Your Role When Helping Your Friend Through a Problem
When helping a friend through a difficult time, it is important to be clear about the most helpful role for you to play in your friend’s story.
Your friend is living her life and writing the story of her life one action at a time. She is the lead actor of her life making her way though her difficult challenge. You are in a supporting role.
Your most helpful role is as a companion, observer, and supporter.
What Your Role is NOT
It’s important to know what your role is not when you are helping a friend with a problem.
You are not your friend’s fixer, rescuer, cavalry, knight in shining armor, mother or father, hero or heroine.
You are not the one who asks a lot of questions about your friend’s past, analyze her story, and determine the cause and cure of your friend’s problem.
Neither are you with your friend to make your friend “feel better.” You’re not there to change your friend’s feelings to feelings that are more comfortable for you.
You are not the “thought police.” Your friend has no thoughts that you have to police.
You are not the director of your friend’s life story, not in the role of telling your friend what to do and not do. Your friend is both the lead actor in his challenge and his own director of his actions.
Most important of all, you are not your friend. Your friend’s challenge is not yours. It’s not your role to become the lead actor or a participant in your friend’s problem. When you over-identify with your friend and his problem, you and your friend both have problems to solve.
Your Role
Again, the best role to be in to help your friend is as a companion, observer, and supporter as she makes her way through the challenge she faces.
You are someone safe, with whom your friend can safely and confidentially express whatever he feels.
You’re in the role of listening to your friend express her thoughts without forming opinions about what she thinks. You listen without judging her thoughts right or wrong. You neither agree nor disagree with what she thinks.
You’re in the role of a collaborator; that is, one with whom your friend can form a plan of action. But it has to be her plan, not yours.
As your friend’s friend, you are also in the role of protecting him from harming himself or others. You’re the one who gets helps if your friends is suicidal or a threat to others. You are the one who calls 911 when needed. You are the one who tells your friend that she needs help that you are not qualified to give.
Part Three of this series will give you some practical actions you can take to help your friend.
Mark W. Neville
Author, Educator, Life Therapist
828-551-8825
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