To enable is to make possible. Enabling occurs when we allow someone to do something. Sometimes we hear the word enabling with respect to helping others do positive things; however, more often than not, the word “enabling” is used to describe the behaviors we engage in as we allow others to do things that are harmful to themselves and others.
The root of the process of enabling others probably stems from a good place. After all, when we care about others, we don’t want to see them experience discomfort. Unfortunately life brings discomfort, however, and the more we spare others from facing the natural consequences of life, the more we give them a false sense of what the world actually is.
One theory on enabling includes the concept of unconditional love. Unconditional love is so rare and so intoxicating, that if we believe we can get it, we will allow others to engage in harmful things just so that we can embrace the illusion that they will give us unconditional love as long as we allow them to do whatever they want.
The world, unfortunately, does not allow us to get whatever we want whenever we want it – so as long as we enable others, we are providing them with a kind of false teaching. Essentially, we prolong their experience of reality – and we prepare them for a world that simply does not exist. In short, when we enable others, we set them up for failure.
Enabling others might make us feel good in the moment: “See, that person is happy with me and loves me because I allowed him/her to do whatever he/she wanted.” But in the long run, enabling can seriously harm others, because it teaches them to expect an incorrect reality.
We all have to face natural consequences at some point in our lives. The more prepared we are to face them, the more capable we will be of handling them. It follows then, that the more we spare our loved ones from facing natural consequences, the more likely they will struggle and suffer when they finally do have to face natural consequences for their actions.
If you struggle with enabling others, ask yourself, “Is it for their sake – or mine?” What’s best for others is not always the help they want, but rather, the help that they need. And sometimes people need us to step out of the way and allow them to face the natural consequences of their behaviors. The more we do so, the more accurately we help prepare them for the reality of the world.
Sometimes the most loving thing in the world that we can do is help people help themselves – even if that process of help means our loved ones might have to go through tougher times until things get easier. What’s best for others – just like what’s best for us – is not always the easiest path.