Every helper brings a story into the helping relationship.
Whether we are therapists, pastors, teachers, parents, mentors, friends, or ministry leaders, many of us genuinely want to step into someone else’s pain and offer something meaningful. We want to say the right thing. We want to point people toward hope. We want to help them understand what they are going through.
But there is an important question we don’t always stop to ask. Have we taken the time to understand our own story?
This doesn’t mean we have to have everything figured out before we can help someone else. None of us will get to a place where every wound is healed, every question is answered, and every part of our story makes perfect sense.
Instead, it means becoming aware of how our own stories shape the way we see and respond to other people’s stories.
Our Stories Come With Us
We don’t walk into relationships as blank slates.
Everything we’ve experienced affects the way we understand what happens around us. This includes our relationships, losses, successes, disappointments, fears, beliefs, and wounds.
For example, someone who grew up believing they had to perform to be valued may have a hard time sitting with someone else’s failure.
Someone who learned that emotions were uncomfortable or even dangerous may instinctively try to calm another person’s distress instead of simply sitting with them in it.
And someone who grew up around destructive patterns may have a hard time recognizing those same patterns in someone else’s life, especially when they haven’t yet had a chance to make sense of and heal from their own story.
None of these responses necessarily make us bad helpers.
They make us human.
The problem comes when we don’t recognize where our reactions are coming from. We can unknowingly bring our own story into someone else’s story.
Sometimes we may think we are helping them when we are actually making things worse, or we are trying to resolve something in ourselves.
Self-Awareness Pays Off
For Christians, paying attention to ourselves can sometimes feel uncomfortable. We might think, Shouldn’t I be focusing on other people? Isn’t Christianity about selflessness?
But healthy self-awareness is biblical. It is part of learning to honestly walk with God.
The psalmist prays:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!”
Psalm 139:23
I love the posture behind this prayer. The goal isn’t to endlessly analyze ourselves or become consumed with our own problems. The goal is to let God help us see ourselves honestly. We can become curious about our hearts, not so that we become more focused on ourselves, but so that we can be healthier people and more available to love others well.
When we understand our own fears, we’re less likely to make someone else’s fear about us.
When we understand our own wounds, we’re better able to recognize when someone else’s pain is touching something tender in us.
And when we understand our own need for grace, we’re able to offer grace to others from a place of humility rather than superiority.
Understanding our own story doesn’t make us less effective helpers.
It can actually make us safer, more compassionate, and more present with the people we’re called to help.
