Providence Spiritual Life Coaching – Helping, Fixing or Serving?

I recently read an incredible article in Shambala Sun titled Helping, Fixing or Serving? by Rachel Naomi Remen. This article inspired an opportunity to reflect on the differences between helping, fixing, or serving. As a Providence Holistic Counselor, the distinctions are important and valuable in my work.

During periods of my life when I received support from professionals in the Mental Health and Spiritual Communities, I was fortunate to be directed to people who wanted my best interest first. The way they interacted with and guided me was clear. I somehow knew this, even from those I paid for their services. I think we can feel at a deeper level when we are served than when we are being helped or fixed by someone. Serving requires a commitment aside from ego and personal ambition. We can only fix something that is broken, and we can only help something that needs help. When I think of serving others, my favorite Martin Luther King quote comes to my mind.

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

There is a myth commonly held by many Americans that we can only serve others when we have enough time, money, and mental/emotional/spiritual stability to do so. My personal and professional experiences contradict this belief. I have found that when we serve, there is a Spiritual Law that supports us; some may call this paying it forward, natural balance, or Karma, whatever you want to call it, it exists, and it is real. To me, this is one of the more applicable laws of nature: sharing. Sharing or service comes from within and is one of the spiritual tools we all have in our toolkits for life to create joy, peace, and gratitude in our lives, regardless of our current circumstances. In short, if you want to get out of your own s**t, serve somebody or something else.

Mother Teresa on Helping, Fixing or Serving?

“I had the most extraordinary experience with a Hindu family who had eight children. A gentleman came to our house and said: Mother Teresa, there is a family with eight children, they had not eaten for so long – do something. So I took some rice and I went there immediately. And I saw the children – their eyes shinning with hunger – I don’t know if you have ever seen hunger. But I have seen it very often. And she took the rice, she divided the rice, and she went out. When she came back I asked her – where did you go, what did you do? And she gave me a very simple answer: They are hungry also. What struck me most was that she knew – and who are they, a Muslim family – and she knew. I didn’t bring more rice that evening because I wanted them to enjoy the joy of sharing.”  Nobel Prize Lectures

 

Helping, Fixing or Serving?

By Rachel Naomi Remen

“Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected.”

Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.

Service rests on the premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.

Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness.

When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.

Serving makes us aware of our wholeness and its power. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others. Fixing and helping are draining, and over time we may burn out, but service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will renew us. In helping we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving we find a sense of gratitude.”

For the complete article Helping, Fixing or Serving?

What are your personal experiences with helping, fixing, or serving? What do you feel when you are serving? Can you identify where in your body you feel it? What about helping and fixing? Do you feel the same thing in the same places, or is the experience different for you?

Other Posts you may enjoy:

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Blindness – A Spiritual Teaching in Seeing

The Art of Knowing is Knowing What to Ignore

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Michael Swerdloff

Providence Holistic Counseling Services