Affirmations:
I trust myself to give the best I know, as I give my best to me.
I learn to live, love and let go of needing to fix or change others.
I allow each person to learn from their own life experience.
I respond with love to all who ask for my help, wisdom and love.
Who Is Helping?
When no one helps, each person is on their own.
When no one is helped, each person feels alone.
When no one feels like helping, each person is left uncared for.
When someone calls for help, there is no one listening.
When we cannot take care of ourselves, we cannot help others.
When we cannot take care of others who cannot take care of themselves, who is helping?
How do we begin to learn to listen within to care for ourselves?
How do we teach others to be helpful if we are not helpful to and for ourselves?
Where is the balance between helping myself and helping others?
Where do we find the strength to be helpful, when we have not been helped?
How do we learn to care and share responsibility with others?
When will we create families where everyone helps everyone?
When I grew up, everyone was helpful.
Parents encouraged their children to be helpful to those younger by teaching them.
Everyone was helpful to the youngest and oldest who had limited ability to help themselves.
Everyone enjoyed being helpful and all needs were met.
There were always chores to be done that everyone could do.
Even helping someone learn to tie their own shoes.
Everyone was pleased to be helpful and kind.
Sometimes we taught , encouraged and sometimes we would remind.
There was no place or time when all needs were not met.
We shared work together without conflict or regret.
There was no nagging or arguing, bribing or enticement.
We did the work as a family, all together and as one.
Some are truly helpful and teach others to join in with helpfulness.
Some are too helpful and create dependency on their helpfulness.
Some wish they could be helpful but need too much help themselves.
Some won’t allow others to help and prefer to help themselves.
Do you feed others or teach them to plant a garden and learn to feed themselves?
Do you give money or help people find a job to make money?
Do you give your kids/grandkids what they ask for or help them earn their presents?
Do you fill the needs you see or show people how to share what they have?
Helpfulness may not always be helpful.
We can be helpful so we don’t have to hear complaints and demands.
Helpfulness can be done from a position of self pity or from sincere caring and love.
Helpfulness done with respect and gratitude is a gift to giver and receiver.
Do for others what you would have them do for you.
May we all learn how to be responsible by responding with Love.
Bless us all for learning how to serve one another.
Betty Lue
I trust myself to give the best I know, as I give my best to me.
I learn to live, love and let go of needing to fix or change others.
I allow each person to learn from their own life experience.
I respond with love to all who ask for my help, wisdom and love.
Who Is Helping?
When no one helps, each person is on their own.
When no one is helped, each person feels alone.
When no one feels like helping, each person is left uncared for.
When someone calls for help, there is no one listening.
When we cannot take care of ourselves, we cannot help others.
When we cannot take care of others who cannot take care of themselves, who is helping?
How do we begin to learn to listen within to care for ourselves?
How do we teach others to be helpful if we are not helpful to and for ourselves?
Where is the balance between helping myself and helping others?
Where do we find the strength to be helpful, when we have not been helped?
How do we learn to care and share responsibility with others?
When will we create families where everyone helps everyone?
When I grew up, everyone was helpful.
Parents encouraged their children to be helpful to those younger by teaching them.
Everyone was helpful to the youngest and oldest who had limited ability to help themselves.
Everyone enjoyed being helpful and all needs were met.
There were always chores to be done that everyone could do.
Even helping someone learn to tie their own shoes.
Everyone was pleased to be helpful and kind.
Sometimes we taught , encouraged and sometimes we would remind.
There was no place or time when all needs were not met.
We shared work together without conflict or regret.
There was no nagging or arguing, bribing or enticement.
We did the work as a family, all together and as one.
Some are truly helpful and teach others to join in with helpfulness.
Some are too helpful and create dependency on their helpfulness.
Some wish they could be helpful but need too much help themselves.
Some won’t allow others to help and prefer to help themselves.
Do you feed others or teach them to plant a garden and learn to feed themselves?
Do you give money or help people find a job to make money?
Do you give your kids/grandkids what they ask for or help them earn their presents?
Do you fill the needs you see or show people how to share what they have?
Helpfulness may not always be helpful.
We can be helpful so we don’t have to hear complaints and demands.
Helpfulness can be done from a position of self pity or from sincere caring and love.
Helpfulness done with respect and gratitude is a gift to giver and receiver.
Do for others what you would have them do for you.
May we all learn how to be responsible by responding with Love.
Bless us all for learning how to serve one another.
Betty Lue
HELPING, FIXING, SERVING
--by Rachel Remen (May 29, 2000)
--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