One of the most heartbreaking things we experience with people we love is that sometimes they make choices that are not in their best interests.
How do we deal with this? We try to be supportive and help them understand their error, and sometimes that means that yo don’t help them but let them experience the consequences of their decisions. Why am I sharing this? Because I have a friend who is making poor health choices but he has done that all of his life and it has resulted in health issues currently.
I care and want to do something but he isn’t ready to take the next step. So I wait and hope that there is a way to heal and become better. Yet if there isn’t, this is his life and his choices and I have to respect him and those choices. I don’t like them, I don’t agree with them, but ultimately everyone has the responsibility of their own life.
When you love others you sometimes feel sad that you can’t do more to help them. Then in time you realize that this is the path they choose and everyone is free to choose whatever they think will make them happy. Life is more about acceptance than judgment, and so having boundaries and accepting that others make poor choices ultimately leads to to your own peace.
Peace is a choice. Letting the need to control others go is a large part of that.