Always Help Others

Helping other people is always a good thing. Some individuals may feel that they need something immediate in return if they elect to help others. But that is not the right mindset. Here is a personal story that I would like to share with you.

Many years ago, when I was practicing holistic medicine in Massachusetts, a teenage girl named “Madeline” came to see me. Her parents brought her to my office. She suffered from severe depression and she was suicidal. Knowing that she had attempted to cut herself in the past, I decided to take her under my care for 2 weeks at my house where I would devote myself to her, from teaching her, to feeding her.

I wanted to change her life because she was beautiful, smart, and had so much potential. She could do so much for herself and for others. One thing I told her very clearly was that she absolutely must not use any substances during my care, otherwise I would not continue with her. She agreed.

Things were going pretty well for the first week. She was doing better in my house. She was happy, she was smiling. She had nice conversations with my family and myself, and she even started to sing. She looked, and felt completely normal. I felt good. I felt my work had produced results. I also felt I had another daughter.

One day when we were chatting during a walk, I asked her if she was completely off substance. At first she hesitated, but then she told me that she was using a substance during the time she was living in my house. Hearing this I became furious, I lost it, I cried, I screamed, and I felt that my teaching/healing had failed.

Being so upset, I told her that she could not stay with me anymore, because she did not listen to me when I put all my heart into helping her. I asked her to call her parents and tell them to pick her up the next day. At that moment we both cried, and hugged. It was very sad.

The next day before she left, we cried again, hugged again, both feeling very sad. She begged me to let her stay, she promised that she would never use amy substances again. But I reminded her we had agreement, I always keep my word, my agreement. (Now you know how rigid I was). I knew she did not want to leave me or my house. Even after she left, I was still sad for a while. I had really hoped that I could help her.

Four years later, I received an email from her. Reading her email, my tears just poured down on my face, I could not stop crying:

“Dear Dr. Kuhn, I could not say thank you enough, and I thank you almost every day. It is you who changed my life. I cannot imagine what I would be now without the time I spent with you. I am doing so much better now: I have full time job, I am drug free, my emotion is so much better, I feel very strong and very good. I so much appreciate your help, I learned so much from you. I can’t describe how much I appreciate it. You changed my life! Thank you, Love forever, Madeline.

From this experience,I learned much about myself; I realized that it was me who did not have enough patience helping others; I was too rigid, too hard, and too short fused. I realized that I still had so much to learn in holistic healing. After this, I really started to work on myself: to be more patient, to focus more on every positive change in my patients, my students and my family. From helping others, I have grown.