Vanessa Van Edwards explains why helpers attract heroes and why that dynamic can backfire. Helpers tie their identity to being useful, while heroes are driven by achievement. The fix: set clear limits on your time and energy, and remember that relationships don't need to be transactional.
How can people pleasers feel useful to those who are kind of on that hero's journey?
Even with the highest of conflict person, I think there's always hope that they could change. So one way that you could help is say, okay, I'm not sure about this person. This person might be a high conflict person, they might not be able to heal, but I think I could try. Give yourself a kind of time limit or a box limit about how you can help. So heroes, they think of themselves as they can achieve anything, they can overcome anything. They're happy to help, but their whole mission, their self-story, is not about helping. Their self-story is more about achievement. A helper can support a hero reach anything. Do you see like a lot of power couples? A lot of the time it is healer, I think, and a hero, because the helper is like, wow, this person can do big things. I'm going to support them emotionally. I'm going to support them and tell them they're doing great. So oftentimes they are paired with heroes, and heroes are like superstars because of them. I mean, I would posit that you don't always have to be useful to people. You can just be in a relationship with someone because you like them and they like you. You can have a relationship with someone where no one's getting anything out of it. You're just enjoying each other's company. And so I think that that's also healers. They tie their identity to how helpful am I.
