Saving a Soul, Saving the World

Many activists, empaths, including so-called Way Showers and Light Workers have it deep in their hearts the genuine intention to save the world. This, because they have been moved, touched deeply by what they see around them – suffering, injustice, tragedies, pain, deaths.

I call them Wounded Healers. It takes one to be wounded to really feel and empathize with the hurt, the pain, the wound of others – of the world.

When one is wanting to save the world through their well-intentioned desire to save another person who they see is suffering or going through destructive habits or addictions, it is usually because one is also nursing their own wound – a part of them that is needing some attention, healing, some nourishing and nurturing.

This wounded aspect draws in an external actor to mirror the internal need. When we find ourselves nurturing the external actor, we are at the same time nurturing that inner part of us that is needing healing or attention. This is why we feel relieved and uplifted when we care for another as our act of healing and nurturing another is healing and nurturing that resonant part of us.

Every other creation we are observing reflects an aspect of us. We are not separate from one another.

I once wanted to save the world. I became a communist who at one point was on the verge of joining a guerrilla army to fight against capitalist-backed government forces. I was seventeen, a top college freshman. No, I was not brainwashed. I knew exactly what I wanted and why. I wanted to fight for justice, for equality, for the end of poverty, and to fight against environmental destruction of indigenous peoples’ ancestral domains.  If I was not wounded by injustice, I would have not perceived it the way I did. If I was not bitten by poverty, this social affliction would have not meant that much personally to me. These issues were in my face, they were my very personal wounds.

I once wanted to save certain people close to me. When someone you love is hurting, you feel their pain as if it is your own. When someone you love appears to be going down the road towards self-destruction, you want to rescue them. You want to rescue that part of you which is interlinked with them.

But there is just too much to save and many of them do not want to be “saved.” Or they do not see any need for saving. They are right. Everyone came with a different agenda, different experiences to explore, different paths to try on which is not greater or lesser than yours, only different.

Perhaps one person’s agenda is to annoy you to no end so you could see the futility of trying to change them into what they are not.

Many Light Workers and Way Showers end up being hurt and resentful when they feel that their efforts to help and rescue another is not acknowledged or valued. They are setting themselves up for disappointment when their rescue operation fails because the ones they are trying to rescue cannot live up to their well-meaning goals and expectations. Disappointments and frustrations happen when do-gooders expect something in return. When they expect their actions to be validated by others.

As an empath and  activist wanting to get something done about the many problems of the world, I have struggled with this “saving” dilemma for some time until I got energetically drained and tired of holding on to my hero/savior self-appointed identity. I was then young and rebellious, ready to take on the problems of the world!

I say that a Light Worker and Way Shower should continue doing what they do, not to save another’s soul, not with the overarching goal to save the world, but simply because they love to do what they do. They do what they do because it is their genuine self-expression and it makes them happy just to be in their self-expression.

In the end, we can only save ourselves, through personal development and strengthening of character. Then those who we are attempting to save may notice our example and by their own volition, they may or may not come to us. If they come to us, it means they are in a receptive mode and are more likely to be open to hear what we have to share.