Acts of service · Spiritual Rebels

Acts of service

What does it mean to you, to be of service?

For me it begins with finding balance in my own life. I think of quotes I've heard repeated throughout life like "make sure your own house is in order" or "clean up your own side of the street first" and then "how can you love someone else when you can't even love yourself?". All these quotes suggest that there's a sense of personal responsibility to "take care of ones-self" if we want to begin to help others. I don't know that this is universally true though. I think sometimes we don't have a sense of self worth or just so much trauma that it's over stimulating or overwhelming to look inside. In these scenarios, being of service to others can be a useful coping tool. It can safely and sometimes effectively distract from the pain we have inside. Which is okay to get us through the day when just getting through the day is enough. But there's a miraculous paradigm that happens when we are off service to others. We begin to see some value in ourselves. Being of service can often be a first stepping stone to recovering from whatever inner turmoils w we may be struggling with. Someone over told me that the motivation for healing must come from within. They said " you have to want it and do it for yourself, or it will never work". I call b.s. on that now. When I got sober 27 years ago, it began for my daughter. I wanted it for her. I didn't want her to have a drunk addicted loser for a father. When I began healing my trauma, I wanted it for my family, I didn't want them to have a depressed and angry emotional vampire sucking them dry. In both instances, there came a time (not long into the process) when I was told that I needed to be off service. I did what was suggested. With every act of service, I gain a little more self respect. With every kind deed I felt a little more hopeful. Eventually, I began to like who I was and I wanted ME to have happiness and serenity. My journey is one of discovering value in myself by doing for others first. There's another saying that I didn't quite understand for years. "Fake it until you make it". What that means to me now is this. Act like a kind person until you become a kind person. Act like an honest person until you become an honest person. Act like who you want to be until you become who you want to be. Healthy actions lead to healthy habits. Healthy habits lead to healthy character and healthy character leads to a healthy spirit.

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