I have a friend who frequently calls me to tell me how overwhelmed he is and, ironically, I allow this to overwhelm me. This is one of the challenges of being an empathetic person. I feel what others are feeling and often have a difficult time separating their feelings from my own. I call this being emotionally porous.

I’m learning to look for the space between other people’s feelings and my own, however. I’m starting to understand that, even if I can feel what they feel, I am not obligated to take action, to offer advice, or to try to solve every problem within my vicinity. But this has been a long, painful process. 

After much reflection and discussion with people more well-equipped to understand these things than I, namely my therapist and my spiritual director, I have found there are many reasons why, in the past, I have felt so driven by some overwhelming invisible force to try to fix every problem presented to me. All of these reasons point back to one thing, however, and that one thing is fear. 

For whatever reason, I have a deeply seated fear that, I am only worthy of love to the degree that I am able to fix everything and everyone around me. It’s not my essence or my nature as a human being that makes me lovable. Rather it is my ability to solve other people’s problems. 

This belief that I am only lovable to the degree that I am useful, I have discovered, is at the root of much of my restlessness, anxiety, and insecurity. While this self-belief seemed, in the twisted way that an abusive relationship seems to be normal when one is in the midst of it, to serve me for some time, for most of my life in fact, when it started causing me more problems than it was solving, something had to change. 

But change of this sort is rarely, easy. To stop doing something one has done for most of one’s life doesn’t usually happen all at once. It’s a slow, arduous process. Along with therapy, spiritual direction, and prayer, I can honestly say that the most profoundly perspective altering practice I have ever taken up in this regard has been meditation in the form of centering or contemplative prayer. 

While therapy has helped me to understand why I have these unhealthy tendencies, spiritual direction has helped me to see that other people’s problems are neither my fault nor my responsibility, and prayer has brought me into a relationship with a God who can and wants to change me into a healthier, happier version of myself, centering prayer has created the space within my heart and mind to make growth possible. 

The fascinating thing is that centering prayer, or any form of meditation, does not address the issue directly. Instead, through regular practice, it simply gives one more internal space, a buffer of peace if you will, between stimulus and response. By regularly practicing silence and non-attachment to my thoughts and feelings, I don’t always feel the overwhelming urge to respond to the problems presented to me like I once did. 

Of course, my old habits and patterns still come up. They are rooted deeply in my psyche and those roots are difficult to dig up. When they do, however, I can better see them for what they are. That is to say, I am able to see that these thoughts and feelings are just thoughts and feelings. They are not who I am. 

As a result, my relationships are starting to feel healthier. I can listen to problems without making them my own and without feeling the need to solve them or give advice. Not only that, but I no longer feel guilty about letting someone else have their own problems. As much as I am not my own thoughts and feelings, I am beginning to realize that my value is not tied to my usefulness to others. 

My value is God-given, as I am a child of God created in God’s very own image and likeness. It is not what I do, what I think, or how I feel that gives value to who I am. There are no conditions on God’s love for me. I am his child, his creation, and his beloved, and my very existence is a divine gift to be cherished and appreciated for the very fact that it is from God. I am not lovable because of what I do. I am lovable because I am. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.