Expressing Your Love Through Service Written by Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
The following article is offered for free use in your ezine, print publication or on your web site, so long as author resource box at end is included, with hyperlinks. Notification of publication would be appreciated.Title: Expressing Your Love Through Service Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. E-mail: mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Copyright: © 2005 by Margaret Paul URL: http://www.innerbonding.com Word Count: 767 Category: Self Improvement, Spiritual Growth Expressing Your Love Through Service By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. A client of mine told me that she had been making food for a friend of hers who was very ill. “I find that my heart opens and I feel so happy when I am doing something for someone else. I need to do this more, but I don’t know what to do.” Doing service is a powerful way to open heart and fulfill soul. Those people who do service know how much joy they receive from giving to others. The more inner work we do to fill ourselves with love, more our heart overflows to point where we may feel compelled to help others. There are many forms of service and we each need to find way that works best for us. There is no right way. We can serve by helping one person, such as being a Big Brother or Big Sister to a disadvantaged child, or we can be of service by helping whole groups, such as raising funds for environmental projects. We can offer our time building houses for poor, or we can offer money. We can choose to be of service to people, animals or Mother Earth. Your service may be in being a loving parent to your children, helping a friend in need or being a loving mate who supports other’s highest good in many little ways. Doing service is a matter of discovering your passion and then offering your time and love. You might have a special interest in protecting environment, stopping child abuse, helping homeless or caring for dying. You might offer service through your creativity, creating beautiful drawings, ceramics or quilts to donate to charitable causes or give as gifts. Tuning in to your feelings of what brings you joy will lead you toward knowing how you want to be of service to others. Steve discovered his passion for helping elderly when his father became ill and was in a convalescent home. A hard-driving businessman, Steve was surprised to find how joyous and fulfilled he felt when he visited his father and brought his humor and compassion to other elderly at home. Being with elderly was so satisfying, Steve decided to cut back on his work and spend more time at home. He had discovered what makes his heart sing.
| | Dancing With Our ShadowWritten by Judi Singleton
"The outer forms of our lives can change in an instant, but inner reorientation that brings us back into a vital relation to people and activity takes time. " ~ William Bridges Our dark side contains all events, stories, and things we wanted to hide about ourselves, from ourselves. Many things hidden in dark side are good things, postive things, that when we decided they were not so good we hid them. Perhaps you loved to draw like I did when I was a child and you traced things to color. One of your parents told you that was wrong so you stopped trying to draw, to use others ideas, and to use and enjoy color. So you hid it there in dark. Or your Mother was always saying "Don't raise your hand to me young lady," You were really little so you got idea you had power in your hands. Maybe you did have power in your hands healing power. So you hid that away too thinking your hands could hurt someone. These are just examples of what I found hidden in my dark side. Well, I found a lot of hurtful things too. I found child abuse. I had hidden it away and it was pouring out in my life, jumping out and making me act out without having any control over hidden emotions. I found a profound fear of death that I am still exploring trying to find out whose fear it is, obviously it is mine now but who instilled that fear there. Whose idea was it in first place. Somehow this helps me to find out it was never my idea in first place it was my mothers, a teacher, my grandmothers. Then I can say well that was never my idea in first place so I don't have to think it anymore. Jung said, "To confront a person with his own shadow is to confront him with his own light." I believe that by intergrating ourselves both negative and positive we become a whole person. As we allow our holiness to unfold we become more self loving and authentic. Debbie Ford says"The Shadow Process gives us access to loving all of ourselves. This deep and profound work teaches us how to love each and every aspect of our humanity. It enables us to embrace both darkness of our smallest self and brilliant light of our highest self. Making peace with our dark side is a sacred journey. It demands rigorous honesty, courage and a great deal of compassion. Embracing our shadow delivers us emotional wholeness and absolute freedom to be who we are. When we are filled with self-love and self-appreciation, we automatically attract miraculous experience of love and appreciation from others."
|
