When Helping Hurts: Learning the Difference Between Compassion and Enabling

Disclaimer: This site shares general information and ideas — not therapy, professional advice, or mental health treatment. Reading here does not make me your therapist (imagine the paperwork if it did). As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘A mind stretched by new ideas never returns to its original dimension.’ That’s the spirit of what you’ll find here. Read on, my friend.

“What if the compulsive need to help everyone isn’t love at all, but interference?” -Alan Watts

We’re taught from childhood that helping others is always the right thing to do. That to be a good person — a loving, spiritual, kind person — we must always say yes.

But what if that message is backward? What if our compulsive need to help everyone, to fix everyone, isn’t actually love at all — but a form of interference?

🪞 The Hidden Cost of “Always Helping”

When we continually rescue people from the natural consequences of their own choices, we aren’t helping them grow — we’re keeping them stuck.

Alan Watts, in one of his classic teachings, reminds us that when we “save” someone from their own experience, we rob them of the wisdom that only struggle can teach.It’s not that compassion is wrong. It’s that unskillful compassion becomes control.

Sometimes, our helping is really our own discomfort with watching someone suffer.

⚖️ Compassion Requires Discernment

Watts urges us to learn discernment, not judgment.The goal isn’t to become cold or indifferent — it’s to recognize the difference between someone who is struggling and someone who is stuck.

True compassion isn’t rescuing.It’s trusting that other people have their own paths, their own lessons, and their own timing.

Ask yourself:

“Who am I helping that I should let go?”“Who am I rescuing that needs to fall?”“Who am I enabling that needs to face their own consequences?”

🧩 Seven Types of People You Cannot Truly Help

Watts describes seven types of people who, when you try to help them, only drain your energy and delay their own growth.

1. The Chronically Lazy

They use your help as a hammock, not a stepping stone.They’ve learned that someone else will always carry their weight — and your kindness keeps them from discovering their own strength.

“The lazy person needs to feel hunger and discomfort,” Watts says.“Only when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change will they finally move.”

2. The Perpetually Ungrateful

No matter what you give — your time, money, care, or heart — it’s never enough. They don’t see kindness; they see weakness. Helping them becomes a bottomless pit.

3. The Arrogant and Self-Righteous

These people don’t want your wisdom — only your validation. They want you to agree with what they already believe. You can’t teach someone who’s committed to being right. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop trying to convince them.

4. The Habitually Harmful

There are people who know they are causing harm and continue anyway. Helping them isn’t compassion — it’s complicity. As Watts says, “If you try to pull them off that path, they will only pull you onto it with them.”

5. The Incurably Foolish

They repeat the same mistakes over and over again, never learning from experience. Each time you help, they fall back into the same patterns. Eventually, you realize life — not you — must be their teacher.

6. The Master Manipulator

This one is hardest to spot. They don’t demand; they inspire you to give. They play on guilt, empathy, and your desire to feel needed. When you stop feeding the pattern, they turn on you. Helping them only fuels their game.

7. The Unrepentant Rebel

They know better but refuse to do better. They agree with you, promise change — and return to the same destructive habits. You can’t want their healing more than they do.

🌿 True Compassion vs. Codependency

There’s a difference between compassion and codependency. One comes from love. The other comes from fear.

True compassion respects autonomy and consequences. Codependency tries to control outcomes in the name of love.

Watts puts it simply:

“True compassion sometimes means stepping back and allowing people to face the consequences of their choices.”

That’s not cruelty — it’s wisdom.

🪷 Protecting Your Energy

Your energy is sacred. Your time, attention, and care are finite. Not everyone deserves unlimited access to them — and that’s not selfish. That’s skillful.

Before you help, pause and ask:

• Is this person taking any steps toward their own growth?

• Am I helping from love or from guilt?

• Does this act leave me peaceful, or resentful?

• Am I rescuing someone from a lesson they need to learn?

🕊️ Letting Go with Love

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to step back — not with anger or resentment, but with faith that life will teach them what you cannot.

You cannot save anyone. You can only point the way. Whether they walk that path is entirely up to them.

Reflection for the week:

Where in your life are you helping when you need to step back?

What would change if you trusted that people’s growth doesn’t depend on you?

On the journey,

Erika Baum, MA, LPCC

Attachment Trauma Therapist

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