Ask Before You Help



Recently a friend of mine submitted an article to me she wrote about helping out in nature.

After reading the article I was so excited about how well it was done and the message it conveyed, that I was inspired to write an article about her. I immediately published her article to my directory as well as the article I wrote about her.

With all the good intentions of helping her I made two major mistakes. First I judged her situation. Over the years she has given selflessly and has received little compensation for her efforts. From what she has told me, people seek her advice but are unwilling to compensate her for it. Many times she has told me she is just so tired of helping others and not having it returned.

Knowing this I set out to write my article and direct people to her article so that maybe they would visit her site and help her. I did this without her knowledge and with the beautiful message of her article still resonating with me.

The lesson in her article was very clear-sometimes when you set out to help, you make things worse!

I apparently misjudged her and her situation. I published the article and uploaded it to my site. While I was doing that I was having a chat with her online. I told her about my article and how it may help her. She read the article a little bit later and returned an email to me. She was devastated that I would write such an article about her. I had gotten it all wrong and I had hurt her, and she didn't know how I could have done such a thing. I immediately removed the article from my site before anyone had seen it, but it was too late-the damage had already been done. It was now personal. It's been over a week since the article was published and she has not returned my email or chatted with me.

Clearly I blew it. After all the articles and books I have written with this one message in it-I did it myself. I committed spiritual malpractice. I made a judgment and acted on it, without knowing the intention of the soul-her soul. As the saying goes "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Because we can never know what the true intentions of one's soul is, when we interfere no matter how well intentioned we are, we interrupt a natural process that can have harmful effects. This is spiritual malpractice.

Even if the outcome seems to be more positive on the surface, it may not have been the intention of the soul to experience that outcome.

It is OK to offer help to someone, but it is not OK to give it without asking no matter what your intentions are. I think this is something we all do from time to time. We may never no the after effects of what we have done, but we may have delayed a desired result for the other one's spirit. The very best we can do for another without their permission is to wish them well. We are not interfering with a natural result and we are sending positive energy to that person.

Sorry my friend and thank you for a lesson well learned.