortable moment I am in is a good start to exploring it deeper.
Being there and supporting but not fixing others problems is the lesson I am learning after decades of being the fixer for friends and family. You’re so right, Carmel, that it’s my distraction technique to stop me looking at my own issues. I hadn’t realised that before.
Beautifully said, Jane, thank you. I have ‘meddled’ so much in other people’s lives in the futile attempt to avoid my hurts, micro-manage every situation to maintain a shaky status quo and get life to fit my script. All bonkers and unsustainable. Since developing an honesty with and respect for myself working alongside Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal Medicine, I have been endlessly inspired to let everyone else be and to develop and nurture myself alongside others and their evolution. Now, I am more often inspired by the people around me than frustrated by their lack of compliance to my way!
‘All bonkers and unsustainable.’ Great words Matilda, for how so many of us have been living!
Through my experience with Esoteric Practitioners I too am learning that: “true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, allowing a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices.”
I feel that an important part for me in letting go of ‘fixing’ is also to open up to an understanding and acceptance of the fact that we are all equal. Feeling others as equal seems to dissolve the arrogance and judgement that feeds the sympathy and/or solutions.
I agree, Marian, ‘Feeling others as equal seems to dissolve the arrogance and judgement that feeds the sympathy and/or solutions.’ We are not brought up to see everybody as our equal, it will be interesting to see how education could change if we were. We wouldn’t feel the need to ‘perform’ to get recognition and we could truly help another to evolve as we feel what is truly required in each situation.
Hi Carmel, what stood out for me this time as I read your article was when you said “All my life I’ve been a fixer but now I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part”. Today I will choose to be patient, understanding and allowing. Thank you.
A good point Jane. “We spend a lot of time fixing things for others, when we don’t often pay enough care, love and attention to supporting and nourishing ourselves.” Imagine if we did pay attention to support and love ourselves first? there wouldn’t need to be so much fixing in the first place!
That’s a very good point Rachel – if we stopped putting so much energy into fixing other people’s problems and instead spent the same amount of effort focusing on making loving choices ourselves ‘there wouldn’t need to be so much fixing in the first place!’
This phrase in your article feels so lovely “we all have free will and life is forever reflecting back to us consequences of our choices; it is then our individual responsibility to learn from our situation.”
In this light I can see that my tendency, and that of everyone else, to go into sympathy about someone’s situation and try to fix the person’s predicament, is in effect making the reflection that their life is not offering them another away. I have learned best and evolved most when I have been supported to understand that I am the one to save myself and inspired to be responsible for my choices and the way I live my life.
It’s great to read this Golnaz, ‘In this light I can see that my tendency, and that of everyone else, to go into sympathy about someone’s situation and try to fix the person’s predicament, is in effect making the reflection that their life is not offering them another away.’ This is definitely worth pondering on that actually trying to fix someones situation and make things better is actually quite harmful as the situation is there for them to learn from.
So true Golnaz, by fixing problems for others it was shown to me that we actually slow down their development, because we are hindering their self learning. Everyone can only ever fix their own problems and I have had that arrogance to think I could fix the issue better than they could. I used to feel that I was helping people – how wrong was I? I now know it helps so much more to be there and support, but the only decisions I make are mine for me.
‘ I have learned best and evolved most when I have been supported to understand that I am the one to save myself and inspired to be responsible for my choices and the way I live my life.’ Very true Golnaz, beautiful words, thank you.
Talking as another fixer (and there is nothing I would rather do than help someone else out), I have come to realise a few things along the way, and this blog and comments are great it helping to flesh it out further:
– By trying to fix others, I add to my own perceived list of things to do and can easily push myself into overload
– I don’t ask myself how I am doing when I come to fix someone else’s problem. Am I going to offer the right help, or a solution that takes the pain away but still leaves them with the underlying problem.
– Why am I trying to fix things… and usually its to get some sort of recognition, or a need of mine fulfilled.
These are all games, and playing them over the years has definitely not brought me the results I wanted.
Thanks for sharing, Simon. As a man I feel we grow up with the perception that it is up to us to fix things (especially if it involves super glue). But seriously, after reading Carmel’s story and then what you have shared, I can feel in me the wanting to go into fix anything around me that doesn’t feel harmonious. I can see how this is a never-ending job and one that does only harm to me in the end.
Hi Mick – and we women have the expectation that men will fix things for us – it’s ‘what men are good at’ so we continue the cycle. I fix things at work or call a ‘techie’ – I hate to see something broken when it can be mended, or a few turns with a screwdriver can sort it. On a larger scale you could say Humanity is ‘broken’ and there is a strong pull to fix it. There is nothing wrong with that, it gives us a sense of purpose, but perhaps helping humanity to feel harmonious starts with creating our own harmony within.
Ariana that’s a great point, do we ‘fix’ other people to not have to look at ourselves? Also reading your comment really allowed me to feel how arrogant it is to perceive someone else to be broken and to need our help!
As for needing others to fix me, I have always looked outside of myself for answers and confirmation – in a book, from a person I look up to, or a friend. I have depended on the Universal Medicine practitioners for answers, and waited for a session before asking, which is daft because, as Serge Benhayon has been presenting all along, the answers are within ourselves. My body knows everything I need to know, so I’m learning to check in with my body before making a decision. The practitioners are helping me to expand my awareness so that I can feel what’s going on, but the choices I make are my responsibility.
I love your Blog Carmel, so simple, true and it opens up so much as to how I also try to fix things and want to make it alright for others. I too am learning I cannot do this but I can listen and make time for others in this way, with no attachment or need for an outcome.
This comes from listening to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and is a more real way to live.
Upon deeper reflection and looking over this again it has reminded me about fixing my own things and constantly seeking solutions to make things go away or fix things rather than truly understanding them for what they are presenting to us.
This is a good point, Michelle! When I began to see that I wanted to be fixed by others, (see my above comment!) and started to take responsibility for my problems… I moved into the pattern of a “fixer”… When a problem comes up I hate feeling the discomfort or the tension it brings, so to relieve the tension and discomfort I want to find a solution to make the problem go away. You are right Michelle, to appreciate and understand the problem for what it is presenting to us, from that we can learn and grow. Feeling the tension is a good thing as it can’t be ignored. It’s like a big red stop light that is a signal to take stock.
..’the greatest solution is their own gift’ – Love it Jane.
It is interesting compared to the above comments that I wasn’t a fixer at all. In fact I wanted to be the one to be fixed by others! Which meant I wasn’t taking responsibility for my problems and through overwhelm was handing myself over to others to “help” me sort things out. As a result I didn’t learn from my experiences or really deal with them.
Rachel your comment has brought me more to ponder upon deeply – hmm – is it possible to be a fixer and also wanting to be fixed by others? Yes……. oh! what a tangled web we can weave. The support of Universal Medicine presentations have certainly supported me in the de-tangling of the complexity of my previous choices and still continue to do so.
‘What a tangled web we can weave’ – that’s an excellent way of describing the confusion of being a ‘fixer’, but also wanting to be fixed (both to avoid taking responsibility for our choices).
Good comment, Rachel, we often go to other people for answers when everything we need to know is already within – if we allow our bodies to tell us, the answer is clear.
Carmel it’s so true – I also spent so much time listening to other people’s problems and as with you I was convinced I knew what to do to fix it. Of course I had no idea how to sort my own problems out, but it kept me busy on someone else’s problems and I felt like I was better than them. Looking back I wonder what utter rubbish I would talk about and how much wasted time for all involved!
Hi David, great observation, we think we’re saving time but we may not be. It’s funny how we think looking at other people’s problems helps us to feel better about ourselves. Perhaps that’s why the newspapers are so full of bad luck stories?
I’ve used fixing things for others as a way of making myself feel needed or worthwhile but I can also feel how it was a way of controlling a situation or outcome and is by no means allowing the other person to learn for themselves – or for me to look at what’s going on. Now I’m finding it’s reduced in scale to ‘being helpful’ where it may in fact not be my place to be so either!
Hi Rosanna – ah, yes, control, that’s my comfort zone – when I am in control – but I’m learning just how very imposing that has been and am working on letting it go. Surrender, now that’s a good word to play with. Funnily enough when I have kept quiet, changes have happened anyway, it’s awesome! I am learning just how much my livingness affects other people and how I don’t always need to say anything, but just be me and live. Live and let live.
That’s lovely Carmel that you mention ” I am learning just how much my livingness affects other people and how I don’t always need to say anything, but just be me and live.” Because I too have enjoyed fixing things so I feel needed or worthwhile, I have been very eager to jump in and help fix things.
However, I know that the best inspiration I have had to sort out any aspect of my life has been through witnessing another living with love, wisdom and integrity – at times I have sought further support from them and at times the inspiration has been enough – Live love and let live.
Rosanna, I can completely relate to that. I had not realised how controlling I was of situations mainly with my family, as I tried to help fix things. But as I have started to let go of the need to fix, the controlling side has faded. However, if there are times I get caught in a moment of control, I am able to reflect quite quickly on the situation and make a change.
Carmel. Great account of being a fixer in life. We know we should not always be trying to fix other people’s issues, but we can all fall back to the old ways on occasions.
Maybe we do not like to see others struggling? and it is out of love that we want to help?
Mike, is it possible that’s where the illusion is? Is it possible that sometimes we show our love and help best by standing by and letting them learn for themselves in their own time? In my case it is sometimes not ‘love’ but frustration – I always think I have a better or quicker way of doing things – but that’s MY way, it may not be theirs!
Recently I have met a number of 2 year olds. The stickers that were provided for us to play with were difficult to get off of the backing sheet. Initially I helped by releasing a corner so that the little fingers could access the stickers better, being very careful not to remove the sticker completely…but I realised that I was choosing which sticker to release next.
When I started to ask the children which one they wanted.. I noticed every child knew precisely which one he/she wanted…and it was never the next one in line. I have really enjoyed this experience of ‘facilitating’ not fixing. Now I just have to expand it into the rest of my life.
Speaking from a place of another who has been a fixer, I too can say it has been a great way to avoid dealing with my own issues. Thanks for bringing this out into the light.
I can relate to this too – Attending presentations with Serge Benhayon certainly exposed for me how I had skilfully avoided dealing with my own issues by ‘fixing’ others – it is certainly not love or supporting others.
An inspiring and touching blog, Carmel. Thank you for your honest reflection.
Carmel, your blog has encouraged me to contemplate my habit of going into fixing mode at work, and feeling responsible for pretty much everything and everyone that is vaguely related to my area of work. And I wondered why I felt overwhelmed at work, and why at times relationships could be a struggle?!!
Hi Catherine, I know that feeling! It’s so tempting to try and fix it all, especially when I’ve let areas slip and want the quick fix instead of the time it takes to then address them properly.
Hi Catherine, I have done that, not at work, but when on voluntary committees, especially when I was the ‘chairman’, I would never ask for help, and would burn out believing I had to do everything. Now, thanks to some inspiring role models within the Student body of Universal Medicine, I am learning how empowering it is when we let others contribute all they can and even though one person may lead the meeting, everyone is involved, and the amount of work we get done is amazing.
Trying to fix things or people actually fixes nothing, as there is nothing to fix. We all live our own unique process. Being responsible for ourselves is the key and we don’t have to try and fix ourselves either!
Love this. In all the chatter let’s remember there is nothing to fix. Thank you, Joan.
‘Being responsible for ourselves is the key’ – I totally agree Joan.
That’s it exactly Susie
Carmel, I love your blog but I squirm in my seat with the realisation of how imposing I have been, always believing my views are ‘right’ and sometimes trying to fix but this always comes with an arrogance. I sometimes find it frustrating that, the Universal Medicine Practitioners never fix or tell me what to do, they simply allow me the space to feel what is right for me in that moment which allows me to connect to what I already know.
I love your comment that we all have free-will and life reflects back to us the consequences of our choices. So, it’s important for me to connect to this – that everyone has a choice and when we get a reflection to our choices, we can all look back at what those choices were that we made, to get our own healing. When we stop that happening by attempting to fix the consequences of someone else’s choice for them, we are lessening their opportunity to heal themselves. And as you say, it’s none of my business.
Well, in a way, it is our business, because we are all in it together, but we cannot help another unless we first help ourselves and clear the issues and blocks that stop us being fully who we are. Only by appreciating ourselves and how far we have come can we truly appreciate others and their personal journey of choices through all their lives.
My ‘fixing’ things and people obsession was highlighted when I had small children to care for. I took on the responsibility to always make everything ‘ok’ for them, believing this was my duty and job as their mother. It has taken me a long time to find the brake pedal and just be there and listen and allow others to make their own choices. This works in reverse as well. I am learning not to expect someone else to ‘fix’ me and can appreciate when someone lovingly listens to me and allows me space to feel and choose my own way.
Wise words Mary. I love the idea of the brake pedal and also the reverse gear! I can relate to everything you say. Great blog Carmel.
Brilliant Mary to look at it both ways. I have held up ‘fixer’ as my front banner, with ‘please fix me’ tucked craftily behind where none could see it. So whilst dashing around keeping my attention off myself, fixing everyone else, I was also subversively saying ‘and now you owe me a fix too’…on reflection this is super ugly as a foundation for any relationship, and it exposes the loaded-ness, agenda and expected payback from any of my ‘fix it/I am helping you’ actions.
Indeed Matilda when you describe the course that is playing out you can see just how ugly and loaded it all is
This is so true Matilda, I can feel how this has played in my interactions with others when the ‘fixing owes me something’ is there, so much falsity in here, ‘showing off’ so I can get something back from the other person somewhere in the future, even if is just their attention or respect….!!!. This also brought me to see how I have searched for someone to “fix me” as a way just to get some attention (the connection I crave in my helplessness) because at the end I won´t do anything if I was told or advised. So this is another falsity – searching to be fixed, just to make some drama, get attention and then not even appreciate any advice I am given, and zero connection to the other person in there…
It is beautiful to have that awareness and to reflect on the many ways we have all done this, thank you Mary
Thank you Carmel for writing this blog. Through the help of Universal Medicine, the wonderful practioners and the beautiful man Serge Benhayon, I started to become more aware. I was also a fixer. I was always the one that people would come to, to fix their problems. I now know it was a need I had in me. It was a way for me to feel good about myself. To feel needed… Instead of me, just being enough and connecting to the amazing woman I am from within.
‘It was a way for me to feel good about myself. To feel needed… Instead of me, just being enough and connecting to the amazing woman I am from within.’ Wow it’s incredible that you are aware of that now Jody.
Hi Jody, I agree. Serge Benhayon is a true role model for how to help our fellow brothers and sisters – he listens with full understanding and awareness, and sometimes I find that I can feel my own answers even as I am asking him a question. He has that knowing smile that says, ‘You know’, and of course, I do.
I love your blogs Carmel – another amazing sharing about something I’m sure almost every single person can relate to: trying to fix everyone else!
Definitely, Jessica – this an article written for… probably everyone!
Yep – ‘putting your nose in’ or ‘sticky beak’ are a few names that come to mind where whatever is going on is about – not wanting to miss out and having people feel they need you or were ‘lucky’ to have you there; showing it is not working in harmony – that putting your nose in comes with an investment for yourself.
I love how you have described the implications of getting involved in another’s issue. We can never truly know how or why another has got where they are and so to interject and offer our take on the situation can often add to the layers of muck there in the first place. As you say it does not mean that we cannot offer support along the way, but our way forward is not necessarily the way forward for someone else.
“…our take on the situation can often add to the layers of muck there in the first place” – so why complicate things? Instead we can keep it simple, listen with understanding and appreciation, knowing that they do indeed have their own answers within.
I’ve noticed Jenny, that when people ask for advice, they often need a confirmation of their own choices. I’ve played that game too, but not anymore. They know I am there for them, and that is enough.
Great blog Carmel. I too have been a fixer in my life, and the realisation I came to was that I needed to be needed. By me being strong, capable and fixing things for others, I created a situation where they needed me and that satisfied my need to be needed – in other words to provide me with a purpose. Life is much more simple now, thanks to the endless support and inspiration of Serge Benhayon and all the amazing Universal Medicine Practitioners who have presented to me, and that I now know for myself that true purpose is simply being me in all that I do.
I can relate to what you said Lucy about being a fixer who needed to be needed. As my understanding deepens, thanks to the practitioners and courses offered by Universal Medicine, I am able to see that if I work on me, the reflection is clearer for others to make their own decisions.
I agree Lucy, it is awesome to realise that we help most by simply being ourselves, that it’s not about what we do, it is how we are, and being ourselves in full is our true purpose.
I love your sharing Carmel and I can so relate to it. I realized I was listening to problems and situations of other people because I wanted someone (ME) to listen to mine. Like you, not living my own life and getting more awareness of what is going on there. I love the image Narren shared above about the mechanic and the car. In fixing the problems of other I forgot each of us knows exactly what is needed for us in that moment. We have all the wisdom inside. It is just a matter of letting it out. For me that is the most important thing I get from the sessions with Esoteric Practitioners from Universal Medicine: it is all there inside me if I allow myself to connect to it. And yes, just like you share, the body helps with what it tells and shows us.
Loved the way you express ‘until I myself choose to feel it, and understand it and make a change’. I’ve found it so true in my life.
Beautifully put Monika. I too am guilty of the ‘I’ll listen to yours, get that bit out of the way and you can listen to mine” syndrome. The esoteric healing sessions have not only supported me to connect to my own wisdom and deal with my issues, they have supported me to connect to a stillness within that I can, if I remember to, hold when people share their woes. Its amazing, I no longer feel the need to sweep their stuff aside and plunge in with mine, but gently hold my connection and let them talk. Often when we allow someone space to talk it through and gain a bit of distance, they sort it out for themselves anyway and we have saved all that hot air!
Beautifully said, Rowena, ‘Often when we allow someone space to talk it through and gain a bit of distance, they sort it out for themselves anyway and we have saved all that hot air!’
Hi Monika, I love the words, ‘We have all the wisdom inside. It is just a matter of letting it out.’ such a simple way to live.
Yes, Jane, isn’t it great that these lessons come ’round and ’round again in different guises and only stop when we pay attention to and resolve them for ourselves. It may take years, lifetimes but eventually we all get there.
Carmel, great blog. I too have been a fixer for a very long time, my family when they use to get in to difficulty they would come to me. I would always come up with a solution, they never had to think for themselves. A form of control from me and a lack of responsibility from their part. But I have come to learn over the last few years with loving support of universal medicine, I was actually not helping anyone, besides taken burdens on myself and no one else taking responsibility of what was truly going on. They never learnt and patterns would repeat. I was too busy fixing other peoples problem and forgot about myself that I had my own self to work on.
I agree with you Amita, I was extremely similar, I very much relate to your last sentence and loves how it sums it up for me: ‘I was too busy fixing other peoples problem and forgot about myself that I had my own self to work on’. spot on and well said!
I agree, Amita, fixing other people’s problems by offering solutions is not empowering for them and it is a great distraction from looking at and dealing with our own issues.
As a parent I have also noticed how fixing things for my children means they do not get to learn really important life skills; whether that is tidying their rooms for them, getting involved in playground drama or everything else in between!
True Jane, my mum was the same, but she was also the family fixer and I spent years resisting the phrase ‘if I were you’. But in that resistance I learned to make my own decisions (and mistakes), and we finally reached a point where there was no resistance, only love. And I tried not to fix things for my children and those around me, but that feeling of being able to help (interfere?), show someone how to do it better (ie, my way!), can be quite insidious, creeping in when you are not aware. I am a lot more vigilant now. Fixing me is more important than trying to fix another.
Very true Matilda. When my son was young, I always used to pack his school bag and obsess about him having everything he required for the day. All of this was me controlling/fixing the situation and leaving him disempowered and not learning to pack his bag. I gently handed over the responsibility and he blossomed into feeling his own independence and grew to take more responsibility for himself, a valuable tool for life.
And it is even harder when they are in their thirties and running their own homes – letting go of any need to control their lifestyle choices is a challenge, but it feels great to let all that go and treat them as fellow adults.
I experienced the same, Jane, and I have also found it a great foundation to start life with.
I love your sharing and honesty in being a fixer and i can relate to this very much .
What I relate to most is sharing the enormous inspiration of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and all that has come from this and my life today as a result.
Thank you Carmel. The line that resonates with me is where you say “how I would resolve a problem may not be the way they would resolve it.” I can feel where I have so often tried to ‘fix’ a problem for someone in the way I would go about it that leaves the other person feeling more confused. I am trying to impose a quick fix and gain recognition as wise counsel. When, in fact, I am imposing and preventing the person from finding their own way to resolve their own problem.
Love how you turn on its head the widely accepted paradigm that it’s somehow ‘good’ or ‘supportive’ practice to solve people’s problems for them with our clarity, knowledge and experience. So doing only serves to deny them their own journey of potential growth and awareness whilst also conveniently filling a level of emptiness in ourselves that we’d prefer to avoid by distracting ourselves with other people’s iissues.. Far better I agree, to just be ourselves, no agenda except to provide a true reflection of the way we live life. The rest – the choice of how to go forward – is then up to them. Show not tell.
Love it Cathy, ‘show not tell’ I will remember that the next time I am tempted to jump in and try and fix someone.
‘Show not tell.’ – I love that Cathy.
Wow Carmel, by the number of responses to your sharing, it is easy to see how much this has struck a chord with the readers! Listening and not jumping to solutions is a part of the workshops I present and without fail, the not jumping in part is the most revealing for us. Most people report that they do it unconsciously, or believe that it helps. It is not until we feel how listening allows for the way forward to emerge that we see and feel how disempowering our ‘solutions’ truly are and how they are usually about achieving satisfaction for the helper, not truly supporting the person sharing their issue with us.
It’s really interesting, that not only do I stop another person from sorting them selves out if I provide the answer, but I actually slow down their development and learning and then they are more likely to repeat the same pattern again, because they haven’t felt deeply enough into it to find their own solution. We can all only solve our own issues. There’s a huge difference between being there and supporting someone by their side, or giving them the solutions.
‘By the way they are with me I can experience how it feels to be truly helped with loving, tender care and the utmost respect.’ – That is my exact experience of the incredible Esoteric Practitioners too Carmel.
All the Esoteric Practitioners I have worked with have truly supported me; not pandered, not indulged and not tried to fix, in the hope that the problem (and I) will go away! Through this I have come to learn that the ‘problem’ can be an offering and if approached as such can provide amazing opportunities to learn about myself and life and move out of habits and patterns that actually perpetuate themselves harmfully.
I agree with you, ladies. My experience with Esoteric Practitioners from Universal Medicine is exactly the same: as much I as wanted to ‘be fixed’ on occasions, what was offered to me was a reflection and an unwavering support for me to find the answers for myself.
Great article Carmel, I too also used to want to fix everything and even today I still have that urge. Most of the time I am aware of the urge but sometimes it slips through and then I try to do too much and I end up being whacked out, all because I feel that I should be able to do it all, that my way is the best way and that I want to please. The ironic thing is, if I just stand back from it, all the jobs get done and it flows without any problems.
Great sharing Carmel – it makes me aware that fixing has been a way for me to interact with people that still allows me to remain distant – its about them and their problem – and my own problems (that I am at a loss to know how to fix) take a backseat, so I end up feeling chuffed that I’ve helped someone, but in truth its been at their expense because they have everything they need to untangle whatever THEY have lived to get to that situation that needs fixing – it’s in their body, not mine, and it’s their medicine to discover the way to untangle it…when they don’t delay their own unfoldment by allowing someone to step in and fix it for them instead.
Fixing is also at my expense because I don’t get to deal with the discomfort of being with someone in the pain or confusion of a situation that requires fixing. Does it feel uncomfortable because it mirrors my own pain and confusion around situations in my life that are broken? Fixing someone else’s problems becomes a needed distraction.
Fixing someone else’s problems definitely brings me relief and reward, but the price is that I take on emotions that are foreign to me and my body and they clog me up, they are toxic to me and they weigh me down, pollute me. I realise though that, crazily, i must want to fill myself up with what is harmful to me, I must want to feel exhausted and tired, and until I decide to be clear, joyful, light, equal and full of energy…. I need to fix, because it gives me a fix I need to keep myself weighed down in the process of seemingly lifting another up, when really I’m keeping them down too.
Crazy.
A great subject for a blog Carmel and beautifully expressed. As a fixer myself and now being aware of it (it is very much work in progress) I have come to realise that fixing problems for others 1) is exhausting for me and 2) that it is an interference in others’ lives because problems happen for a reason and is the result of people’s choices. A better route to take is to offer them deep love and space to feel what is happening to them.
Another great ill pattern exposed and I am pretty sure we have all fallen for fixing or wanting to be fixed at some point in our lives. In this we just create a whole smokescreen (complication) around what is truly going on, avoiding responsibility and simplicity. I made a mistake at work yesterday and felt the old pattern of wanting to hide; see if I could cover it up somehow; get away with it. I was a little bit blown away by how simple, how complete and how gorgeous it was to ‘fess up’ in the staff meeting. No big deal, total understanding and lots of learning for us all.
Hi Matilda, yes I recognise this. I’m finding that I am being exposed at work a lot recently, and I am being shown where I am still not taking full responsibility. My reaction to the exposure is to want to hide, cover up and deny…but as you say there is a delight in ‘fessing up’ which feels so refreshing and complete.No big deal.
Very cool Rebecca and Matilda, you made me ponder more about this… Yes, the need to hide after making mistakes, they are not welcome as they will contradict our role as good “fixers”, we need to keep this face of having always everything under control, after all, we´ve been through so much learning….but then, it feels as we are just getting trapped in a role, that keep us comfortable without the need to go even deeper, accept responsibility and keep evolving, it is not about “attaining” or “perfection”.
Absolutely Luz, there is a power in the ‘fessing up’. If we admit our mistakes there is nothing to hide, and we are effectively saying and showing that we are bigger than the mistake.
The arrogance and lack of understanding when “fixing” someones problems can also be quite implicitly vile in making them feel less.
Great point Oliver. I hadn’t considered that angle. Yet another reason never to do it.
That is so clear Oliver, and the way you express it makes a huge impact. Plain and simple, trying to fix someone doesn’t support them. I have to take notice of that. If I realise that and am conscious of it when I do it, (as I still do on occasions), then there is no way I would want to harm someone by making them feel less than me. Thank you for making it so crystal clear.
I love this Carmel. Often it is not taken into account that truly supporting someone is not just about confirming how amazing they are, or encouraging them to be themselves, but support is also picking them up on when they have not made the wisest decision, or as you say in your blog – giving them the space to feel things for themselves, instead of rushing in and trying to fix things.
Awesome blog Carmel, I too am a fixer and need to practice much more allowing and patience. As I wrote I got that is the very thing that I need to allow for myself so in my impatience for others to get it – to see clearly what I so clearly see — the arrogance is so yuck!!! — that this impatience is how I treat myself and then there is no love being lived in my body, only ideas of where I should be and what I should be doing. It is great to expose where one is at and relax, and feel and be LOVE, like you share Carmel, then there is a true reflection on offer for all to see and feel.
Also Carmel from the other side of the coin, when my boyfriend really holds himself and I therefore can’t distract myself with fixing his stuff, that’s when all my stuff comes up for me to deal with – it really has been gobsmacking to realise how true that is as well! By so called helping others we really are limiting our own progression….
Very interesting Rachel, thanks for sharing this, ‘when my boyfriend really holds himself and I therefore can’t distract myself with fixing his stuff, that’s when all my stuff comes up for me to deal with’. It makes me realise that I spend a lot of time focused on trying to ‘fix’ my friends and family and that this distracts me from looking at my stuff.
Carmel. We have all been a fixer for other people with problems. It took me a long time to learn, that we cannot solve other people’s problems and hurts.
We can advise, and listen openly to what they have to say, understand where they are coming from. Tell them we will always be there for them to speak with us, whenever they need to. But at the end of the day they will solve their own problems. We also need to show them love and understanding.
I have fallen into this role of the fixer too and it has totally distracted me from myself and living my life. I love what Janine writes too that “it’s ok to let people live their own lives, without interfering or wanting an outcome from them. And even more so having the humility to accept them with nothing but love for who they are and where they are”.
Thanks Carmel for opening up this topic.
“Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.”
This is put so simply you cannot but recognize the validity of it. Without any imposition others are free to choose for themselves, but they always have people to look towards for guidance and the opportunity to choose something they know to be true.
I know ‘the fixer’ type very well. I was one.
Changing that dynamic has not been easy, as it meant I could no longer avoid dealing with MY issues.
So yes I agree Carmel, “patience, understanding, allowing and a clear reflection” are the qualities to offer now when someone requires help.
Well said Carmel! I relate to what you share too. When I catch myself delving into someone else’s dramas I know that it’s a distraction from what’s going on in my own life. Well worth remembering! Thank you.
This fits me too, Carmel, I always thought I was so great at fixing others problems. This exposes a huge arrogance within me that I thought I could fix other peoples problems better than they can. I can still find myself in that momentum sometimes and have to catch myself and just be there supporting instead without fixing. Fixing others also has allowed me to avoided looking at myself, what sneaky behaviour is that!
Thank you Carmel for the honesty of your reflection. The arrogance I have displayed in the past when imposing my solutions on other people’s problems has caused both me and them lots of issues. There was always part of me that was aware that this was a distraction from my own problems but I was not willing to acknowledge my need to be needed. Allowing someone the space to make their own choices without imposing is something I am working on.
I agree Ariana, this line also stood out for me too “‘I’m not saying we should avoid helping anybody with their problems, but in my case, my arrogance in thinking I know what they should do and having no hesitation in telling them so.’
Your last line about fixing others so as not to look at ourselves sums up why I used to get so involved in others stuff, as it totally took the focus off the mess I was choosing to live in. Great to let that go and allow others to find their way with support if required, but not to push for what I feel may be best.
Thankyou Carmel. I too have been a fixer, wanting to “help” others. Supreme arrogance in that I viewed them as lesser and not able to sort themselves out, when I really needed to be looking more deeply into my own issues and healing them. In my spiritual days the “wounded healer” was an acceptable phrase. I came to see that we were denying our own hurts by attempting to help others with theirs, yet not truly dealing with our own – just rearranging the furniture.
Allowing people to be – with their choices – is something I still need to remind myself of.
Beautifully expressed Sue. Your comment has made me realise that fixing people’s problems is “supreme arrogance” as you say and it makes them lesser. A great reminder.
A great blog very inspiring.
Thank you Carmel, I see you have written this for me, or better still – it’s about me as I greatly relate; but really it’s a truth that we all seem to have experienced from time to time in our lives. Over the years, I have tried to be ‘Mr fix it man’ and always appeared to fail to some sort of degree, to never really achieve what I was trying to do – to help another person out with what ever problem they had at the time.
In my experience, when you’re trying to help someone with a problem it seems to reflect straight back at you, that the same problem may be something for you to learn as well. Yet I have chosen to go forth with trying to solve what it is and I can feel I need to stop moving my mouth and accept where that person is at, and listen, instead of trying to be Mr fix it. In the past 6 months or so I have found by accepting where that person is at and feeling what the real problem is, I can better just lend support and make suggestions if it feels right, letting them decide if it feels true for whatever is happening for them at that time.
Awesome Carmel, I always love your playful honesty. Great blog. From my experience I use fixing to help me prevent another from being in pain as they go through their life and learn and develop. It’s amazing to have become so aware of the countless times I would rather keep the peace than let them learn by jumping in. Gosh the amount of lessons I have prevented by thinking I was doing the right thing, when quite typically It would be driven also by my right to get recognition and essentially love for “knowing”. Nowadays and being so aware is just so awesome, as I find that (when I remember) to let go of this need I can truly support people in their learning, and more often than not true opportunities to support become available rather than my forced impositions.
I agree Phil, this blog gave me a bit of a wake up call, showing me the amount of lessons I might have interfered with, in my belief that I was “doing good”, “helping” or simply because I arrogantly believed that “I knew best”. But, like you have said, it is the times of true support that are so amazing because it is often a learning in its self.
Carmel, I can very much relate to the role of fixer, it was one that I happily took on and particularly so as a parent and wife. However these days I can feel how much more of a support I can be when they know I am there but not actually imposing any solution or set advice. I can sometimes feel others wanting me to make it better but I can also feel how great it is when they find their own way.
Thank you, Carmel. I was waiting for the reasons why you became a “fixer” as I related to many aspects of this blog, yet it didn’t go there and I love the responsibility and acceptance I felt as a result. It’s been so true for me too, that Universal Medicine practitioners offer such an amazing reflection of gentle and compassionate presence with no agendas “to fix what ain’t broke” …that is, me! I may have problems to explore and understand but their way of allowing the answers to come from me is what I have always found most empowering and indeed, inspirational.
Sometimes saying absolutely nothing speaks volumes when someone is dealing with a personal challenge or issue. I know that when I have looked outside to other people for advice without even checking in with myself first, I have usually ended up more confused than ever.
That’s very true Michael – sometimes the best support is just to step back and allow the person to choose for themselves.
I appreciate the honesty and the insights in this article and the comments. It is a very familiar pattern and one well worth looking at. Your message about the disempowering aspect of this behaviour is profound; “It is possible that providing solutions to another person does not help them to develop awareness or gain a full understanding of their own situation.
And Naren’s example was a powerful one for me; the absurdity of looking over a car mechanic’s shoulder and telling them what to do – and pointing out the similarity to me telling the person responsible for their own life and their own choices what I think they should do.
Yes, in the light of the above it is obvious that simply maintaining a gentle presence, and a loving space where the other person can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices is the true way to support.
Yes, “simply maintaining a gentle presence, and a loving space where the other person can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices” feels so much more loving than jumping in with what you believe is a solution for them, which is actually very imposing.
Wow, I work as a “Support” Worker. You have certainly given me food for thought with this blog Carmel, and everyone with all the comments. I can see how I could call myself an “Interfering” Worker. No wonder I leave work exhausted and with backache at the end of the day.
Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon, and especially my Universal medicine Practitioner have inspired me to become more honest about how and if I was`truly helping people when I “fixed” people.
I learned from raising children that children need to experience things to truly understand. If you try to fix things for them you deprive them of the experience. How could I possibly know what some body else needs, when I am still trying to feel what I need?
This is such an easy trap to fall into. To jump straight in and save someone. I’ve done it frequently! But as you say, they do not feel what to do for themselves and so there is no evolution in this process, until the next time when they’ll be looking for someone to come save them again, but this time there may not be anyone. Sometimes even your help may backfire on you, and they can blame you for the outcome. There are so many combinations and permutations of outcomes. Sometimes, in fact most of the time, a quick fix does nothing but band aid over the cut. What is really required is a true healing and that can take time.
Thanks Jenny, yes I have certainly lived in a ‘band aid’ frame of mind for a long time, rather than allowing the truth to come to the surface in its own time.
Thanks for sharing this Carmel. There’s so much wisdom in allowing people the space to be on their own path, and not feel the need to fix them or solve things. This is still something i’m working on myself too, just being okay to let people live their own lives without interfering or wanting an outcome for them. And even more so, having the humility to accept them with nothing but love for who they are and where they are.
This is lovely Janine, ‘just being okay to let people live their own lives without interfering or wanting an outcome for them. And even more so, having the humility to accept them with nothing but love for who they are and where they are.’ I find this very inspiring, what a beautiful way to live.
I found that very inspiring too Rebecca.
I can so relate to your blog – it is inspiring to read your account of how much your life has changed now that you can stand back and observe what is going on, rather than enjoin it – it is beautiful to appreciate how much we have changed and to feel that appreciation in our body. As you say our body is always willing to support us with our changes, once we begin with connection, and are willing to listen to our body rather than looking outside for distraction. The beautiful thing about connecting to our body is that it never fails us and it allows us to come back to who we really are deep inside.
Thanks Carmel great blog, so real and true and presented in such a way that can be really seen and understood. Wanting to help others and solve things for them is definitely not the answer. I know how much I appreciate being simply listened to and from this I can see and feel what is really happening and know for myself, I see this in simply listening to others also. Very empowering.
I used to try and fix everything and everyone around me but neglected to sort myself out!! It does not work. So I began to work on myself and made a choice to support and be there for people but not impose my opinion when it was not requested; and I have stopped giving them so many solutions for change in their lives. I find that if I do have something to say these days it comes from a true place and I have found people to be a lot more open to what I have to say. I still do feel prompted to say something sometimes, but the quality in which I am sharing has greatly improved and is naturally unimposing. Thank you for sharing.
Great blog, Carmel. I agree with everyone – that getting involved and ‘fixing’ is a distraction, so it is really self-serving. Creating the space to simply being there for another feels so much better.
Beautyfull blog Carmel. I agree Janet and see the self serving aspect of “fixing” others. I was caught up in fixing others but equally wanted to be fixed at times. Today i still catch myself wanting to go fixing and the reason is because i still absorb a lot and want to change the people to make me feel better. That is not the way it works. And like Janet said “creating a space to simply being there for another” that’s the way!
I agree about the distraction Janet. I have always been ready to help out and say yes when people ask me if I can do something. When I need to be doing it for myself! Now I tend to stand back and observe how it feels before leaping in. Its good to start taking responsibility for all my own actions, and allowing others to do the same in a loving and supporting way.
Yes me too, I agree. Dreading a sensation of feeling invisible to others and not being able to relax and truly be myself naturally and joyfully, I have became a fixer of others´stuff so I could get some self-importance and of course avoid dealing with why I felt so invisible in the first place, with a permanent lack of joy and instead very analytical and serious. It has been great to read this blog and all of the comments, very liberating, truthful and loving. Thank you Carmel.
Thanks Carmel. Reading your lovely article I could feel how it still plays out in my own life as a parent. As soon as I go into the “doing” as a parent I find myself going into fixing mode with my two sons. instead of simply giving them the space to make decisions and learn from their choices. How much more empowering it is for us all to learn and grow from our own choices than to have others ‘solutions’ imposed on us.
Hi Jane, my children are in their 30s now and I still catch myself wanting to help – ‘giving them space to make their own decisions and learn from their choices’ is definitely much more empowering, thank you.
I agree Jane – although I am not a parent, I live at home with my mum, and it has been amazing to look at how much trying to protect or prevent mistakes is a massive part of parenting. It can be hard sometimes, but learning from your mistakes and growing from your experiences has far more freedom and fosters self-responsibility.
This struck a very familiar chord with me. The image that came to me while reading this was one of a guy looking at a car engine over the shoulder of a professional mechanic and telling him how to fix the car. I feel when I try to fix someone else’s issue I am inviting myself into a situation based on my own inflated sense of experience or importance. Of course the truth of the matter is that in fixing another I am trying to make myself feel better and pat myself on the back for being a good person, therefore it is really not about helping them at all!
Wow, Naren, a very honest sharing and a great analogy, thank you. There is much to ponder on in your words ‘I am trying to make myself feel better and pat myself on the back for being a good person, therefore it is really not about helping them at all!’
Wise words Carmel and much to think about as I read all the comments, each offering even more insight. I got a degree in fixing many years ago and only in the last few years have discovered what a worthless bit of paper it was as I realised that nobody can fix things for another. Yes, Naren, I resonated with what you said about trying to make myself feel better and pat myself on the back etc. A few whoops and ouch but much recognition, thanks everyone!.
Yes, its not really about helping them, but just “showing off”, showing how great we are with our ideas and insights!
This is great Naren and I can really relate here.
Hi Naren, I have found the exact same thing with myself. It’s quite selfish the way I would take ownership of people’s problems just to get something out of it (It’s drastically reduced nowadays). Be it recognition, be liked, admired, loved, adored, cherished, you name it. I would delve into other people’s problems to get all the things I wasn’t prepared to give to myself. A big ouch and this blog has given me a lot to think about..
Carmel, there is so much to ponder about what you share in this blog. And Naren, I can certainly relate to giving others ‘solutions’ and ‘fixings’ – now I can see how there is a mixture of arrogance and a need of recognition on that too.
Yes, there is an arrogance. When pondering about the arrogance thing, it made me see the whole picture: on one side I fix things so I don´t feel so unimportant to others, but on the other hand I prise myself for all my hard work and the inner work I´ve done, so then arrogance kicks in and I just think I am the one who knows best and can bring real solutions to others, after all I am “enlightened”. Horrible. Everything revolving around “self”, not an inch of love or true appreciation, in spite of the apparent “good intentions”.
Wonderful honest comment Naren. We really are actually helping another for our own sake – Ouch! Yes I feel this to be true.
That’s a very interesting way of looking at it Naren; instead of supporting and helping the person who’s issue we are trying to ‘fix’, we are actually taking that issue on ourselves looking for the ‘pat on the back’ for being a good person.
Bingo Susie!! How insidious is that!! Someone comes to us with a problem and we manipulate the situation so that we get a pat on the back for fixing them. Yuck! But very true. I have absolutely done that. And the even more devastating thing is that it further entrenches the person in the problem that they came to you with in the first place because, by thanking you for helping them, they have given away even more of their power – a power they badly need to see that THEY, and they alone, can choose a different way.
That is a great point Susie, fixing things for people is about about US, and our sense of importance and worth in the world, not about supporting them, and what they truly need.
You got it, Susie. When we go into fixing, true help or service goes straight out the window, and is replaced by making ourselves feel less uncomfortable with another person who is struggling.
That is such a great analogy Naren. We are all too willing to tell someone exactly what they need to do, while we drive around in beaten up old wrecks that need fixing! Isn’t it a relief when we choose to simply fix our own car and leave others to figure out how to fix theirs?!
This is so true and I can relate to this; also there is the arrogance that the other person is not able or equipped to deal with aspects of their life. It is saying you/I or we are better than they are!
..’there is the arrogance that the other person is not able or equipped to deal with aspects of their life.’ – That’s very true Vicky.
Yes Naren, this is spot on – and something I have been prone to do myself, many times. There is an arrogance here that needs to be named as something that undoes the potential to have true harmony for all. The fact that some of us feel that we can be fixers means we are above – not equal – whereas, harmony comes from an equal being and sharing. The image of us all holding a piece to the puzzle is what came through for me, how we truly support – when we are in the flow we can be presented, very simply, with the right support at the right time and that is just beautiful.
Well said Naren, I can totally relate to what you are saying and love the analogy of the mechanic you have used.
Well said Naren. I can totally relate. For me this is where the ‘do gooder’ role came into my life. The pretence of caring for others but in truth looking for the recognition of being seen as a good person. ouch!
Your comment shifts the focus beautifully from the outplay (looking like we are helping others) to the actual transaction (feeling better about myself, getting recognised for it). I’ve done this time and time again, and when it’s put like that the fix does not look nearly as good.
Thank you Carmel, I can raise my hand, I am and have been a fixer. It’s almost an addiction to want to help others to avert the mistakes in life I have made. I have learnt that almost all of my mistakes have been results of my choices. I have now chosen to offer wisdom learned from life when asked for ‘A Fix’ and allow others to chose their own path ‘where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices. This requires patience, understanding and allowing on my part.’
‘It’s almost an addiction to want to help others to avert the mistakes in life I have made’ – wow Steve that’s very honest.
Yes, I have felt too that wanting to “help” others has been a distraction from my own issues. Whilst focusing on others, attention was deflected from what I needed to work on for myself. Like you I have come to realise that true support is allowing someone the grace of being where they are at, offering them a true reflection of who they really are and the space in which to make their own choices.
Thank you Carmel. You have shed a very revealing light on my many years of backache! I have always been very ready to try and ‘fix’ a problem for others but considered others trying to ‘fix’ me an interference. It has taken me a long time to relate the two.
I had a lovely experience yesterday of sharing a problem with a friend. I could feel myself wanting her to try to fix it and caught myself. What we then actually did was have a conversation about the issue in which she shared her own experience of it, and together we uncovered the true nature of the problem. It was so helpful for me to listen to her experience and this gave me more of an insight into what was actually going on. In the end we both came to a beautiful clarity which helped both of us. Just beautiful.
As ‘fixer’ or the one ‘needing fixing’, I have realised that to offer or be offered solutions is a sure fire way of interfering with the learning and opportunity presented by the ‘problem’, and that true support is about providing space and a steady reflection for all of us to take responsibility for whatever is going on. Thank you, Carmel.
Hi Matilda, your words have given me another perspective – that it is the problem that is presenting the learning not the solution, a subtle but important twist, thank you.
Hear, hear……well said, Matilda and Carmel. The answer is in the problem itself and so the more we can see, feel and simply present what the problem is, we find the answer is already there waiting – if we but choose to feel it. This is the loving acceptance and reflection offered by Serge Benhayon and Esoteric practitioners. No interference or fixing required.
Carmel, Matilda and Peta so amazing to feel how true that it. When I did support work I always felt such a huge pressure to be able to offer the perfect solution -and be recognised for being the perfect support worker -OUCH! This feels so honouring of the people involved and the magic of what is being reflected. Beautiful. Thank you.
This is very true Matilda. You are so right that it gets in the way of the opportunity from the problem. That’s certainly a new way of looking at it – to see a ‘fixer’ for what is behind the act.
Great point Matilda, well said.
Good point Matilda It seems to me that ‘fixing’ seems to come from our perception of what a ‘problem’ is… do we see a problem as a bad thing – as something that must be eliminated or avoided? Or do we see the problem as an opportunity to grow and develop, and the possibility that it might be there to teach us something – and so embrace that? What comes to me is the analogy of ‘match fixing’ in sport. In match fixing people are trying to control or manipulate events to have a predetermined outcome. Fixing other people’s problems for me has been a similar form of control, one that I am only just starting to uncover for myself.
I can totally relate, I have realised how much helping (fixing) has been a way i have been submerging myself in others problems and how weighed down and thus how drained I was feeling. How allowing people to see another way of living, is a powerful reflection that is not draining or capping another, but showing them that their is a different way..
I agree Nicole – instead of submerging into someone’s problems, it can be much more supportive and loving to simply show them that there is in fact a ‘different way’, which then offers them the choice to determine what is truly right for themselves.
I too was (still am, occasionally) a fixer. It is the perfect way of avoiding the truth of what is being shown at that moment. As you rightly say Susie, simply showing them a ‘different way’, or as I think of it, a choice. That is what I endeavour to offer my kids. The choice. When they are having a tough time, rather than trying to fix it, is to show them that they have a choice and can choose a different way. It’s very inspiring for them because it empowers them to take responsibility and becomes their way rather than my imposed way. But it also works for me (I often ‘parent’ myself). Instead of fixing my problems, I now allow myself to be open to what is being shown and then see that I have a choice to choose a different way. Something that I would never have seen if I just fixed it.
Well said Susie. I know for me this has always helped me get myself out of my ‘problems’. Whenever someone has tried to help me or help fix my problems – it has almost immediately brought up a reaction in me and I have wanted to push them away and effectively rebel further away, whereas by having people or someone around me simply living lovingly it asks me to be more and to let go of what I may be going through. It is then soo much more powerful when I myself overcome the problem.
Beautifully put Susie – a light touch that has so much more to offer than a solution. It gives us the opportunity to learn rather than removing the opportunity.
Nicole, I agree, allow others the choice to see a different way of living gives them a choice to choose or not. Thus eliminating any heaviness or drain on ourselves. Also we are not imposing, just reflecting a different way of living to them.
Yes, I have recently realised how arrogant I have been to think I could fix someone else’s problems when all it did was give me a level of comfort and satisfaction in thinking I was “doing good”, completely ignoring the fact that each person has a much bigger life history and story than the little piece I thought I could fix. It also became a great excuse and distraction from looking at myself and finding me. I was in collusion with myself and others as they equally sort refuge in the comfort of my advice and they too were kept from feeling and loving the beautiful quality they had within themselves and to feel the consequences of their choices in life too. A great set up that keeps us from truly connecting and expanding our expression of who we truly are together.
You’ve hit the nail on its head there Suzanne – it’s such a great distraction from connecting to ourselves whilst kidding ourselves we are “doing good”! Perfect trick of the mind! I almost have some sort of an out of body experience when I do it now so my awareness is definitely getting there but it’s still got such a speedy momentum… The world will be a better place when we all keep our noses out of other people’s stuff and instead focus on our own lives – that is a certainty!
I can relate to so much of what you have shared Carmel. I have always taken on the role of ‘fixer’ within my family and with my peers. I have recently felt the imposition of this and the huge distraction it is from looking and taking responsibility for my own life and way of living. Great blog, thank you.
Carmel, thank you for sharing this. I so relate to this, I very often in the past and can still do now, be overly helpful and want to give others solutions. And it doesn’t work, not truly as you beautifully illustrate. For me, it is a way to not address things I needed to address with myself; it is a way to feel needed, and actually it is often an imposition really, as I failed to understand that others need the time and space to find their own way. Increasingly that is what I’m learning to do, to support when asked and allow another to direct that.
‘It is a way to not address things I needed to address with myself’ – wow Monica you’ve taken this even deeper… Could it be that when we butt-in and try to ‘fix’ other people’s problems, we are actually doing it because it is a way for us to ‘solve’ our own issues… without actually having to look and deal with them truly.
Powerful writing Carmel – thank you for sharing this. I could just imagine how much freer and lighter Life would be in letting this go. I too have used it as a way to control but have seen the damage it does with our kids. I for one feel very appreciative that we are addressing many of our patterns so that we do not Live, Die, Repeat!!
Carmel, I love the honesty you write with. Yep! I, too can relate to your blog. I used to be a ‘fixer’ and a huge ‘sponge’ for others woes – sympathy in its worst form. I am standing back so much more now and choosing to let other people feel whatever they need to learn from – it truly feels so much more supportive just being fully present with them, without judgement or sympathy, and is certainly more loving to my own body too.
Work continually in progress!
Hi Stephanie, great words, thank you – being a ‘sponge for others woes’, absorbing all their emotions can be very draining, it’s amazing how much my vitality is increasing the less I take on other people’s stuff and spend time looking at my own.
I like your analogy of a ‘huge sponge’ Stephanie
This is beautiful Carmel, the loving space you describe when we don’t try and ‘fix’ things feels so nurturing, giving people space to make their own choices.
I love your blog Carmel and I feel you have a lot to offer people in what you have shared. It’s kinda crazy how we can think that helping people in their issues is what is needed, when in truth we haven’t really looked at our issues and helped ourselves!
As so many others, I too can relate to being ‘the fixer’. Great topic Carmel!
I have become aware that people don’t feel loved when I ‘try to help’. When I think they need me, I can feel my non-acceptance of them.
I am not accepting where they are or trusting them to be able to learn to take care of themselves.
Now that I have felt the kind of acceptance and non-imposing love from Serge, esoteric practitioners and students I have a much better sense of what it means to be truly helpful.
Good point Jo, when we try to fix another person’s problems we are judging them as being incompetent and saying “I know better that you”. Great awareness to have, as once we step back and just offer a reflective space, we stop judging and this alone has a very powerful effect in supporting people to discover their own resolution, because we always have the answer within us.
Hi Carmel, what a wonderful insight to have of your own previous way of being and I can totally relate and know I have wanted so much to help the world and fix its problems! Great to read and see how you have come to your true understanding of how ‘helping’ is not actually helping but “that true compassion is to simply be there, feeling what’s going on, creating a loving space where they can ponder on their own situation and make their own choices”. Thanks.
Carmel I can really relate to ‘Fix It’ mode. I too am really good at seeing the solution and it is always so obvious when it’s not our life – and then the frustration of having such sound advice rejected, all the while ignoring all my own problems that need attention. As you so correctly say, its a long way off the gentle, non-judgemental space that Serge Benhayon and the Esoteric Practitioners create that allows us to simply ponder and realise our own true resolutions to our issues, what a God-send! I am truly appreciating that when we allow another the space and reflection to feel for themselves what the way forward really is, it is the most powerful resolution of all.
There is such a huge level of honesty in this blog Carmel that so many, including me, who read this can relate to the arrogance of fixing others to avoid fixing self. Definitely, providing solutions for others does not help them or me, it stops them from looking at their own issues in depth, and it distracts me from looking at my own stuff. And I’ve done it for a very long time, thank you for helping me learn to be there in true compassion.
Hi Carmel I have been learning this too, how easily I can fall into the arrogance of thinking someone needs my help and thinking that I have the solution for them. I have been feeling how arrogant this is, that I can assume that I have the answers and they don’t, or that my way is right and theirs isn’t. All seen under the banner of ‘doing good’ or ‘helping out’. Quite often it will ‘back fire’ on me and I find myself in a situation I did not need to be in and then get frustrated with myself. Thank you Carmel for you honesty I could relate to everything you wrote.
Hi Carmel great blog, At times I have to admit I like a fixer to come along and sort things for me instead of taking responsibility for myself so this is a great blog for people to see where they fit in to this scenario. Seems there are a lot of fixers out there.
Carmel
Thank you. You hit the nail on the head so to speak – an old expression from child hood.
Your expression has resonated with most of us, if not all of us. I too have lived a greater part of my life trying to be the fixer-upper the fence-mender and actually it never worked for any length of time because the same situation arises again and again.
Yet I was aware I did not like the feeling that these persons were reflecting to me, it did not feel that that is the way one should feel. Then the old belief systems were triggered, I would re-act with sympathy or pity.
Thank you for the absolute clarity to be aware from within, the reasons why we do act in a certain way.
As for me, from the teachings and loving support from Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon I have come to rely on a very innate knowing. I can not make anyone choose to feel better or make different choices. I can express truth and allow them the space to feel it or not.
This was huge for me to come to, to actually understand where I am in myself, and bring that into my everyday living.
In much appreciation to Serge and his teachings, now I choose not to mend, or fix situations for anyone, yet be a compassionate listener and to be the love I am in their presence. This has far more reaching affects than anything else I may think I can do.
This is true. Whenever I have tried to fix things I have prevented the recipient of my fixing from learning the lesson that they needed to learn. In trying to protect them I held them back and imprisoned them into having to go through the whole learning experience again.
Thank you Carmel Reid and like many of the comments here I am a ‘ditto’. I was madam fixer and made it my mission as the world and its brothers need fixing and who else is going to do it. Of course this was wrong but the drive to fix others was coming from my own lack of self worth and not feeling enough saying nothing.
My understanding thanks to Serge Benhayon is to Allow others to be in their choices, Accept others where they are at in their choices in the Knowing that they too will one day return to who they truly are. Who am I to impose my way of being onto another and how can this possibly help them to learn and grow? I get it now, that to truly help another I just need to butt out unless asked. Also, like you, I am work in progress as I do get my moments but thank god it’s getting easier to mind my own business and feel content not fixing another.
Hi Bina, I so love your sense of humour! Allow and Accept – great words, plus the MMOB (Mind my own business). Wasn’t there a quote about that in the bible? Something about before taking the speck of sawdust out from someone else’s eye look at the plank in your own? It’s taken us a while, but perhaps we need to pay closer attention to these wise teachings that Jesus presented two thousand years ago! 🙂
Carmel, so amazing! i can so relate to your article. The ‘fixing’ has been how i have lived, for acceptance, to ‘help’ people and distract myself from my own life, exactly as you have shared. To learn that true compassion is to simply be there, is something i am developing and continues to unfold, thank you for this true reminder.
From experience letting others help me has allowed me to remain irresponsible for the situations I have at times gotten myself into. But when I choose to allow myself to come to things on my own there is a feeling of self-empowerment. We are all equal and by letting someone come to that realisation themselves is very power-full.
Well said leighoflight – I am working on this one myself, to empower people by letting them figure it out rather than tell them what to do… Big stuff!
Beautiful observations Carmel. It is so easy to rush in and try to help and fix. I agree that this doesn’t give people the time and the grace to help themselves which is much more empowering for them. I know that I feel more empowered when I have taken responsibility for my own problems and found a way to resolve them.
Amazing Carmel, as I read this it was like I had written it. It’s amazing to feel just how the same we all are from reading these blogs! I devoted my whole life to poking my nose into other people’s problems until I began with Universal Medicine. I was pretty devastated to realise quite how many lessons I’d taken from my friends and family and so in affect how I’d invited more of the same situations into their life for them to deal with themselves. Now I have so much time as I don’t ring people every day for an update in their issues, instead I practice being still to sort out my issues, like you say Carmel. Once they are tackled perhaps I can help others only by inspiring them with my own loveliness…. And this is a huge turning point for me and my relationship with everyone, for sure.
I have also found that getting involved in other people’s dramas and goings on is the best way to be distracted from what is going on with me. Often when I see my friends making choices I know or think are bad ones, I try to wade in and help, without stopping to consider that they need to be given the space to make their own choices, and mistakes, otherwise they won’t learn for themselves that it’s not a good idea. Thank you for sharing Carmel.
Carmel, reading your article I had a sense of your loveliness, thank you. Whist I am aware ‘fixing other people’s problems’ can be a seductive distraction for me, I often ignore how it feels in my body when I’m ‘fixing’ for myself, there is much here for me to ponder on…
Hi Jacky, ‘seductive distraction’ is a great term for it – we do get seduced into thinking it is a ‘Good Thing’ to do when in-truth what we have to do is LIVE IT.
Another honest piece of writing Carmel. I’ve been the fixer too – and I do notice many other people who get into that space of always finding solutions, even when they aren’t asked for. But you’re absolutely right – it isn’t supportive for them or me. It seems like something a lot of us can stop and look at next time – before we just try to make things better. Thank you for this.
Such pearls of wisdom Carmel! It reminds me of that ‘prayer for those growing older’ that people often stick on the bathroom door, which contains a line, ” save me from that irresistible craving to sort out everyone else’s affairs” or “Offering the clear reflection to another is such a powerful and useful strategy, and nobody can accuse you of being interfering!”
Really interesting reading your blog Carmel and also the comments so far – it seems a lot of people have adopted this ‘fixer’ role before.
Thank you, Carmel, I can relate to this so much. A particular point of reflection is when you write about the Universal Medicine Practitioners, “By the way they are with me I can experience how it feels to be truly helped with loving, tender care and the utmost respect. Not by telling anyone what to do or by trying to fix their problems, but by simply living in a way that offers a clear reflection for another.” Encountering this approach was a huge aspect of my renouncing being a kinesiology practitioner as through this approach I was able to resolve issues within myself that in 15 years of kinesiology had never touched, the approach of which is completely ‘to fix’.
Hi Jonathan, I have observed with great interest and with much appreciation how you have developed as an Esoteric Practitioner, with the tenderness, respect and care that you present.
Hi Carmel a really great article. I know what its like to spend much of my time being a “fixer” of things or for other people. It’s great to consider just what a distraction this is from sorting out myself first and therefore how judgemental I can come across.
Hi Carmel, interfering is another word for fixing that I can relate to. Doing this does come with arrogance and ‘some’ hidden agenda. Things I’ve developed a greater awareness for, from the Universal Medicine presentations.
Thank you
I can relate to this Carmel. I used to take up an exercise and diet program and start loosing weight and find myself selling it to others close to me. Not only was I sharing what I was doing but I had the feeling I could do it for them – if only they would listen to me. Inevitably they would loose interest and I would get fed up of having to encourage them to turn up for our weekly exercise classes. It never worked long term as I see now that I was trying to fix their overweight problems, as well as my own.
This is a great blog Carmel, I love how you write! I love what you say about the role models of Serge Benhayon and the Esoteric Practitioners trained by Universal Medicine: there is no ‘fixing’ offered, but as you perfectly said, there is a space for us to be supported to come to our own decisions.
It’s a real honouring to have space to express, share and be heard without the imposition of another’s need, to criticise or fix you. Great blog Carmel, with plenty for me to ponder on….thank you.
Thanks for a great blog Carmel. I can relate to this as well, having been a “fixer” too. It is a work in progress, but I am learning to allow others to make their own mistakes, rather than impose my way of doing things. It feels freeing for me, as I don’t have to take on their problems, which often may have manifested in an ache or pain in my own body. I shall remember to simply live ” in a way that offers a clear reflection for another. “
Wow, Carmel I started reading your article and wondered if I had written those words, it was just what I have been doing all my life. Unfortunately, all the time I have been fixing other people’s perceived problems I have neglected to focus on my own life. Thank you for your sharing.
Thank you Carmel, there is much to ponder on in what’s written. I am left wondering what is at play when we go into ‘fix-it’ mode. For myself I am seeing it is about accepting where another is at and being willing to allow them space thus seeing them as equal and being able to work it out for themselves and even if they don’t thats their issue!! I do not have to control how I think it should be. At times it may be necessary to express in some way but as you say this is to support them to come to their own understanding for themselves, and not something to suit me.
I relate to this so much Carmel, thank you
I find if I am trying to be a “fixer” it comes from a neediness and or arrogance in me to show I know what is right and to provide a solution. To simply be there and be supportive of another is easier and much more loving.
Wow, this is great Carmel, I can relate to being a ‘fixer’, and thinking that I know how to resolve someone’s problems better than they can and thinking that I’m right – reading your article makes me aware of the arrogance of this. I will ponder on what you have written, thank you.
This is such a great sharing Carmel, when you say ‘I am learning that true compassion is to simply be there’ it feels really true for me too, just to be with a person when they are going through a difficult time is very supportive, with no judgement or ‘fixing’. And it brings with it so much simplicity.
A great article Carmel and I relate to what you say as I have been the “fixer” very freely offering my input on situations whether it was asked for or not. My endeavour now is to stand back and allow as you note, with patience, understanding and support, others the space to arrive at the choice they feel to make for themselves. Much more empowering for the person and certainly less draining for me.
Another great blog Carmel. Trying to fix other people’s stuff for them and take responsibility for them is so exhausting and totally destroys any chance to have a true intimate relationship. How can we if we have an already set idea of how people are and how they should behave, and what they should do? And also in such cases, we are not taking responsibility for ourselves and our own choices so not even connected with who we are. After a lifetime of this I have gradually learned how one sided it feels and ultimately uncomfortable and separating, and damaging too. I have also noticed how, although I do it much less, it can infiltrate in deceitful ways. This is even worse as it is covert and not honest and even more harming. I feel we can offer advice once, if asked for, and then leave it, and not fall for the temptation to press our point, which feels like control for things to go our way for our own comfort.
Carmel this was fascinating to read, it definitely made me think – while I’ve had moments of thinking I know what is best for someone, instead my usual response in the past to someone sharing a big problem with me, is more to sympathise with someone and lower myself to the same emotional state to ‘help them’. Obviously this never worked because when you have a big problem you need inspiration not someone to be ‘nice’ and cry with you. Like you say, remaining unaffected and allowing someone to come to their own decision on something is much more beneficial for them. I’ll be watching my future reactions with interest!
I absolutely agree. Our ‘support’ is often laced with our own need to feel accepted or for some kind of recognition of our amazingness. I agree true support means that we are not there for ourselves in anyway, but just to support a fellow human being in a difficult moment, which – let’s be honest – we all have.
Hi Carmel. I have taken on the fixer role and still slip into it from time to time. I know how annoyed it can make me feel when others do it to me, so I am working on not imposing ‘my way’ on others any more.
Thank you Carmel, it seems to me that when we try to fix another person’s situation, there is a judgement there about them, their situation and their ability to handle it. But in that “loving space” that you have described, there is no judgement, just understanding, allowing, and acceptance of that person for who they are and all that they are capable of. This is very beautiful, thank you for sharing.
Hi Carmel – this could be me!!! Thankyou for sharing – I am still falling into this trap even though it frequently backfires on me – time to practise true compassion.
Hi Carmel, I can relate to having also been a fixer. As I look back I realise how it distracted me from taking responsibility for my own life, and how it was a form of arrogance in me thinking I had the answers and that they could not sort their life out. Now, I accept it as their choice, how they live and what they create, and that by my living a life in a loving manner can reflect a different way.
Hi Carmel, I can totally relate to exactly what you are saying – I have always wanted to help people, help ‘fix’ their lifes, but extremely arrogantly so I have tended to give more attention and focus to how others are rather than fully looking myself, my life and what is going on for me. Like you I have come to see, with the added understanding and awareness from Universal Medicine, that by being a reflection of someone living life lovingly, showing that it is possible is the best inspiration for others to make more loving choices themselves, just like Serge Benhayon and others have been for me.
So true James, brilliantly written, I completely relate to this.
Amazing Carmel I totally relate to being an arrogant fixer, who now because of what I have claimed through Universal Medicine teachings as presented by Serge Benhayon, have greater stillness, less arrogance. Like you I am also a work in process.
Awesome Carmel. What you say rings true to me. I have found that I have made situations more complicated when I try to fix things for others. Through my experience, I have come to realise that when I am trying to fix, I am actually preventing them from learning the lesson there is to be learnt – something I am still continuing to be aware of.
Hi Carmel,
It is as though I’m reading a page from my own life story – not only finding solutions for others but often keeping a long repair list for items in the home that might well have served me better by simply throwing them away instead of ‘fixing’ them. This certainly has been a time-consuming, often energy draining past time that has been an effective escape for me to hide behind, having ‘space’ in my own life to feel what’s really going on for me and perhaps the un-dealt with matters that I’m avoiding.
And you’re absolutely spot on in that allowing others the opportunity to present their full story to someone willing to listen without judgement or investment in providing solutions, is a truly self-empowering opportunity for that person to deal with their own ‘stuff’.
Hi Gregory, wow – I hadn’t thought about how it applies to fixing broken things, I used to do that too. I agree how draining these un-dealt with matters can be, from clothes that need to be thrown out, not kept ‘just in case,’ to a broken printer that seems ‘a shame to throw away’. They are taking up space in my house and cluttering up my mind every time I look at them. It is possible that clearing them out will, as you say, leave ‘space in my own life to feel what’s really going on for me and perhaps the un-dealt with matters that I’m avoiding’. Great words, thank you.
Thank you Carmel. I am left feeling deeply reflective after reading this. Something to ponder on…
I can so relate to what you have shared Carmel. I used to want to save the world and for everyone to get ‘it’, so I’d invest in outcomes, meddle and interfere and then become exhausted and frustrated when people didn’t listen, change, or take my advice. Now I see that they have free will and are simply making their own choices; choices from which they will eventually learn and grow – and all I need do is reflect by the way I live that there is a different way to be and different choices that can be made.
Beautifully said, Rachel, ‘and all I need do is reflect by the way I live that there is a different way to be and different choices that can be made.’
Hear hear Rachel. I did the same and it is such a relief that I don’t need to do this.