Yehuda Berg’s Blog

Last week I wrote about how to deal with someone who comes to you with their pain. I received an overwhelming response from readers asking me what to do with those friends who are repeat customers. We all have them in our lives — friends who complain, don’t change, and leave us feeling drained and empty. You know - energy vampires.

As someone studying Kabbalah, you have more wisdom - and reveal more Light - than you probably realize, and chances are you’re attracting people in need of advice. How do you know when you are sharing or simply being taken advantage of? How can you draw boundaries that will protect you from getting sucked dry while at the same time not hurting the other person - and still leaving them with the desire to change?

There are a few things to keep in mind. First, it’s important to remember that becoming a being of sharing doesn’t mean changing people. If somebody is unwilling to take responsibility, is in denial, or is simply so steeped in anger or self-pity that they can’t see out of their situation, it’s important to be sensitive to that and to give them their space.

Let yourself off the hook. You don’t need to fix everyone – nor can you.

Sometimes, people just need to go through the pain. An integral part of the process of revealing Light is facing the pain and walking through it, as difficult as it may be. Looking back on my greatest achievements in life, they all required me to get intimate with the feeling of pain. And while I didn’t like it while I was going through it, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

Rav Ashlag, in The Gift of the Bible, says that the source of all pain comes from the desire to receive for the self alone (Ego). And all fulfillment comes from the desire to cleave to the Light (Soul). When people call you just to relieve themselves of temporary pain, remember that their Ego needs this pain so their Soul can reveal itself.

But please do not use this as an excuse to turn your cheek to another’s pain because Yehuda Berg said pain is good for you. If you are sincere in your devotion to becoming a being of sharing, you need to look at someone as if you were looking at yourself, or better yet, as if you were looking at your own child. Many of us treat ourselves worse than we treat others.

Moving on, another thing to ask yourself is am I helping or hurting? Helping means leading a person to a proactive place where they can see the action(s) that created their current chaos.

You generally can recognize if you’re hurting when you offer a suggestion and the person argues with you and tries to tell you where you’re wrong. If they’re not open to listening, then there is no vessel for them to receive the Light you have to share.

Another sign of hurting is they just call you to bad mouth someone else who hurt them. Agreeing that so-and-so is a you-know-what is just another temporary band-aid for a much larger problem.

The ideal thing to do is ask them to step outside of the situation and look at it as if they were a spectator of their own life. You want to gently guide them to the point where they can identify their part in the situation. If you can do that, but they still can’t see it, then the best help you can give is to let them wrestle with it on their own. Because you can bring a horse to water…
All the Best,
Yehuda