As Heather said in our last post - Happy New Year to all of you! Looking forward to some exciting new beginnings!! Meeting more loving, caring people - helping those that need it - and hopefully growing a little along the way....It's kind of inevitable - when you help someone, you see who you want to be, you get a glimmer of how interconnected we truly are.
In my life, I found that I've been searching for that feeling almost continuously. That "feel-good gratification" that lets us know we are A-OK and on the right track. I've searched for it in stores, with the perfect top, dress, jeans, etc - only to have the feeling fade quickly after I brought my purchase home, and the old feelings that it wasn't enough or maybe I wasn't enough - return. I've searched for it on swanky nights out when you doll yourself up and have your ego fed for the evening - only to wake the next morning and have the same old insecurities return. Maybe you know the feeling....sometimes it comes in the form of being proud you were included in a party or gathering. Whatever the form - when it is built on the material -- it is fleeting.
However, when I help another person - the feeling I get about myself, isn't so fleeting. In a sense, its life-altering, the more you do it. It directly affects my self-esteem. It challenges my insecurities. It tells me that I'm good enough. After all, if I weren't...how could I be of any benefit to another? The older I get, the more readily I'm able to see those opportunities are about me finding out who I am while at the same time, helping someone else with their journey.
You could probably do a very simple exercise to prove to yourself that this is true. Think back to five years ago and try to imagine a material purchase that really pumped you up for the day. Maybe a fun shirt, a great pair of jeans, or the cutest pair of shoes. If you're anything like me -- you're coming up blank. Now think about someone who needed you back then. Something you did that was kind....something that you did who reminded you of who you are at your very core. I'm not at that blank anymore. And, I don't think its because of my ego. I think its because that's what's really important to me.
The other day I was watching TV with my son and an "In Memoriam" scene came on to the screen with someone's picture who had passed away and the years below the picture. My son turned to me and said, "Its weird to think that its only a matter of time before each of us has the second date below our own pictures." Jarring to think of it that way, for me at least. So, if that's the case and we all know that there is limited time, then what do we truly want to do with the time that we have left?
Building on the material is the fast track to heart-ache. If you pride yourself on looks, there will always be someone younger, thinner, prettier, taller, shorter, insert anything you want here_______. If you pride yourself on money, there will always be people with more. But if you only work on you, there cannot be someone who is a better you. YOU are the only one who can reap and claim that benefit.
Soo - here's to being the best YOU each of us can be. Finding the moments to reach out and help someone else. Channeling the visionaries that transcend faith systems and forever changed the world.
In love and kindness,
Email Elizabeth & Heather
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