Affirmations:
Love, trust and freedom are my natural State.
All Miracles come from Love.
I am here to Love unconditionally, serve from the heart and remember only Good.
Everything I give is a gift to all.
Are you helping at your own expense?
Are you loving to get love?
Do you help to be valued and appreciated?
Do you serve others to feel better about yourself?
Consider whether you believe you know what is best for others.
Ask if you are martyring or sacrificing for others.
Observe if others resist or passively comply.
Pay attention to the gratification you get from helping.
Some have learned that helping is our duty.
Some may use demand and threat to get their way.
Some believe that forsaking out own needs is better.
Some think they must take control of others’ lives.
When you serve, do you feel you are inspired?
When you help, do you recognize you are helping you?
When you give, do you experience receiving the joy of giving?
When you love, are you loving without expectation?
When we speak to another, we are speaking to ourselves.
When we receive our own advice and guidance, we are believable.
When we appreciate ourselves for loving, we feel loved.
When we recognize our service serves all humanity, we are grateful.
True giving gives nothing away, but fills us with gratitude and joy.
True loving gives love freely with no conditions, because Love is our natural state.
True service serves as we are requested with honor and no expectation.
True helping comes from the natural desire to share Good with all.
Consider the possibility of manipulation.
“If I give to you, you will feel obligated to give to me.”
Consider trying to increase your self esteem.
“When I help others, I feel better about myself.”
Consider the need to control with guilt.
“The more I give, the more they will obey or comply.”
Consider having power over others.
“If they need me, I can get them to stay.”
Consider wanting to get your own needs met.
“if I love enough, they will love me.”
Consider wanting to be important.
“When others depend on me, I will feel useful and valued.”
The work is to take impeccable care of our own Self Love and be responsible for our own lives.
The work is to Love ourselves and others without neediness and greediness.
The work is to freely share the Love we are without condition or expectation.
The work is to simply Love unconditionally, serve from the heart and remember only Good.
Take time to love with Freedom and Trust.
Make it a practice to Love without expectations or sacrifice.
Choose to give with gratitude and joy.
Remember, all that you give is a gift to yourself and all humanity.
Loving us all for the joy of Loving.
Betty Lue
Helping, Fixing, Serving
--by Rachel Remen (May 29, 2000)
Service is not the same as helping.
Helping is based on inequality, it's not a relationship between equals. When you help, you use your own strength to help someone with less strength. It's a one up, one down relationship, and people feel this inequality. When we help, we may inadvertently take away more than we give, diminishing the person's sense of self-worth and self-esteem.
Now, when I help I am very aware of my own strength, but we don't serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all our experiences: our wounds serve, our limitations serve, even our darkness serves. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in the other, and the wholeness in life. Helping incurs debt: when you help someone, they owe you. But service is mutual. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction, but when I serve I have a feeling of gratitude.
Serving is also different from fixing. We fix broken pipes, we don't fix people. When I set about fixing another person, it's because I see them as broken. Fixing is a form of judgment that separates us from one another; it creates a distance.
So, fundamentally, helping, fixing and serving are ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak; when you fix, you see life as broken; and when you serve, you see life as whole.
When we serve in this way, we understand that this person's suffering is also my suffering, that their joy is also my joy and then the impulse to serve arises naturally - our natural wisdom and compassion presents itself quite simply. A server knows that they're being used and has the willingness to be used in the service of something greater.
We may help or fix many things in our lives, but when we serve, we are always in the service of wholeness.
--Rachel Remen, from Zen Hospice
¤ I love you ¤
and I know you love me too.
LOVE IS FREEDOM
The freedom for you and I to be who we are.
The freedom to live life as we do.
The freedom to make mistakes and learn from them.
The freedom to express our own truth as we see it.
LOVE IS TRUST
The trust that there is a constant flow of love,
no matter what.
The trust that, in spite of life’s problems,
we believe in and support each other’s right
to live as we choose.
The trust that in adversity,
there is healing and learning and gifts of love.
The trust that under conflict and emotional expression,
there is love
I love you and I trust you.
I free you to be all you are.
Betty Lue 1978