There is a lovely line in the musical ‘A little night music’. It’s at the end of the song ‘Send in the clowns’
“To flirt with rescue when one has no intention of being saved.” — Frederick Egerman.
In the musical he is a married man who realises after embarking upon an affair that he doesn’t want to leave his wife no matter how loveless the marriage is.
If any of you are on dating sites or Apps such as ‘Tinder’ you may have found potential dates, who will e-mail and text chat with you for ages, but when asked to go out on an actual date… vanish!
We often flirt with any idea of rescue, but it takes real guts to decide to be saved.
Because to be saved is the unknown. You don’t know what happens when you leave the cosy nest of a trapped, stuck situation.
Some how, at some point you got into the trap (any trap) as it was at the time the safest option. No matter what that trap is.
The most common trap that people flirt with the idea of rescue from, is the trap of a limiting belief. At some point in childhood you may have believed it’s safer to think that there was something wrong with you, than to believe that your parents have a problem. They are your care givers, the ones in charge of the food on the table or the roof over your head, to believe they are wrong in anyway or inept is terrifying. You would be totally vulnerable and that was more scary then to believe something as big as ‘I am unlovable, it’s my fault my Dad drinks, my Mum beats me or I am ignored’. Because you can change and try harder, but if there were something wrong with your parents, nothing you can do. As an adult the limiting belief stays and starts to hold you back. But because you don’t know who you would be without it, the world without it feels unsafe. So even though you know you could be happier, you’d cash in happy for safety any day.
I get e-mails (especially on facebook!) from people who flirt with the idea of rescue. They give me long detailed descriptions often going back into childhood about their problems. I call it an ‘inbox dump’. They will never book an appointment, yet I have to go through the motions of pretending that I think they will. It’s rude not to. It’s a drag as my mind set to e-mails is different to when I am prepared to hear tragedy during an appointment. I wonder how many other people like me, they cut and paste that same e-mail too!
What’s great about the appointment is the job satisfaction of a breakthrough. I get to help and see transformation. With those that flirt with transformation, it’s like a tease, I never get laid at the end of it, but my levels of frustration go up ;) To protect myself I tend to skim read the mail for a real cry for help, and if I don’t find it, then I don’t answer the story. Instead I answer the flirt, and give back a flirt of salvation, and as they don’t want saving, that’s normally enough to make them go away.
I’m sure this may make me sound heartless, but this is good advice for you openhearted people! So listen up as you will be more effective in changing the world and making it a better place, whilst having an abundance of energy to live a life you can also love.
There are some people who just want a hand out of a situation and have real intention of using their own legs to climb their way out. Then their are some people who make themselves heavier so they fail at climbing out with your help, but get to say they tried. They didn’t try they flirted with an idea and if you’re not careful, they will have your arm off in the process! Bat your eyelids back at them and hope that one day they will be ready for a commitment marriage to change. Because change always takes commitment.
