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The
Ways of Helping
There
are many ways of helping. Everyone needs all of these types of help at
some point in their life in all domains of life. This brief article makes distinctions between
six ways of helping and in doing so differentiates between coaching and
other ways of helping.
The Pair-of-hands
A pair-of-hands helper is someone who does simple work, often manual or
repeatitive labor, at your direction. For example, say you want to dig
up the weeds in your garden and plant a few rows of tomatos and peppers.
You could hire a pair-of-hands to do the work if you're unable to do the work yourself. This helper would take
direction from you and complete the work without taking independent
action counter to your direction.
The Expert
An expert is someone who has had a previous experience doing what you
need help with. For example, say you want to do some home remodeling on
the cheap. You decide to do the work yourself and to ask a friend who
did a similar project in his own home to help out. Your friend has had
the experience of doing what you are about to do and can offer you the
benefit of that experience.
The Professional
A professional is a person who has not only received formal education
in helping but is also practiced enough to have a system or model of how
things work. The best example of professional help is probably a medical
doctor. A doctor has a model of a healthy functioning person. They use
that model as a diagnosis tool to determine what is wrong. Then they use
their model to prescribe what you need to do or take to fix your problem.
The Coach
A coach helps you build your competency to be effective and fulfilled through taking new actions in life.
Unlike the pair-of-hands, the expert, and the professional, the helping
relationship you have with a coach nurtures your independence instead
of your dependence. Coaches don't work from a model of how things should
work. Therefore, they do not diagnose you to figure out what is wrong.
Instead, they unconditionally accept you as you are today and help you expand your understanding and integration of body, mind, and Spirit in self, culture, and nature. This new level of understanding and integration created through taking action brings about fundamental transformations in you that impact all domains of your life.
The Healer
A healer helps you by balancing and unblocking the flow of energy in your body. Healer, as I'm using the term here, is not to be mistaken with the Western concept of doctor. Typically, when we refer to doctors in the West we're referring to professional help. This kind of healing is energetic in nature and has the affect of reminding you who you are and harmonizing you with what is happening. Healing energy is unconditional love. Historically, healing help has been more common in the East (in the form of qigong, accupuncture, yoga, etc.) and in Shamanic cultures than here in the West. However, healing help is becoming more available here in the West.
The Spiritual Teacher
Any true spiritual teacher is a teacher of truth. They help you by
building your capability to discern what is true from what is not true.
This is helpful and at some point necessary to deepen your self-understanding, effectiveness, and fulfilment. Following the golden path of Truth is a constant reveleation that deepens and expands ones sense of self. Being on this path requires presence and inquiry into what is the truth of what is happening.
Often, these forms of help aren't experienced in their pure tones as much as they are experienced in chords. In other words, when someone helps us, we may get a blend of expert and professional help, or a blend of professional and coaching help, or another blend.
Here's a self-observation exercises that will help you explore how help shows up in your own life.
Once a day, for two weeks, take 10-15 minutes to reflect and write in your journal about what happened during the last day. Use the following questions as a guide:
1) Describe a situation where you helped someone.
2)
What kind of help did you offer? How was it initiated? By your offer or by another's request? How was it received?
3) How do you feel about the help you gave?
4) Describe a situation today where you received another's help.
5) What kind of help did you receive? How was it initiated? At your request or by another's offer? How was it given?
6) How do you feel about the help you received?
7) What kind of help did you need but didn't receive? What could you have done to request that help?
8) What kind of help could you have offered but didn't? What could you have done to offer that help?
9) What action will you take based on what you are learning in this exercise?
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