How Can I Help?
THE ART OF BEING OF SERVICE
Q: How can I help?
A: As someone who is oriented toward service as a life path, I am often reflecting on to what extent I can actually help people and what kind of circumstance is required for that to be a reality. Over the years I have learned 4 big lessons on this topic 1. I cannot actually help anyone unless I help myself first and 2. I can only help people who are also willing to help themselves because 3. You can’t help anyone if you are sacrificing yourself in order to help them and 4. If they don’t want to help themselves, nobody can help them at all.
REVIEWING THE LESSONS OF BEING OF SERVICE
You cannot actually help anyone unless you help yourself first. Instagram, TikTok, etc. are full of “social therapists”. I have to wonder how many of these people are walking the talk. Some for sure and others for sure not. There is a clear distinction between regurgitating information that you have learned from a teacher only to ‘teach’ or preach to others and those who have learned, practiced, embodied, and become the very teachings they share. Learn the difference. The first has no lasting power and is not something you want to interact with as a serious student as the education is already dead and lifeless. Find a true teacher and you will find a new sense of aliveness within yourself. In this way, if you are ‘helping’ others in any capacity without having lived the wisdom you are passing along, it isn’t wisdom at all, only plagiarism of thought which helps no one.
You can only help people who are also willing to help themselves. Have you ever felt like you were spinning your wheels with the same advice, same words of wisdom, same conversation again and again with a friend or colleague seeking your guidance or support? It can be heartbreaking time and time again, years later when you suddenly find yourself caught in some kind of distortion of reality because the person you are ‘helping’ isn’t helping themselves. Most likely, they feel they are getting help because they are asking for it yet they are leaving the most important part of the equation behind them. Action. Same type of scenario for the ‘weekend warrior’ psychedelic explorer who returns again and again to ceremony without integrating their homework from the previous journey. It isn’t enough to see what must change, without taking action, there is not only no change but a digression from possibility.
You can’t help anyone if you are sacrificing yourself in order to help them. So cliche. “Please be sure to place your oxygen mask on before helping others”. And…it is true. However, this world is full of situations where this is not the case. For example, people who are ‘in service’ as a means of avoiding helping themselves. Some are wanting to be the martyr, gathering evidence upon evidence of the sacrifices they have made for others as if they should receive a medal for their good Samaritanism. And if they don’t receive the accolades, they are suddenly an unacknowledged victim of those they have ‘helped’. Sick, twisted, real and perhaps a lot more common than one might realize.
Another example, authentic ‘helpers’ and caretakers who are authentically inclined to do this from their hearts yet again, are missing the mark because they literally “don’t have time” to take care of themselves. This is actually the same root as the previous example, but less obvious. And lastly, the ones who are willing to give everything for a cause they believe in but literally are killing themselves in the process, left with nothing to give and the whole mission collapses. If only they had taken better care of themselves, perhaps the solutions would materialize.
4. If people don’t want to help themselves, nobody can help them at all. You aren’t the problem in this case, so recognize that there is nothing you can or could have done to save a friend or acquaintance from self-destruction or obstacles of any kind if they aren’t willing to help themselves. Many of you who have lived with or been in relationship with an addict know this better than anyone. Addiction is venomous and prolific as a means of self-sabotage. Stay vigilant for yourself as to what even you might be addicted to that is diverting you away from helping yourself in some capacity. As humans navigate the dark matter of the Kali Yuga, this is the type of self-awareness needed to keep afloat and from getting caught in the mire of deeper samsaric quicksand. It is virtuous to help others, just keep this point in mind when you feel you have failed, especially when you have given a true A+ for effort.
LIVING KNOWLEDGE INTO WISDOM
To reiterate. Lived knowledge becomes understanding and eventually settles as wisdom earned. Share and help from this place if you really want to be of service. And...If there is no gas left in the tank, there is no offering that can be made. No mission, cause, or relationship is worth a slow suicide mission of self-sacrifice that leaves you powerless, penniless, or useless. Be aware - Different forms of this can show up in tricky circumstances as well, i.e. motherhood, in partnership, at work, or even when self-employed, and truly anything that takes more than you receive. How did giving without receiving become such an epidemic? And a shout out to others who have a hard time asking for help (raising my hand although I’ve been working on this AKA my pride).
Let’s imagine for a moment a world in which we help each other, meaning we’re up for and have already helped ourselves to the extent that we are able. What would this reality feel like? How do you feel inside this vision? Create it today by assessing your level of sacrifice, reel in your resources, fill yourself up, and then give big. In this way, you can be of service in a way that is actually unimaginable. I’m with you in this and am enthusiastic about this possibility in my life and for yours as well.
All my best to you and please receive the piece of my heart that lives inside these words.
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We cannot change the world until we accept we are the world. This is the new conversation.