Sunday, my priest was asked about giving advice to others. He said that we should never tell others what to do. For one thing, most of us never listen to advice. For another, as humans, we will never have all of the information that we need to advise others. In fact, we learn best when things unfold organically. He used this analogy:
If an egg breaks from the outside, life ends. If it breaks from within, life begins.
That reminded me of the caterpillar analogy that is often told in recovery circles:
A man found the cocoon of a butterfly. One day, a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easilty. But it had a swollen body and small shrivelled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contrast.
Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shivelled wings. It was never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon, and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the opening, were the way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its’s freedom from the cocoon.
When I went to my first twelve-step meeting, I wanted advice. I wanted five steps that ‘I’ could do to fix someone else. Look at any magazine out today, and you will see that format used over and over again. Regardless of how many times we try those kinds of things, how often do they really work? Not ever, in my experience.
Not only do I sometimes want advice, but I think that I’m pretty good at giving advice. “I have some really good ideas…” a fellow twelve-stepper once said.
Once I began working my program, I was given a little bit of perspective on advising others:
You see if I ‘feel qualified’ to tell you what to do, I am inserting myself into a situation that was really designed for you to work out with God. I am getting in the way. I also have not accepted my powerlessness over your situation. This is dangerous territory for me. There is a Higher Power and I need to remember that it’s not me.
If I really want to help you out, I can be there beside you and listen. I can remind you to take care of yourself. I can tell you how I keep myself safe. From my sharing, God will help you to hear what you need to hear. The important thing is that you realize that only God can help.
My program is a program of self-discovery. Every time that I shift my focus on you, I am not doing the work that God has for me to do. But, when I focus on me, others notice. Changes occur. Life gets better. The same can be true for you.
Please remember: It only takes one person to change, for things to change.