Balancing Love Of Life With Love For Others

In this episode of the Happiness Podcast, we explore the balance between caring for ourselves and for our own hearts and caring for the hearts and lives of others who surround us. This is an introspection into the delicate balance between self love and universal love.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Later in my life,

I got into an exercise called yoga.

I'm sure many of you have done it.

Well,

They have this one pose called tree pose,

Where it's basically you're having to stand straight on one leg while you hold your hands up high,

Just like a tree.

But you're only on one leg.

It takes a lot of balance to do that pose.

Or both working with and knowing single moms over the years who work full-time jobs,

Have kids at home,

And all the things that they have to do in order to find balance in life so that things don't fall apart.

It's amazing how we as human beings can find balance,

But balance can be very hard to find.

Balance is really one of the key factors of a successful life.

If we want to find happiness,

If we want to find peace in our life,

We do need to be able to balance life.

And in today's podcast,

I want to talk about balancing two things.

One is our deep love and enjoyment of our life with caring for and loving others.

I recently received an email from one of our listeners named Sean,

Who had a very good question for the podcast.

She writes,

Hi Dr.

Puff.

Thank you for the Happiness Podcast.

It has been a true gift for me.

One question that I frequently struggle with is when not to seek happiness,

But instead allow ourselves to ruminate in the suffering of the world.

For instance,

I found myself in a state of sadness after the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue.

It was such an awful event and my heart hurt for the people involved.

I wanted to be sad.

Even my husband and friends trying to joke or cheer me up seemed offensive.

How dare they be happy when people in that community were in such pain.

Could you do a podcast on whether we deserve happiness when really bad things happen?

If we are always seeking happiness,

Do we do that at the expense of feeling empathy for others?

Are we ignoring the bad things that are happening if we are walking on sunshine all the time?

Thanks again and I love the podcast.

Sean.

Before I answer Sean's question,

I want to share another story with you.

Many years ago,

I was part of a small group of people that got together once a week just to have a discussion about different topics.

So after being together with these people for six months,

You get to know them pretty well.

I remember one time one of the women that were there,

She was married with her husband and she was attending this group.

One time after I had had contact with her for a while,

She shared a little bit about herself.

She told us how she was married,

Happily married to her husband.

All her parents and her husband's parents were still alive and doing very well.

Her kids were off on their own and doing well.

And her life,

She felt,

Was perfect because everyone was doing so well in her life.

But I remember during that six months,

She never once asked me a question about myself.

Anything.

It was almost as if she wasn't interested.

And if she didn't ask anyone else any questions,

It was just her little world with her family that she seemed to care about and no one else.

Well,

I definitely don't want to judge her.

It was a long time ago.

But I remember,

I didn't find her very interesting because she didn't seem to care about me or anyone else or anything else in the world.

It was as if she was just living in her little myopic world.

And I don't mean this harshly,

But she was just really boring.

She just didn't ask or share anything except that one time she talked about her family.

Now she was so lucky.

But she also knew that that was probably going to come to an end.

And we knew it,

Too,

Because she knew her parents would die someday.

And she was wondering how it would impact her world.

But I also remember thinking,

There are so many people in the world that are struggling right now.

Do you not care for them at all?

Is it only your little world that you care about?

Again,

I don't want to judge her,

But she was kind of the opposite of Sean,

Where Sean cares so much about other people in the world,

Where this woman only cared about the people in her world.

And that was her immediate family.

So you might have an inkling of where I'm going.

And you're probably right.

It's about balancing.

Balancing our love of life and those around us with caring for the world and doing our best to make the world a better place for all of us to live in.

But it really is about balance,

Because if we don't balance,

Either one is going to cause potential problems in regards to our peace of mind and happiness.

For example,

If we make it our passion to really study the world in-depthly and see all the suffering that is occurring throughout the world at all times,

We will truly get overwhelmed,

Because somewhere in the world,

Someone is suffering.

I can guarantee you that.

There are injustices occurring.

There are people that are being tormented by others.

There are natural disasters.

There are so many things happening in our world at all times.

But if we truly steeped ourselves in those things and made that our focus all the time,

We would truly never find any happiness or peace of mind.

And I'm not sure even in the long run if we could even make a difference,

Because we would get burnt out.

We would get apathetic.

We get so depressed that we wouldn't do anything to make our world a better place.

I mean,

All we have to do is start really paying attention and going to in-depth into the news around the world.

And we'll find all kinds of suffering.

I,

In order to prepare for this podcast,

Researched what the average family lives on per year and per day.

And it ended up being around the world about $10,

000 a year or $27 a day that the average family lives on in the world.

And that's not per person.

That's per family.

$27.

There's lots and lots you're going to have to do without if you only have $27 for an entire family to live on per day.

And then there's the wars around the world,

The people starving,

Diseases,

Natural disasters,

And of course what we do to each other,

What humans do to other humans.

And now,

Because of media,

We can find out all kinds of things that happen around the world almost instantaneously.

So if we want to be depressed,

It's very easy to do.

Interestingly,

Over the years I've worked with a lot of people that really struggle with depression.

When I talk to them about what their day is like,

They'll often tell me that they spend a lot of time watching the news.

And I'll say,

Let's do this.

Let's take a break from the news just for a week.

Or at least curb it to like a half an hour a day and see if it isn't a better day.

And without exception,

I've found when I get people to do this,

That if they're spending a lot of time watching the news throughout the day,

They feel so much better when they aren't watching it all day long.

But of course we can go the other extreme where we really just don't care about anyone at all.

If you get a chance,

I want to refer you to a YouTube video.

It's called The Freezing Homeless Child,

Little Boy Left in the Cold,

Social Experiment.

That's The Freezing Homeless Child,

Little Boy Left in the Cold,

Social Experiment.

But basically it's a young boy who's in five degree weather.

He's wearing a t-shirt and has a garbage bag to keep him warm.

That's it.

And he stands outside in a big city where people walk him by all the time,

Asking for help for two hours,

And no one stops to help him.

And then after two hours,

As he's laying on the ground because he's so frozen,

A homeless person comes and does everything he can to help this boy.

And the people that were videotaping it come out and are very pleased with what this homeless person did.

It's a little intense,

I will pre-warn you,

So you may not want to watch it.

I think I covered the basics of what happens in the video.

But it does go to show that we can become cold and not care if we're not careful.

Because we're so focused on our lives that we don't take much attention to other people around us.

And then I think we can become not very balanced in the opposite extreme.

Instead of caring too much for the world,

We care too little anymore and don't do anything but focus on our own needs and what's good for us right now.

So to find true happiness and peace in our lives,

We need to find balance.

A balance between caring for ourselves and making sure that our hearts are in the right place.

And we're doing things to find the joys throughout the day so that we're smiling and saying,

Life is good.

And at the same time,

We're looking around our world and saying,

Are there things that I can do right now that God or the universe has brought to my life that I can help with?

And really look for the things that call our hearts and do them.

And do them well and do them regularly.

I think helping others,

Caring for our world is truly one of the most beautiful things we can do in life.

And where the balance kicks in and doing things where we're enjoying life right now.

It's a beautiful balance between the two.

Mind you,

It isn't easy to do like tree pose and yoga or walking a tightrope.

It isn't easy,

But it's doable.

It's something that we have to work at.

It's something that we have to be circumspect about.

We have to make sure that we are doing both because either one is a strong pull for us.

We can dive into our own world or we can dive into other people's world and forget our world.

It is a balancing act.

And at its core,

It's all about being present.

Because you see,

When we are helping people,

When we're reaching out to make the world a better place,

Be 100% present with that.

For example,

If you meet a friend and they have some sad news,

Maybe their mother died,

Maybe they just lost her job.

Stop.

Listen.

Look them in the eye.

Be empathetic.

Ask them questions or just listen.

Be present with them 100%.

But then when you get back in your car and you're driving and a beautiful song comes on,

Or you see a beautiful cloud formation,

Be with that.

Give it our 100% attention.

And then when you get somewhere else,

You learn about some tragedy that's happened in the world,

Ask yourself,

Perhaps I can send a prayer to these people right now.

Perhaps I can get online and send some money.

Perhaps I can reach out to the people,

The politicians that represent me and ask them if they could do more and send aid.

There's so many things we can do right now and then do them.

But when we've done them,

Then get back to being present with what is.

And you get home and your child runs up to greet you.

Give them their full attention.

Be present.

So a lot of balancing is about being present with what is and whatever the universe presents to us,

Be with that.

Because sometimes it presents to us tragedies,

But sometimes it presents to us beautiful,

Wonderful,

Absolutely astounding experiences.

And we miss out on both of them because we're not present.

So life is about being present.

And we do that by quieting our minds.

So meditation,

As you know,

Is a good way to learn to quiet our minds.

And then also throughout the day,

Whatever life presents to us,

Be with that.

Enjoy that.

Love that.

Cry with that.

Be sad with that.

And then when it moves on,

So does your heart.

And it's present with whatever is brought to us next.

And so we're living in this perpetual state of presence,

Giving our full attention to what is and not focus on the past,

Not perseverating on the future,

But being so present that life unfolds beautifully,

Even with pain and suffering.

We can truly have astonishing lives,

But it's work.

It takes balancing between the two prongs of self-care and caring for others.

It's a beautiful balance when we do it right.

And we know we're doing it right when we truly are making our world a better place for others to live in.

And we're making our world a better place for us to live in.

Then we're finding that balance.

And if we ever notice that we're getting off,

We just remember,

Am I doing things to care for myself?

And am I doing things to care for others?

When we do both,

We're going to find that balance creates a beautiful life for us,

And perhaps even for those around us.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

If you are finding these episodes helpful,

I would love for you to share your experience with others.

The easiest way for new people to listen to this podcast is just refer them to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

Or if you want to do more and leave a review,

On that site you'll find a Yelp link,

A Google Plus link,

A testimonial link,

Or perhaps even the site you're listening to this podcast on.

Often you can leave reviews there,

Too.

The reviews are an awesome way to encourage people to start listening to the Happiness Podcast.

And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thank you Dr. Robert, this is an excellent talk, the essence of which can be incorporated into every day. Namaste

That was really, really good! I’m going to start listening to this podcast.

Very interesting subject! Thank you!

Great insight but also light hearted enough that gives the space to take it it. Thank you!

Really interesting. As someone who cares for a family member, I have a different kind of experience, of my world being (at times) totally wrapped up in someone else's needs and life. At these times, my life doesn't get a look in, and I 'run on empty' too often. But it's not a lack of empathy, just a different focus for it. Thank you for your words - balance is always a struggle, in every arena.

Very useful perspective! Thank you!

Thank you for an awesome talk.