Knowing When to Help
And When to Let Go
“You’re so kind. Not everyone would have done that.”
That’s what my mother said as we drove home from the coast—after I had rescued a lost seabird, driven it fifty miles to the shore, launched it back into the sky, and turned around to drive another fifty miles home.
I was taken aback. It had never even occurred to me not to do that.
The bird was stranded. It needed saving. And if I could help, why wouldn’t I?
A year later, my brother Brendan told our family he was moving into his car.
Not for a weekend. Not for a road trip. For an entire year.
He was struggling—financially, emotionally, physically. He had debts to clear, patterns to break, and his own ideas about how to do it.
And, as I shared in this episode of The Road Back Home podcast, I panicked.
I wanted to intervene. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to do something— buy him a plane ticket, send money, convince him he didn’t have to do this.
Because wasn’t that what love was? Stepping in? Showing up? Saving the day?
But Brendan didn’t want saving.
He asked us to trust him. And me—specifically—to stop trying to coach him, fix him, manage his decisions. He didn’t need me to be his mentor. He needed me to be his sister.
That was hard.
I had always equated love with action. With stepping in, helping, problem-solving.
But sometimes love is trusting someone to find their own way. Even when it looks messy. Even when it’s not the way you yourself would choose.
But Brendan found his own way. The way he needed to. The hard way.
It took not one, but three years. He paid off his debts. He got sober. He rebuilt his life. And when he finally moved out of his car and back into an apartment, it was because he himself had made it happen—not because someone had swooped in to do it for him.
One of the things my dad said to us in his final days was,
“If ever you can help — whether it be a human, insect or animal — whatever help you can give, do.”
And I will. I always will.
But I’m learning that help isn’t always about stepping in. Sometimes, it’s about stepping back. Sometimes, it’s about trusting that someone else’s path — no matter how difficult —belongs to them.
The bird needed me to act. Brendan needed me to trust.
And maybe the real wisdom isn’t just knowing the difference—it’s learning to accept it.
Ready to Do the Work? (Paid Subscribers Only)
We’ve all been there—watching someone struggle, feeling the overwhelming urge to step in, take charge, make things right.
And sometimes, we should.
But sometimes, what we call ‘helping’ is really managing, fixing, rescuing, or avoiding our own discomfort - in other words, control.
So how do we know when to step in and when to step back?
These prompts will help you untangle your impulse to help—to recognise when it’s truly in service of someone else, and when it’s actually about you.