Wanna help others? Know yourself first!

What the heck does that mean? We have been taught time and again to take care of others before we take care of ourselves. The metaphor I mentioned on a previous blog was about putting on your mask on in an airplane before you help the passenger next to you, be it another adult or your child. Well, here we are again.

Co-dependency is a form of helping others before helping ourselves. We live our lives to help people to the detriment of our physical bodies and souls. We run out of energy and we are tired. Why? Because the more attention we give to others, especially for things they are capable of doing, the less attention we give to ourselves. It becomes a vicious cycle and can be very difficult to get out of. And there are a lot of people out there that WE want to help, but they really don’t want our help, so they run away from it and we are left feeling resentful.

For years, until most recently, I wanted to help others. I was a massage therapist, I do Reiki, I do a form of life and health coaching, I am a helper. But what I forgot to do along the way was help myself. This all falls back into my focus continually being external of me which had essentially gotten me “nowhere”.

Now focusing on ourselves, by no means, says that we are selfish, but that is what we are taught, so that is why I think it is so difficult to get out of that cycle. But everything that we have trouble with in life takes faith and willingness to change and this is no different.

Begin NOW, TODAY, to pay attention to and learn about yourself. If you are one of those people who can’t say no, or you have this endless need to help others, or if you want to start a business in massage therapy or any other of the helping services, then you will need to take a cold, hard look at yourself first.

Those people who are good at what they do in life take care of themselves first. They understand who they are, what they want in life, and every year they take some sort a self-understanding test to find out what they can do to improve themselves. This is what happens prior to New Years Resolutions and this is why most of us make resolutions but fail to keep them; because we don’t know ourselves, what it is we really want in life or what we need to do to take care of ourselves.

The people who consistently work on themselves and their self-growth and self-love are the people who others flock to and they are not standing out in the middle of the street looking for people to help. No, these are the people that help themselves first and BECOME who they want to teach others to be and the rest of the world goes crazy just wanting to be near them or a part of them. We see this every day with people like Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Marianne Williamson, Oprah, Mastin Kipp, etc. But I have read their stories and they started in the EXACT SAME PLACE that we are now only they have done that one thing differently, each in their own way.

They figured out what they needed to do to get out of the place they were in and THEY DID IT. They did it by helping themselves first in whatever way that they needed to and here they are. THEY DID IT by having the faith and willingness to do it. THEY DID IT the same way we all can do it.

So take a long look at yourself … again, and if you REALLY want and know that there is something you want to do differently and you want to stop folding to others in your life that can just as easily do the things they are asking of you and using guilt as a weapon. Or those of you who have the need to help others, take a look at yourself and see what YOU NEED to help yourself first because once you have been through some sort of wringer in life, you have all that it takes to help people, but you can’t do it until you understand yourself first. Finally, those of you who wish to start a business in service, you don’t have to wait to do it, but you must be willing to change the things about yourself that you aren’t happy with along with the things in your life. Once you start doing this, you life, your face, your energy will change and people will being asking you what you did because they either don’t see the “old” you or they can feel the positive energy you now exude and want some of it; and therein lies the opportunity to help.

What is it about you that you want to change? Why do you want to help other people? Why do you want to start a business helping other people? Why are you helping others, but are not helping yourself? Is there something that is keeping you from looking inside yourself and focusing on others?

Think about these and see where you can go with them and KNOW YOURSELF FIRST so you are able to be there for others!

Search versus Surrender

Ok, ok it has finally hit me this morning as I woke up from slumber. What is the difference between Search and Surrender? What can lead me out of searching into surrender? The answer is LOVE. Not just any love but self-love. But with most of us, especially me, there was a road block to surrender and it isn’t because we haven’t tried, but maybe we have tried too hard.

My name is Caroline Rena. My middle name, as one of its meanings, is JOY. I had a Native American friend years ago name me Hummingbird, the meaning of which is JOY. I long for JOY in my life and have been searching for years. Why have I been searching to hard? My discovery is that it has been with me all along. It is me.

Wow that sounds vain, well no, it’s not. Let me go back to Self-Love.

I figured out that I cannot, nor will I ever find Joy outside of myself, I will, in fact, find NOTHING outside myself. Did you get that? We search and search and think we find lasting love, joy, peace, grace and especially God outside of us. It becomes obsessive and elusive. Where is it? Why won’t it stay with me? Where does it keep going? Why when I do or get this or that does it always go away? The Coach purse will not do it for me, at least not forever.

Why? Because what we haven’t yet learned Surrender. We try and try and it feels like we are running on a treadmill with a carrot in front of us just out of reach. Enough of that!

So here’s the hard part. The only way for us to find what we want is to look inside; it’s already there. The limitation for most of us is that from the pain and hurt in our lives we carry a certain darkness, we don’t like ourselves, we beat ourselves up, there is so much negative self-talk, we feel like we are nothing at times. Not true.

The idea here is to find the self-love which turns on the light inside and you will find everything you are in search of. I know from experience this is a very difficult thing to perceive but I also know from experience it is possible. Ask my friends and family, if I can figure this out, so can you.

Once you have turned on that proverbial light inside of you, you will find everything that you have been searching for. Are you tired of everything in your life being out of reach? Are you tired of feeling sad and helpless? Do you feel sometimes like it is everyone else’s job to make you happy? Well, no, they have their own stuff to work through, they can’t. We are all human, we are not invincible, there is no such thing as perfection, but in God’s world or your Higher Power’s thoughts, you are already perfection, you just need to find it inside yourself; the journey of life.

The road block here is two-fold: desire and willingness. You MUST figure out what it is that you want in life. You MUST realize that it is attainable. Once you realize this you MUST self-talk the desire of that wish or goal consistently and in order to ever achieve it, you must be willing to DO WHAT IT TAKES to get there. Those are only the first steps toward lighting the inside of yourself.

I gave you some starting points, now you must ask yourself the tough questions. What do you want? What can I say to myself to attain it? How do I find the willingness to move forward? What does it take to get there? Stop searching outside yourself for someone else’s love, joy, peace, grace, God. Find that starting point, do some self-research and go! Surrender! Let go! Once you do this, God/Higher Power will take care of the rest! You can do this!

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“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” Dory from Nemo

Sometimes I fall, but I know I must get up. Sometimes I miss a day of writing for my blog, but I know that is OK and I just keep going the next day.

I just wanted you to know just how much I love the movie Nemo and there are so many cartoon movies that actually talk to adults and teach us lessons. This particular lesson I have known about and done all my life but couldn’t really put it together in my head until most recently.

“Just keep swimming.” Now why in the world would this be a lesson? Well, in the literal sense, from the movie, if Nemo didn’t keep swimming he would drown. But funny thing here, you can take this in a non literal sense which means … NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN LIFE, KEEP GOING! The grass IS greener on the other side, but it’s your grass you are after, not someone else’s.

If you want to live life for yourself, giving up is not an option. Learning from mistakes, failures or something that just didn’t work out IS the option! We all have a tendency to get very upset when something doesn’t work out in our lives and the first inclination we have is to get upset and then just give up entirely on whatever it is. Sometimes, whatever didn’t work out or what we fail to accomplish wasn’t meant to be accomplished and there is something bigger and more in tune with our life and our dreams out there. I, on many occasions, gave up right on the spot after getting a blow after not hearing the answer I wanted to hear.

Let that go! Let it all go. Look at the dreams you have and start small. Sometimes writing a huge plan on a huge conglomerate of an idea, makes it too big and gives the opportunity to fail. If you start small and take baby steps and alter as you go to fit into the eventual bigger picture you will make it. Yet another book I have been reading as a suggestion from my son is called “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby. Gives a whole new perspective on making your dreams come true, even dreams you never thought you had, in a little bitsy book that is only 77 pages long. Very easy read; but oh what a life changer and I’m not even done with it yet!

I have said this before and this is a great place to repeat it. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before inventing the light bulb and here we are. I wouldn’t be typing this on a computer if Tom had given up, I wouldn’t be able to read at night if Tom had given up, we would all be in darkness after the sun goes down, if Tom had given up, or at the very least living by the light of a candle. What’s that say to you? I think it’s a pretty big statement.

Find something you want to do, take it from a hobby or maybe even a dream from when you were a child or just younger if you are an adult. The first step is to DECIDE that you want to pursue this. Next, you have to be WILLING to face the failures, the bumps and bruises and keep moving forward. As you go, as Mr. Sivers says, make your customers the most important aspect of your product and you will do no wrong. At the beginning of your venture start with one person and get feedback and just keep adding more people in and keep getting feedback and grow your dream, grow your business, grow your life. STOP WORRYING ABOUT FAILURE AND MISTAKES! They only hold you back.

If you want something to happen in your life, try what I am suggesting. You can’t just think about it and talk about it, you have to DO SOMETHING! If something goes wrong, don’t turn away from it, JUST KEEP SWIMMING and what you want to see happen will eventually happen! I finally get it!