Stop Trying to Fix What Isn't Yours

Ok, back to some relationship blogging, a break from the life stuff for a moment.

This is a very important relationship skill, an important life skill really.

Don't take responsibility for other people's feelings. 

Read that again.

You are not responsible for other people’s feelings.

You can care. You can show up with empathy, kindness, and support. You can apologize if you caused harm. In fact, please apologize if you caused harm! You can apologize even if you didn't mean to cause harm, especially if you didn't mean to hurt someone. But their experience is their own. Don't try to explain it away or fix it. Just make space for it. Don't make it personal and don't internalize it.

You cannot take someone else’s pain away. You cannot process their emotions for them. You cannot fix what’s not yours to fix.

Sometimes we feel this intense pull—especially in close relationships—to make someone feel better. To soften their anger. To take away their sadness. To fix the discomfort between you. Or even just to explain yourself when you seem to be the reason why they're sad, mad, or hurt.

But feelings don’t work that way.

They’re deeply personal, often tangled up in stories that go way beyond the current moment.

And no matter how badly you wish you could, you can’t climb inside someone else’s emotional landscape and make it okay for them.

They just need space.

What you can do is own your part if you’ve done something hurtful. But the rest of it is theirs to work through. And it's really freeing to get to this place where you don't try to fix things. You don't need to feel bad or this sense of urgency or guilt. Making space is the best thing you can do.

Because their feelings are theirs. Their healing is theirs.

When you don't try to fix someone else's feelings, you don't take responsibility for them. You let them have their own emotional experience; you let them feel whatever it is they need to feel. And you can be there on the other side of it. But you cannot, and should not, try to climb into it for them. It doesn't work, and will make you both frustrated.  

Here's another side benefit of not taking responsibility of others' feelings. When someone you are close to (a partner or another family member or close friend) has strong negative feelings about something, their feelings often permeate your own. Sometimes their feelings even seem to be your fault. When you realize it's just how they're feeling, what they're experiencing internally, then there is no need to fix them or "put them out" no matter how painful they may seem. The person himself/herself needs to deal with the feelings and the best way they can do that is alone.