can be crippling unless we understand what it actually means and entails.
Why I am on this topic today is because I met a friend yesterday who has put herself on this horribly disabling road of feeling indebted to her sister who had helped her out a long time ago. My friend's self-confidence is undermined and she always feels as if she owes it to her sister to comply with anything the sister asks or requires of her. It's like a flip-flop. My friend is very confident when it comes to a whole lot of things, but any mention of her sister and she changes into this cringing, weak person...all because her sister had, long years ago, loaned her the money to buy a house. My friend had repaid the loan, but, has been on a repayment trip ever since. Incidentally, my friend is not dependent on this sister in any way.
I remember a time when I too felt indebted to someone who had helped me get a job, till a colleague told me to quit feeling like this because I had paid back and re-re-repaid that debt of gratitude a million times already. I wasn't a liability on either this person or the institution where I was working and that in itself should have freed me from my feeling of indebtedness. How relieved I felt when I heard that, because I had found myself, often, standing on my head trying to do the impossible tasks that were given to me. Once I internalized this, I could do only what was required of me and not all the extra work being dumped on me. Best is, to my total and complete surprise, I began to elicit a measure of respect from all concerned!!
I decided to analyze this a little.
We all need help at one time or another, and we ask our friends if they can help us. But, there is an understanding - if not stated, then definitely understood, that the help will be repaid. If monetary, the loan will be paid back; if help of any other kind, then it is taken for granted that should your benefactor in his time of need ever require help, you would stretch out your hand. But it ends there. There is an element of thankfulness in indebtedness - one is grateful for help or favor received. And one is obliged to pay that back...because an obligation is a responsibility or a commitment. But, again, and I am repeating this - It ends there. After the repayment, one's obligation ceases. If you want to help the other person after this, then that is your wish, your conscious decision to do so. But it has nothing to do with having been indebted to that person once upon a time.
If we constantly feel indebted to the person who had helped us, even after paying back the debt of gratitude, then we are actually enslaving ourselves. This is in direct contradiction to the all-important aim of life to have a free heart, a free spirit...