What I’ve Learned By Playing ‘The Fixer’

Sometimes I hate having such a big heart. Not a lot of people know just how expansive it is; I’m very good at concealing my feelings.

When I’m around people, I feed off of their energy and feel their emotions. It’s a blessing and a curse, because I love the fact that I care so deeply, but at the same time, it’s the root of a lot of my daily concerns. Especially when someone I love is going through a hard time.

I seem to make it my duty to figure out a solution to their issues. I almost feel like I’m responsible for fixing their lives and have an inability to separate their feelings from myself. Sure, everyone loves coming to me with their problems, and I love being the go-to person for that. But I’ve realized lately that, try as I may, I can’t mend people’s lives back together.

It’s a tough pill to swallow. I think I’m helping those around me when I spend all my time analyzing their situations in order to come up with a way to alter them. Though, maybe I’m merely enabling them to take on a victim mentality. Everyone has problems, and maybe it’s up to them to figure out the best way for them to fix it instead of relying on me.

I can dish out advice, be the one who consoles, and the shoulder to cry on, but a lot of times that’s where my role needs to end. The real issue is when other people’s problems begin to disrupt the balance in my own life. I feel things so deeply, that when other people hurt, I carry that hurt and feel their stress and anxiety, when I shouldn’t. I’m definitely not encouraging myself, or anyone for that matter, to be heartless.

Love and be selfless, but remember you’re no good to anyone when you take in someone’s negativity and hold on to it.

The more you enable others to complain to you about their struggles, or seek you out to remedy their issues, the greater their dependence on you becomes. They get used to throwing their negativity your way, rather than taking the time to feel their emotions fully and seek out answers for themselves.

The problem with playing the role of the fixer in people’s lives is that you spend so much time fixing their issues that you begin to neglect your own.

Ultimately, I can’t be the hero in someone else’s story. That’s up to them.