When I first moved to my mountain town, I found that the winters were difficult. The darkness felt heavy but the snow-covered mountains brought me an enormous amount of enjoyment. It was a paradox for me, feeling both good and bad.
During those days I learned to dig deep and I started to take my self-work more seriously. In retrospect, I see that I felt a looming sense of dread most of the time; in hindsight it’s easy to see how that made me feel alone and like I had no one to turn to. I felt the darkness kept creating more darkness. It was a never-ending cycle.
Many years later I can see how my actions then changed my life. I understood that the heaviness I was carrying wasn’t a state I wanted to experience, and change needed to happen. One of the most profound things I did was to find ways to be of service to others. Whenever I’m in a dark emotional place, I become self-involved and follow the convictions of my mind. Meaning, I believe the stories that ravage my mind, and they create separation from my friends and my community when I indulge in them. It’s still a battle that my brain tries to win, the process of coming up with negative theories, but today I’m more equipped with tools and a greater understanding of mental health.
As I started to shift, slowly I noticed changes. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and ignored the hasty opinions of others. It was during that time that I started a business; ironically, it was a business designed to keep others healthy. I had always dreamed of being of service and finding ways to support and lift up other people. It wasn’t easy to create that, but ultimately I keep doing what I do because I fundamentally believe in the collective good. If one of us lifts up another, that systemically benefits our society. I’m in no way special: my work isn’t about being narcissistic, it’s about finding a way to be of service. Ultimately those actions and choices lead me to feeding the part of myself that feels joy, contentment and pleasure. Serving others keeps me healthy, among the other pleasurable activities and endeavors I embark on regularly.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a neurosurgeon, medical reporter, CNN medical correspondent and author; his recent book addresses his five pillars of brain health. These include the things we need to do to have physical and emotional brain health. One of the five pillars he speaks about is being of service. He believes cognitive decline is not our destiny and that with certain practices we can lead healthy and emotionally abundant lives. One of the five pillars is finding ways to be of service. In serving others we lift ourselves out of our self-involved malaise and get the obsession with our mind talk in order.
Our fascination with ourselves is possibly one of the biggest failures of our humanness. We become (I include myself in this) obsessed with how we’re feeling, how others perceive us, how special we are, or with fame, money and self-serving success. If we’ve found a way to be of service to others but it’s depleting, I suspect it’s due to doing it for the wrong reasons – perhaps wanting to be seen as a giver OR overgiving to feel like we’re contributing in our communities, or to simply feel worthy.
We all need to find out what lights us up to be of service in healthy ways and help without acting out our martyrdom or righteousness. It helps to find the ways you feel called to help and let go of being recognized for your efforts. True giving is done by the anonymous. Generosity will give you far more positivity in your life than any award you might receive.
I do want to add that I’m inspired and interested in the work of Dr. Sanjay Gupta because he’s contributing to the world of self help through science.
I leave you with this query: Do you feel tempted to diminish yourself for not being of service OR are you lit up by the prospects of what being of service could bring to your life?
With love, Noelle