Stand There Shining

 

Be a Lighthouse

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

Anne Lamott

          For anyone with one ounce of co-dependency, you know this quote is for you. There is such a long stretch of life—sometimes all of it—that those of us who grew up in co-dependent families try to be the lighthouse that picks up its bricks like a lace petticoat and runs around trying to save boats. Sometimes, we try to save boats that don’t even need saving because we believe our interpretation of what they need is more valid than theirs. Man! Running around for decades hauling your own bricks is heavy work. Take it from one who knows.

          I have asked myself these two questions a billion times: “Why are you doing this?” and “Why is it so important for you to explain to someone (anyone) what their mistake is in any given circumstance?” On the surface, self will answer back, “Because they are going to get hurt.” (Oh, no! A boat heading toward the rocks!) I can churn out a million reasons why it’s my job to keep that boat from hitting the rocks. Even if I’m up on the top of a cliff and that boat is a hundred feet below me. Even if I couldn’t reach it if I wanted to. Stored away in my tiny little brain, I have the admonition that it is my job to save things—boats and people. And not only that, but it my job to explain to them why they need saving. Furthermore, if that boat hits the rocks, it is because I failed to save them. That is the training I received in my co-dependent family. Perhaps you did, too. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.

          I could not save my family. I cannot save anyone but myself, and neither can you. We can love people dearly. If they ask for an opinion, we can give it, but unless they ask, we must stay out of their business. It is not helpful to intrude into other people’s lives, insert our “saving grace” into their dilemmas, or to assume that we know what is best for them. And that includes our children, our best friends, our family, and everyone else.

Sometimes, it’s incredibly difficult to keep one’s opinions to oneself—it literally hurts. That’s the edge of the curve; it’s where the learning takes place—my leaning, and yours, as well. Wrestling with our own need to save people is our soul-work. Sometimes people—even people we love—need to crash their boats on the rocks. They need to struggle with the current. They need to cling to the rocks until they can beach themselves. They need to pick up the pieces. That’s their work. For us to deprive them of their work is not helpful and will not save them.

One of life’s hardest lessons to learn is that we cannot save everyone we love. We can only love them through it. We can stand beside them shining, while they find their own way to safety.

                                        In the Spirit,

                                        Jane