Permission - A lesson from vampires

It was 3pm in the afternoon. I was walking back home from the city. About a 20 minute walk.

A temperate autumn afternoon, leaves had discoloured and fallen on the ground. I was listening to a little tender jazz, as I often do on my walks home, however I have it just low enough to be able to hear what is happening around me.

Quite often I take the same route home, however this time I found myself walking past the courthouse.

As I walk past I see, sitting on the steps of the courthouse, a family huddled around a young man in a suit, hunched over and painfully moaning and crying into his hands.

"This is what pain looks like", I thought.

Whatever had happened in the court had crushed this young man.

My immediate thought? - Comfort him. I had this overwhelming desire to "come to the rescue" of this young guy and help him.

My childhood and personal life experience created in me some serious empathy. I wanted to help, I wanted to put my arm around him and tell him "everything will be ok."

What did I do instead?

Nothing.

Well almost. I decided to sit on a nearby bench and do some writing. I started to write down some thoughts.

As I was writing out what thoughts were rattling around my brain I had one overwhelming thought smack me in the face.

My "thing" is to help relieve the pain of others. This can manifest in my life in many ways, though, not always in helpful ways.

The thought that seemed to be loudly shouting in my mind?

PERMISSION.

We go around every day and see pain. Whether it's the person we pass on the street, the people we work with, live with, love, or even ourselves. As humans we want to fix that pain. Mitigate it. Minimize it. Erase it.

This is certainly not bad, and someone much smarter and much more qualified than me would likely say there are plenty of reasons why we do this.

The problem does not come from the desire, but the practice of helping our fellow humans.

The desire to help people heal, or at least to minimise the bad and increase the good in their lives is not the problem, but the motivation behind it can often be more about us than the person we are helping.

SO, back to the vampires.

As I was sitting there, furiously writing down as fast as I possibly could so I wouldn't miss one ounce of the thought juice(weird image, I know), I went down this weird rabbit hole.

Permission is similar if not sometimes synonymous to invitation.

Vampires, in literature and modern media are incredibly powerful beings.

They have all of these amazing strengths, some pretty embarrassing weaknesses(garlic, really?), but they also operate by a code. One specific aspect of this "code", is that they have to ask to be invited inside by the current tenant before entering a house, office, or any other kind of property. They must ask permission before entry.

Now back to this empathy thing.

There I am, sitting there writing these thoughts and then finally, the lightning bolt moment.

"What if I operated on the same code with this empathy thing?

What if I asked permission before entering their life and trying to 'save' them?"

So often we try to help those we see, meet, know, and love. We want to jump in and save the world. The problem is, often we have no idea what we are saying, or doing. We have no real idea what the person needs in the present moment, and yet we jump in to "fix" the problem.

The problem with this? Everything we have done to help this person can have the opposite effect.

In some circumstances we genuinely care, and the motivation is true and just. However, our desperate need as humans to minimise and eliminate pain, and maximise the good, fun, exciting, happy emotions can blind us to the true needs of the people around us.

So, the idea?

What if instead of pushing in and coming to the rescue of that young guy I saw on the court steps, I held back, held the pain and empathy I felt and just allowed him to be in pain? What if the action of holding back helped legitimise that guy and his experience as a human being?

Let's throw out a hypothetical? What if a friend of mine tells me about an experience he is having that is crushing his world? What if he is in pain?

Let's say instead of jumping in and trying to fix the problem with some amazing, wise advice, I held the space. I hold the space and show him through my actions, presence and being that they are legitimate in the world. That their pain and experience in the world is real, legitimate and allowed.

What if in that moment I said I would love to help any way I can but I would like their permission before doing so.

Let's talk about what that would do for that friend:

- He would feel heard

- He would feel loved

- He would feel legitimate(as though he exists and is allowed to exist as he is)

- He would feel stronger(he knows this is a real and tough situation, but is not powerless to the experience)

- He would feel free, above all he would feel free in that moment.

You see when we listen, engage, hold space, and ask permission to help and be involved in that persons life they feel free and powerful in that moment. This feeling is becoming more and more rare in our current age. We are much quicker to jump in and give advice, opinion, or more than likely, conjecture, than we are to genuinely care and listen to people, including the people we love.

So, here's the trick and the takeaway:

Instead of jumping and trying to "fix", wait.

Instead of trying to "relieve the pain" in a persons life, legitimise the person.

Instead of trying to give your "sage advice", ask permission, and upon receiving permission, help with love and empathy.

Asking permission to help a person is supremely strong and caring. Only the strong can make a request to help, be denied, and yet continue to love the person.

Be that person. We all need you to be.