Most messages are about serving, about how connected we all are, how helping others is helping ourselves. Today’s message is different. This one is about YOU and taking care of YOU.
Society teaches us to serve others until we are depleted. At least, that’s what I learned as I was growing up, especially as a woman. ‘It’s better to give than to receive.’ ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’
The problem with those sayings is that we didn’t get the nuance that we ALSO need to take care of ourselves or we won’t have anything to give to others!
If we give, give, give until there is nothing left to give, then the next person who needs us is out of luck. I learned from Lisa Nichols the best image of appropriate service. She used the metaphor of a cup and saucer, where the cup represents you and you fill it up until it overflows, then you serve from the saucer. If you are always filling up your cup, there is always overflow from which to serve and you are never depleted. This means that you don’t have to stop serving to restore yourself – you keep filling yourself up and you can keep serving from the saucer.
And if it’s so wonderful to give, what about those of us who have learned to give but have never learned how to receive? Aren’t we depriving others of the opportunity to give to us? Think about that nuance. Maybe it is better to give someone else the opportunity to give to us than to always receive the pleasure of giving without letting anyone else have that fun.
Now, I’m not referring here to the political debates about the ‘givers’ and the ‘takers.’ Those labels are being used maliciously to justify certain positions and we’re not getting into politics here.
But most of us know what giving to others means and our generous, conscious, compassionate humanity leads us to give what and when we can.
It’s okay to consider yourself and your own needs. Sometimes we need permission to do that. You have that permission now. Focusing on what you need is vital to supporting your efforts to help others in need. Fill up your cup so you can serve from the saucer.
Reframe the word ‘selfish’ to ‘self-focused’ so you can release the pejorative judgments that go along with the idea of thinking of self. YOU are the one on Planet Earth at this time to live YOUR Soul Purpose. Taking care of yourself is essential to showing up for your Purpose.
Recently I’ve been doing Scientific Hand Analysis sessions for clients who are in the School of Service, one of the four schools in this system. The lesson in this Life School is to become a Master of Service Consciousness, understanding the difference between Service and Servitude. Service comes from a place of joy in the service and the act of serving is its own reward, with no concerns about ‘thank you’ or reciprocation. Servitude is saying ‘yes’ and then resenting that choice, wishing we’d said ‘no’ and wanting to get out of the obligation, or, worse, resenting the person to whom we made the commitment.
All of us are here to serve, not just those whose handprints indicate that their Life School is Service [this is just their Major at Earth University!], but we all need to learn to take care of ourselves so that we are available to help others.
What does this mean for you? Are you able to say ‘no’ when you need to, without feeling guilty about it? Are you filling up your cup so you can serve from the saucer or do you wait until you’re depleted so you can give yourself permission to stop and refresh?
Be conscious about putting ‘I’ on your to do list! Take care of YOU first and you’ll be able to take care of everyone who needs you!
After all, ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself’ doesn’t mean much if you don’t love yourself enough to take care of YOU!
PS: Are you curious about how your hand and fingerprints reveal your Life Pupose? Explore this more here.
Mystic Messages 
EXPLORATION: “The I’s Have It” – Richard’s Commentary
January 17, 2013 — RichardSpeaking of taking care of yourself first so you have the energy and resources to serve others, I’ve been thinking a lot about veganism and vegetarianism lately. I know a number of people who are and have been for years. In fact my son has been mostly vegetarian since his college days after reading “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.”
And recently I have begun to know people who are not only very strict in their discipline around a vegan diet but are also strong advocates of such, recommending it as a way to eat to save ourselves and the planet in the process. In fact some folks become so enthusiastic about their lifestyle and dietary choices that they almost become zealots, fundamentalists in their beliefs and political views on the subject.
I could say that some people even push my buttons on this subject. And I ask myself, “what are they mirroring for me that I need to examine closely?”
Examining this question took me all the way back to my childhood. I grew up on a small family farm in Wisconsin; and yes, it was a dairy farm. But we raised pigs, chickens, and sheep as well. For the most part we were a self-sufficient farm growing and raising much of our own food. Milk was the primary cash commodity and it all, but what we saved out for our personal use, went to a local factory that made cheese. Everything was pretty local in those days. We traded the eggs to the local grocery store for credit toward the things we didn’t raise or grow ourselves. We ate the extra roosters. We ate our own meat from pigs and steers we raised. So, I grew up with a lot of meat, milk, cheese, eggs; and when the local hunters helped thin out deer herds during hunting season we had venison as well.
I look back on this childhood with a great deal of fondness; I feel blessed to have been raised in the country with what then would have been the nearest thing to non-GMO, organic food we could have had from any source at any price – and it came from our “back-yard”!. We knew exactly where it all came from and what went into it.
Fast-forward about 60 years and it is hard to believe how things have changed! While some of the family farm remains right there in Wisconsin where I left it, much of the land has been sold to a “giant farm” following the trend everywhere to big-agri-business; the family farms of my youth are mostly gone. And I now live on the east coast with just enough garden for a few tomato plants. The nearest thing to small farming is the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) approach we have supported for the past few years. At least this way we are sourcing some of our produce locally; it’s fresh and organic and supporting a healthy way of life and a healthy planet!
My diet has changed too: for several years I have made my breakfasts and lunches in my Vitamix “super-blender” by creating a concoction of nuts, seeds, fruit and vegetables; it’s all raw, as organic as I can find and it certainly qualities as vegan. I have lost a bit of excess weight, very gradually, while on this regimen, I have lots of energy, feel great and I believe I’m pretty healthy. And for dinner I often have a meat dish. I love cheese (here I don’t think I had a chance since from childhood I had more milk in my veins than blood!). And, while I’ve given up on chicken in my diet I still enjoy, now and then, a bacon-and-egg breakfast on a random weekend.
I am far from vegetarian, let alone vegan! And I am not sure I ever want or need to become a strict anything. I tend to avoid becoming a zealot about things in life.
That said I have asked myself if I need to look more closely into this mirror held up to me by those who are more zealous! Are we on an evolutionary path toward a meatless diet? Will this path, in part, be driven by realities of limited resources and over-pollution by the current approach by big-agri-business? Are we killing ourselves with GMOs? Can we rely on science and technology to continuously increase production of already strained resources?
And the real nagging question, because I want to think of myself as an evolutionary and cultural creative: “Is the New Human vegan?” I’d love to have your thoughts.