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You didn’t think I would leave you hanging, did you?

Although serving yourself and serving others are not opposite ends of the spectrum, it’s good to know how they work together. Yesterday, I discussed how serving yourself can serve others. Today, I’ll talk about how serving others serves you.

Gain Perspective

When you’re serving food at the Women’s Shelter to women and children, the extra 10 lbs that you’re carrying starts looking like a good thing. Or when you’re tutoring a young boy with learning disabilities whose struggling to read 1st grade books in 5th grade, the promotion that you didn’t get loses it’s sting.

When you serve others, you gain some perspective on the world and stop nitpicking your life. You begin to appreciate all that you have in your life.

Open Yourself to Opportunities

Giving always opens you to new experiences. When you give your time in service to others, you open your eyes to possibilities. On a very practical level, just being in a different setting shows you another way to live. It may not be completely desirable, but you may find that optimism in the child you are tutoring is contagious and helps him to learn. You begin to be optimistic in your own life.

When you give you might also find business opportunities. No, not to take advantage of those in a bad situation, but you might find out that homeless people were only a paycheck away from being homeless. That might prompt you to help people save more or become more financially literate before it has to come to that.

Giving also alerts you to resources you didn’t know you had. You learn that a lot of things you think of as necessities are luxury items. You learn to replace them and use the resources for other endeavors. For example, you might find that the extra $120 a month you spend on Starbucks can be used to start a cottage business or take belly dancing lessons (a personal request). You can also discover hidden talents that you possess. For example, you could move up to organizing the Salvation Army dinner and discover that you have management skills that you start exhibiting in your work life.

Practice Being Present

Serving removes the focus from your busy life to the activity at hand. It temporarily interrupts the chatter of “not good enough”, or “I need more”, or “I want”. You express the Divinity within you in a free flow (that is, if you are paying attention to what you are doing). Serving has a way of bringing us to the moment. We can let our guard down and let our True spirits shine.

Service is like the infinity sign. Serving others is in a happy dance with serving yourself. At certain points in life, it will be necessary to weigh heavy in one direction. Eventually, you’ll find that you feel more centered and fulfilled, when you are healthy, loving, and happy, while you sharing your gifts of love with the world.

In Spirit,
Nneka

Selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic. Those are some words that might come to mind when you start talking about serving yourself. Indeed, when you proceed down the path of personal development or introspection about spirituality, you may seem to go deeper and deeper into yourself to the exclusion of the world aroung you. So how does serving yourself serve others?

An Example

For starters, when you change people start to notice that change. You may smile more, or lose weight, or be a more loving spouse. You begin to teach people, not by spouting out what you learned in a book, but through the example of your life.

Greater Capacity

In September last year, I committed to talk about spirituality on this blog. As time goes on, more and more visitors come by to gain insight into spirituality. Those visitors become readers and the readers become friends. I am very grateful for every one of you.

I noticed very soon that as the site got more popular, I needed to step up my game - online and offline. I’m starting with really working on my weight. I want to have the energy that it takes to be agile and clear. When I don’t have that energy, I’m lethargic and it eventually shows up in my post.

As you become healthier, or improve your relationships, or get more organized, you will have a greater ability to give to the world. You will feel nourished and you will be able to give from excess, not tap into your reserves. Life feels effortless, and smooth.

Oneness

On an existential level, as you become healthier, more loving, more centered, you contribute to a consciousness of radiance, love, and peace. You raise your vibration or your level of living, and the world around you increases its vibration to match yours.

Service to self and service to others are not on opposite ends of a linear spectrum. They are threads woven in the tapestry of life. They are both needed to make life colorful and strong.

In Spirit,
Nneka