Loading...

A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal ~ Steve Maraboli

 

A vital component of your personal wellbeing and resilience includes being in service to others. What you do for others can change your internal world and affect the external environment as well. Reaching outward with a selfless and compassionate gesture can bring a deepening of purpose to your life and can transform the existence of those whom you serve.

 

So…how do you build the ‘service factor’ into your life?

 

Service means giving to others without the expectation of receiving anything in return. Honest service to others means your actions are motivated by a desire to make a difference and to help others. It is never ego-driven, although it can promote you feeling good about yourself for supporting someone in need.

 

Being authentic in serving others:

Take a moment to breathe deeply into your motives for being of service. When you choose to support others in some way, are you looking for righteous approval from others for your work or are you simply responding to your inner urge to help? Do you simply go about quietly doing the business of serving others or are you secretly hoping for the addictive positive feedback you seek for your efforts?

Your chosen type of service must be something that is important to you and that aligns with your authentic values. It is vital that it matters to your heart because that is the source of your authenticity. Not to say that you shouldn’t enjoy the inner sense of satisfaction when you make a difference in someone’s life or accept positive feedback when it comes your way but it is not the primary reason you set out to be of service in the world.

Are you willing to keep on trying to be of service even if it does not achieve all of what you envision or desire? Sometimes, your efforts do not result in what you see as success but it matters that you are willing to try and not give up.

 

Serving can happen in big and small ways:

The impact of your support might not be visible to you but could change another’s life in ways you could never imagine just because you were willing to reach out in big or small ways. You can:

• send a check to a charity
• donate time to the homeless
• become a community volunteer – trash pick up, reading to children, helping seniors, big sister/brother programs? Deliver meals to shut-ins?
• become a mentor (what talents do you have that can help others? Tutor in math? Help in business? Gardening? Counseling?
• sponsor fundraisers for causes that matter to you
• simply listen to someone who needs to be heard
• hold open a door for someone, smile at a homeless person

 

Benefits

In offering a helping hand to another in need you can enjoy many hidden positives too. Giving from love to others can:

• Transform feelings of low self-esteem, and failure into self-worth and gratitude
• Bring a sense of purpose and meaning that results in better mental and physical sense of wellbeing
• Generate a sense of inner satisfaction and fulfillment at making a difference for others and because you achieved the goals you set out for yourself
• Enhance your personal growth by learning and expanding your personal sphere of experience
• Improve your sense wellbeing in all relationships and promotes better overall health as a result
• Access a profound awareness of heart-based joy because you have created positive interactions with those whom you are serving and you teach them that they matter.

Serving others focuses your attention away from ego-driven introspection. No matter what you choose to do in service to others, your genuine actions look outside yourself and help add context and clarity to your place within the human family.

 

The give and take in being of service

Acknowledging someone is one of the most loving of human interactions. When you serve another, you are doing just that. When you open yourself to serving others, you weave love, authenticity and connection into every single day that you reach out. It leaves a legacy of caring that can never be erased and it naturally flows back into you, filling the empty and troubled spaces in your own heart with that same immutable love.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others ~ Mahatma Ghandi

 

Resources you can use to find ways to be of service:

• Check you local listings under ‘volunteer,
• Giving What We Can,
• GiveWell, and
• 80,000 Hours.

 

For more information about Breathwork, contact John Stamoulos –  john@johnstamoulos.com