You need to overcome your savior complex and this is why

The world doesn’t need you to rescue it. What it needs is for you to rescue yourself.

by: E.B. Johnson

If you look around at your relationships, it probably doesn’t take too long to find someone in need. Maybe they need help to pay their rent. Maybe they need some emotional support to get back on their feet. Being there for other people is important, but it becomes problematic when this “fixing” becomes a part of our identity. Feel like you’re pouring yourself out? You might be struggling with a savior complex.

Savior complexes are poisonous and drive serious wedges into our lives and our relationships. While we think we’re acting in good faith, a closer look often shows warped intentions and skewed perceptions that make it hard to accept reality for what it is. There is such a thing as giving too much of yourself away, and there is such a thing as getting “too involved” in the lives of other people. Instead, we have to step back and learn to focus on our own journey.

Your savior complex is toxic.

We live in a world that tells us we should be striving constantly toward betterment. At the same time, though, we also live in a world that encourages to go above and beyond in the pursuit of changing or “fixing” other people. We’re told that to support someone is to carry the weight of their burden for them, but this does nothing short of creating a savior complex that further undermines our lives and our relationships. We aren’t responsible for fixing other people, we’re responsible for fixing ourselves.

Those who battle with savior complexes range across a number of personalities and lifestyles. They can be the interminable “white savior” who swoops into developing nations for spring break, or they can be the ever-involved partner who doesn’t know how to simply listen. To them, it’s all about changing the lives of people around them — without full consideration for what they’re doing or the consequences.

Having a savior complex doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you a good person either. What it does do is make your life extremely challenging, which adding major divides to the most important relationships in your life. When we love someone or we care for them, we aren’t responsible for fixing them. The only thing we can do is to be there for them and do our best to inspire them in the direction of their fulfillment. The world doesn’t need you to save it. The world needs you to save yourself so others can follow suit.

Signs you’re battling a savior complex.

Do you have a compulsive urge to fix everything around you? Do you simultaneously feel responsible for everyone, but powerless in your own life? You might be dealing with a savior complex, and these are some of the signs.

Chasing broken people

Look at the people in your life. Do you find yourself collecting the broken and needy? Are they all looking to you for quick fixes and quick loans? Are you looking for lost children who need parents, affection, and more support than you realize? We chase broken people when we have a compulsive need to fix them. The problem is, however, that we cannot fix anyone but ourselves. So, we set ourselves up for disappointment by setting out to rescue them from their own lives.

Forever “fixing”

The person with a savior complex is someone who always needs to find a solution — even if there isn’t one. They’ll drive yourself mad in the process and force corrections and behaviors that just don’t add up. They can’t just listen to someone they care about vent their problems. No matter what is asked of them, they find themselves getting involved or getting proactive about forcing their loved ones in the direction they believe to be best. They are forever fixing the world around them, but they rarely take any time or energy to “fix” themselves.

Looking for change

One of the biggest warning signs of a savior complex is working to change the people around you (especially in your intimate circles). This might be true if you believe that you can fix other people and you actively engage in the process of trying to change them. You might think, “I can train my partner to stop cheating,” or “I can make them understand how important responsibility is.” The problem, though, is that you aren’t a teacher. You’re a loved one — not their parent.

Carrying all the baggage

Take a moment to consider your closest relationships again. When it comes to the emotional work, do you find that you carry a lot of the weight of those relationships on your own shoulders? Maybe you believe that you are the only person who can help the people you love with their troubles. So, you assume all the emotional baggage and put your relationship into a forced state of imbalance. Healthy relationships (no matter what realm they inhabit) require us to bear the burden of our own emotional hardships, while supporting one another equally through them.

Too many personal sacrifices

Are you the kind of person who always makes personal sacrifices for the people around you? Do you find that you are the person who is always compromising, while everyone else around you gets their way? This kind of over-sacrificing is a classic sign of a savor complex. Because you think that sacrifice is the most noble form of love (or because you believe that is the only way to earn love), you offer up your own happiness or material goods in the name of the people that you care for. Too many personal sacrifices stack up, though. Before you know it you have nothing left for yourself.

All the wrong intentions

When you fail to align your intentions with reality, you find yourself with skewed and broken perceptions of reality that fracture your relationships and wellbeing. Consider your aims for helping others. Do you sacrifice for them because you genuinely want them to be better? Or do you want them to love you, so that you are happy? Likewise, consider where your actions lead. When you fix someone’s life for them, are you empowering them? Or are you shaming them and removing autonomy from them?

Over-the-top action

Over-the-top action is another hallmark sign of a person with a savior complex. Rather than just doing a standard amount of work to support someone, you go overboard to demonstrate your value or how much you care. This can include massive financial gifts, or grandiose demonstrations of patronage. Maybe you decide to contact their boss for them, or you move them into the spare room of your house (next to your kids) after meeting them just a handful of times.

Financial over-commitment

Never lose sight of the power of money when it comes to identifying your savior complexes. Wannabe saviors regularly reach into their pockets to display their never-ending generosity to those who they deem incapable of saving themselves. Far beyond wanting to help someone in a moment of need, they throw money at problems rather than thinking through the complex and far-reaching solutions (like how to ensure skills are developed, to ensure no financial shortfalls in future).

How it destroys our lives (and our relationships).

While a savior complex might seem like a beneficial burden to carry, it’s not. Living with this idea that you can rescue the world will destroy your emotional and physical stability, while alienating your closest and most intimate relationships. You shouldn’t seek to be a savior. You should seek to be a friend.

Flawed perceptions

Our savior complexes change our perception of self and others. You might come to see everyone outside of you as “less-than” or incapable. At the same time, you might come to resent them for the endless charity you imagine yourself to be handing out from the “goodness” of your heart. On the receiving side of your gratitude, they might come to see you as snobby, stuck-up, or even elitist. While you think you are opening up your heart, they can come to see you as forcing your own ideals.

Perpetuating inequality

A savior complex inherently requires you to look at the person you are trying to rescue as “inferior”. Before you disagree — think about it. When you believe that you have to rescue someone, you also believe that they aren’t capable of doing it for themselves. You might think they don’t have the skills or resilience, but you still think that they don’t have what it takes. Not only is this toxic to your relationship with that person, it’s toxic to their own personal views on self. We’re all capable of rescuing ourselves.

Disjointed relationships

If you carry on in your savior complexes, you’re eventually going to force those on the receiving end to resent you. This comes down to the constant meddling in their affairs, as well as your inability to just be a supportive friend or partner. Yes, constantly springing into action is not always supportive. Sometimes, all we really need is a compassionate ear to vent to and bounce our ideas off of. As we talk about our struggles, our brains often put together new avenues to solutions we never considered before. No input needed.

Selling out personal needs

In order to give, give, give in the name of other people, you have to give away your happiness and security. This then leaves you mentally and emotionally unable to help those who really need it and want it in future. Selling out your personal needs isn’t noble. It’s short-sighted, as it completely destroys any chance of helping others later on down the line. It’s a sort of “burning your fuse at both ends” and refusing to stand up for what you authentically need and want.

Complete burnout

The longer you go on carrying this savior burden, the more difficult your life will become. When you stop seeing to your own needs and live in a state of constant sacrifice, you become lost and detached from everything that is authentically you. Eventually, this leads you to a complete and total burnout. Standing alone, you’ll realize that you’re completely lost with no sense of your own personal direction or desire. In order to avoid this burnout, we have to regularly take time aside to rest and recharge ourselves.

Failure and hopelessness

You can’t fix other people. It isn’t possible. So, when you see all your good work failing — you might find yourself dealing with increased feelings of failure or hopelessness. It’s your own fault. You’re setting yourself up for failure when you insist on inserting yourself into someone else’s journey in such a disruptive way. The only person we can repair is ourselves. The only person we can scoop up and shelter from the pain is ourselves. Everyone is on their own journey and they are the hero of their own stories. You have to learn to be the hero of yours if you can ever hope to thrive.

The best ways to overcome your savior complex.

Don’t allow your savior complex to rule and ruin your life forever. Put this destructive need to fix anything and everything to bed, so that you can pursue your own happiness and fulfillment.

1. Embrace the law of salvation

The first step in the journey of letting go of our need to fix others is embracing the ultimate law of salvation. We may all have our own individual ideas on religious salvation, but personal salvation is something much different. This is the salvation that happens in the little in-between moments of our day-to-day lives. It’s the little fires we have to put out, and the micro-disasters and adversity that we alone can navigate.

Begin by accepting that you are the only person you can save, control, or improve. When it comes to other people, the best you can hope to do is motivate and inspire. Radical change happens from within. Improving our lives happens because we intrinsically desire for that to happen.

Let go of the belief that you are in any way capable of rescuing someone from their personal mistakes and demons. Understand that you can’t change their personality, you can’t change what they want from their life, and you will certainly never change who they are as a person. Look inward instead to all the things you want to change about yourself. Are you chasing resolutions for other people because you’re too scared to give them to yourself?

2. Practice listening without reacting

So many of us launch into action or strings of advice as soon as a friend or loved one tells us they have a problem. Some of us don’t even wait to hear the full extent of the issue. “You should give him a piece of your mind.” Sure, that might work when you faced a similar situation, but there may be too many variables here. If you truly want to overcome your savior complex, you have to learn to listen without acting and interjecting yourself.

The next time a friend or a loved one makes the decision to confide in you, resist the urge to butt in or tell them what to do. Even further, restrain yourself from taking action entirely and offer them only your kindness, your words, and your emotional support.

People who confide in us don’t always want active help. Often, the only help they truly want is a compassionate ear who will listen to them vent, and then help them move on. It’s not about offering answers. You don’t need to give them answers or magical solutions. You just need to comfort them by ensuring them you too see the injustice or adversity that they’re facing. Being an ally is a far more powerful position to be in than a savior.

3. Only offer low-pressure support

You need to take some time off from the acts of bravado and learn how to offer minimum or low-pressure support. Especially if you’re someone who has been taken advantage of in the past. Those with a savior complex are notorious for going above-and-beyond and making over-the-top gestures that both disturb and undermine their own happiness or security. If this sounds like you, get in the habit of offering low-pressure support and stop with the unappreciated and unwanted grandiose gestures.

Stop giving up all your time, energy, and money to other people. Help where you can, certainly, but stop assuming that you alone are responsible for ensuring that those you care for have what they need. You can’t take care of the whole world. If you try, you won’t have anything left for yourself.

Don’t agree to pay someone’s rent. Give them $100 to get started and then help them tighten up their resume. When they come to you complaining about their partner, give them a hug and tell them to remember who they are. You don’t have to have an answer for every problem. You’re not the master of solutions. No one has made you responsible for the world. Offer low-pressure support until you come to grips with your right to protect your energy and your light.

4. Explore deep-rooted hangups

No matter how your savior complex manifests, it’s important to question where it comes from. Often, this need to save other people comes from experiences in our pasts when we ourselves were traumatized or otherwise not “saved” by ourselves or someone we loved. We might decide that we will never allow that to happen to anyone else, or we decide that we alone are strong enough to handle such circumstances (superiority complex).

Spend some time looking backward and seek to identify experiences that have infused these savior beliefs into your life. What brings on this need to be a savior of everyone but yourself? Question your past and the relationships and dysfunctional relationships that dwell there.

This is also a great time to question your own insecurities, or those things which might be causing you to run in the pursuit of other people. Is there looming insecurity that creates the belief that you have to prove yourself to others? Do you go above and beyond because you’re a people pleaser and you think that’s the only way you’ll ever be worthy? When you allow yourself to explore these answers honestly and earnestly, you’ll come to some transformative revelations.

5. Focus on perfecting your own journey

The truth of the matter is that — unless you’re some kind of rare, immortal being — your life has enough work to be getting on with. You can’t get involved in someone else’s life until you have your own figured out, otherwise you might be leading them further into the dark (without even realizing it). Before flexing your savior complex on anyone else, take a step back and focus on perfecting your own journey and vision for the future.

Do you really have the time and energy to be getting so involved in someone else’s life? Do you have your own journey so perfectly smoothed that there’s no more emotional, mental, or physical work for you to do? Have you achieved all your goals? Experienced all the things? Achieved enlightenment? No? Then why are you trying to give those things to someone else?

You can never give someone something you don’t already possess yourself. If you aren’t a courageous person, you can’t make them bold. If you aren’t self-assured and confident in your own skin — you can’t make your partner see those things in themselves. If you truly want to help people change their lives, you need to lead by example and inspire them by getting your own house in order. Don’t tell someone what to do. Show them.

Putting it all together…

While a savior complex might seem like a good thing to have, it’s not. Insisting on changing people’s lives for them is toxic. It takes away the power of personal choice, and it also removes you from action and commitment in your own life. There’s a stark difference between supporting someone and taking it upon yourself to “rescue” them — despite their own personal preferences. If you’re dealing with a savior complex, it’s time to let it go.

Embrace and understand the reality of personal salvation. The only person we are capable of rescuing is ourselves. We cannot force other people to change their lives or become someone different. Use this knowledge to empower yourself. When someone confides in you, listen — but don’t rush to react. Often all we need is a compassionate ear to help us reshape our own thinking and our own perspectives. Saying it out loud changes the way we see things. If you have to offer support, keep it low-pressure. Stop going above and beyond, as it takes away from your stability and instills a sense of shame in the people you think you’re “rescuing”. Once you’ve identified a savior complex, dig deep and question where these destructive impulses are coming from. Are you avoiding taking action in your own name? Focus on your own journey and drop your savior complex so that you can save yourself.