How to Stop Trying Fixing Everything and Everyone

Today's episode is called How to Stop trying to fix Everything and Everyone and it is the first in our series on how to set Christ like boundaries without feeling guilty.

It would be so easy for me to just say, OK, the next time you need to set a boundary, all you have to do is just say, well, that doesn't work for me.

But the problem is, is that we have core values.

We have deeply held beliefs, and we have identity issues that make saying no or disappointing someone feel not only impossible but incredibly painful.

So we need to shift some of the foundational beliefs that we have so that it makes it more easy for us to be like Jesus.

Because Jesus absolutely set boundaries, and he set some hard boundaries.

And we will learn about that in this series.

Our first challenge is that we feel responsible for everyone and everything.

If we don't take care of it all, it feels like it's all going to fall apart.

And we feel it's our job to rescue people.

The reality is, though, is that that's the savior's job.

He's the one who rescues.

He's the one who keeps things together.

He's the one who handles it when it does fall apart and helps us and supports us as we go through those challenges.

So to overcome that core fear, we need to really understand some gospel principles about it.

The first one is that we need to separate responsibility from empathy.

Let me explain that with a story.

Years and years ago, when my youngest was in elementary school, I would drive him to school during the winter.

I had a full time job at the time and the job required me to to clock in and clock out even though I worked from home.

It was incredibly stressful for me to clock in and clock out so that I could drive him to school and pick him up afterwards.

Because that added an extra half an hour to my schedule, which meant that I was working while my children were coming home from school and during that really busy hour when they needed me most.

But it needed to be done.

He needed a ride.

Well, I was taking him to school.

And then I had a neighbor say to me that we had another neighbor who had a challenging situation.

It was a mom and a dad that were married and they had two boys that were elementary age and they went to the same school as my son.

 

The mom worked, the dad didn't work, I don't know his story.

They didn't have a car.

And so the boys were not going to school.

They were missing school all the time.

So my friend said, hey, why don't you just take them to school since you're going anyway.

And I was more than happy to do that.

So for several months I took these boys to school.

Well, spring rolled around and my son said to me, mom, I don't want you to take me to school anymore.

I want to ride my bike with my friends and my first thought was relief because that means I won't have to clock in and clock out.

That means I'll be done as my kids are all coming home from school and that will relieve some of the stress that I'm feeling.

But my second thought was well wait a minute, what about this other family?

These kids need a ride to school and if I don't give them a ride then they won't go.

So what do I do?

This is a real dilemma and these dilemmas show up in our life all of the time.

It's so hard to know what to do.

And that's why we have to look at responsibility.

Whose responsibility is it to get those children to school?

Is it my responsibility or is it the parents responsibility?

The reality is, is that there's lots of options for this sweet mom to get her kids to school.

Maybe her husband could walk them to school.

Maybe they could walk to school with the neighbors.

Maybe there's somebody else who could give them a ride.

There's a lot of things that she could do to make sure that her kids were getting to school.

I decided that it was most important for me to focus on my family and their needs and the stress that I was under.

So I gave this woman a call and I said to her, I am so sorry.

I will no longer be able to drive your kids to school.

And when I did, there was this long pause.

Now I'm super nervous about doing this in the 1st place because I hate setting boundaries.

And there's a long pause.

Then she says to me, but my kids need a ride to school.

And I said, you right, they do need a ride to school.

I will not be able to take your kids to school anymore.

She stops and she goes, well, then how are they going to get to school now?

I want to pause right here in the story and, I want to point out that do you see how she's putting the responsibility for her kids getting into school on to me?

It's my job to make sure that they get to school because maybe she's overwhelmed, maybe she's super anxious.

We don't really know her story, but she's giving me the responsibility of making sure that her kids are getting to school.

And I very uncomfortably gave the responsibility back to her.

And I said, I am so sorry.

I will not be able to take your kids to school.

And then I hung up and I felt super bad because I was not helping this woman.

But I also felt relief because now I was going to be able to focus on my own children because I wasn't going to be working as they were coming home from school.

A couple of months later, I checked with my friend who worked at the school and I said, are these children coming to school?

And she said no, they quit coming.

I felt so bad because not only did I disappoint this woman, but also now her kids weren't going to school.

But the reality is in every situation, there's a responsibility.

Somebody has a responsibility.

And,  when we take responsibility for somebody else, then we sometimes get in the way of their progress because we enable them to overcome the choices, the consequences of their choices.

Let's look at it from the scriptures.

Let's just pull 2 scripture stories.

There's the story of the 10 virgins, the 10 virgins.

We all know the story, familiar with it.

Five of the virgins were prepared and five weren't.

They all knew what the requisite was.

They all knew what was required to show up to the wedding feast.

Five were ready, 5 weren't.

And when this, the feast began and the five were not ready, the Savior didn't say, OK, stop, stop.

We're holding off the wedding.

We're going to wait a couple of hours while these ladies go get their crap together.

No, He allowed them the consequences of their choices.

They chose not to come prepared and so they missed the feast.

Second story, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

They had one boundary.

There was one rule, and that was that they were not allowed to eat of the tree of the the fruit of the tree of good and evil.

And they did anyway.

When they did, what God did was He allowed them the consequence.

He didn't rescue them from their consequence.

The reality was, is that because they had eaten up the fruit, they had to leave the garden.

 He allowed that to happen.

So we as parents, as spouses, as friends, all of the things in our life, we need to allow people the consequences of their behavior because when we don't, we enable them and we take away the pain of their choices.

And that gets in the way of God's plan and the way that we shift into this, because it sounds great in theory, right?

But how do we actually apply that in our real lives is that we need to shift our core values.

So a core value is a core value is a deeply held fundamental belief and the guiding principle that dictates our behavior and our decisions.

And right now when we're struggling with setting a boundary because it feels really awful, is we have this core value that is I'm responsible that I need to fix it, that I need to change it, that I need to make it better, that it's my job.

We take that on because it gives us this, this feeling of control.

It gives us this feeling of safety.

If I take care of everything, then nothing will fall apart.

And so we shift that.

We shift that by choice into responsibility.

I'm responsibility for me from I'm responsible for me and you're responsible for you.

I'm responsible for my choices.

And you get to have the consequences of your choices.

We allow for agency.

We allow people to make choices without getting in the middle of it and telling them they're doing it wrong and telling them they need to change.

And we allow them to have their consequences as we do this and as we recognize that the Savior did the same thing, that our heavenly Father does the same thing, then that helps us to start to be OK with that.

We have a heavenly Father that has a plan for our families and we can trust his plan and we can trust him to be in charge.

We don't have to be in charge all of the time.

There's actually a universal law that goes with this surprise.

There's a universal law with everything.

I love the laws and it is the law of divine economy.

The law of the kind of the divine economy says we do our part and then we prepare to receive and then the Lord gives us grace to do what would be impossible otherwise.

So basically we're we prepare to receive grace by doing our part and allowing other people their part.

And you know, we could spend some time talking about the parable of the talents and how that applies in this law.

The reality is, is that we each have a stewardship, just like I have a stewardship over my children.

That sweet lady who was having trouble getting her children to school has a stewardship over her children.

It's not my stewardship to take care of her kids.

And so we need to ask ourselves the question on a regular basis, especially if you're feeling angry, resentful, stressed out, burned out, overwhelmed, feeling like you never have time to rest.

All of those are indicators that there needs to be a boundary set.

That's just information.

And as you look at that, you need to say to yourself, OK, whose responsibility is this?

Is this my responsibility?

Is this God's responsibility?

Is this the other person's responsibility?

As I step into that core value of responsibility, I'm going to allow other people responsibility for their choices, for their actions.

I'm going to allow them to have agency.

That's what Heavenly Father does.

And when we step in and muck up the plan, we're stepping into being like the adversary.

Let me fix this.

Let me make this better.

Let me let me make sure that you don't have any consequences of your choices.

That's what he wanted to do.

But Heavenly Father always allows agency, and so can we.

There's a beautiful analogy of this, this law of divine economy and stewardship.

Stewardship actually defined is the conducting, supervising or managing of something, especially the careful responsibility as a responsible management of something entrusted to 1's care.

And we have all kinds of stewardships over our money, over our our things, over our family, over our health, all kinds of things.

So as we manage that stewardship, we're taking responsibility for ourselves.

Ted Callister had this beautiful analogy as he explains the law of divine economy.

And this is a quote from him.

He said when a lifeguard stretches out a pole to the drowning swimmer, the swimmer must reach out and hold on if he desires to be rescued.

Both of the lifeguard and the swimmer must reach out and hold on if they desire to be rescued.

Both the lifeguard and the swimmer, excuse me, must fully participate if the swimmer's life is to be saved.

I'm going to.

Likewise works and grace are not opposing doctrines as it is so often portrayed.

To the contrary, they're indispensable partners in the process of exaltation.

And I want you to think about this in relation to End Quote.

I want you to think about this in relationship to maybe a relationship that you're struggling with right now.

Both people, both parties need to put in effort.

If one person is doing all of the effort, it is it is going against the law of divine economy.

It is going against our Heavenly Father's plan, which is agency, responsibility, consequences for our actions.

And so as we grow and become more like our Savior Jesus Christ, we start to see clarity and we can receive that through revelation.

We'll talk more about that in this series about when we step in and when we step back.

And as we have clarity on whose responsibility it is, we can feel a little bit more OK with disappointing somebody else.

Because the reality is, is that when we set boundaries, most often times someone else is disappointed.

But that's not the end of the world and it's not a crisis.

It's something that the other person can learn to deal with and we can learn to deal with too.

So basically, this is an opportunity to trust God's plan, to trust that he is in charge, that he cares about our loved ones more than we could ever dream of, and that He has a plan for them and that He also allows natural consequences.

So my invitation to you is to have a, a really good conversation with yourself about your core value, especially your core value of responsibility, to start asking yourself the question, whose responsibility is this?

And for pray for the strength to pray for the strength that you can be more like your Savior in allowing people responsibility for their choices.

Thank you so much for being here.

There is something that I would like to offer you.

It is called the three minute boundary fix.

It has got some really great ideas on the skills of setting boundaries.

And it's short, it's fast, it's easy.

I will have the link to it in the story notes.

If you have enjoyed this podcast, will you share it with somebody that you love?

Again, thank you so much for being here.

 

https://www.juliehawkes.com/3-minute-boundary-fix