Let's Truly Serve

On September 5, 2023, this Insight Timer live event aimed to refresh, inspire, explore, and boost the innerstanding of service to others. This includes being spontaneous, going on intuition, interventions vs. letting people be, putting compassion and service in action by asking how can I help, harm reduction, prioritizing, self-care, flipping the script on the argument that helping others is service to self, using embarrassment as motivation instead of self-criticism, assimilation, allowing, receiving, recharging, the four nutriments, happiness, (lack of) specialness, conceit, etc.

Transcript

Hold this,

Josh here,

Hey,

How's everybody doing today?

I don't know if you can hear in the background,

But I'm near a school in Denmark and the kids are loud and unruly,

Kind of like kids are loud and unruly,

I guess they're not unruly.

And today's event is titled,

Let's Truly Serve.

And the description I have,

Let's refresh,

Get inspired,

Explore and boost our understanding of service to others for 15 minutes or so.

What does it mean to truly serve?

Today I think I was tested,

I think I found the only picnic table in the wooded areas in the parks within a 10 mile radius here where I'm at in Denmark that has an ashtray,

Right?

And I used to smoke years ago and here I get here and I know it's there and there's these nasty wet cigarette butts in there.

And so what do I do?

Do I sit and complain about it,

Stew about it?

No,

I actually grab with my hand and I put them in a fire to be burned.

Of course I didn't have to do that.

I was probably maybe against my better judgment at some point because who knows what's in there.

I didn't have a glove on,

Wasn't ideal.

I mean,

I washed my hand in the pond behind me and maybe that's not ideal either,

But in a way I do feel better.

Okay,

These are really insignificant things,

But these things add up,

These little bitty things in our lives.

It's not to be completely mired in detail,

Right?

But it's just,

How can I be of service?

So let's step back.

One way that can be a dichotomy here is service to self or service to others.

And the classic argument I run up against,

Or some people want to argue,

I have no interest really in arguing,

Is,

Well,

We want to serve others because it makes us feel good.

So that's actually service to self.

And instead of getting in there and refuting that or really addressing it directly like that,

I like to just take that issue and turn it on its head or do a 180 and say,

Yes,

All hearts are connected.

Everything is interconnected.

So when I take care of my own heart,

All hearts are served.

Maybe there was some people in the background here smoking cigarettes again,

And at first I thought,

Why are you doing this to yourself?

Why are you harming yourself like that?

And of course,

It's just a force of habit that might be a teacher's only reprieve for a few moments to get out here and get a few me time and get a few breaths of conscious air in.

And then how do we address people that we know they're doing something harmful,

And yet how we address it might actually be adding to the harm?

And how we take it if we feel like we're being neglectful,

If we don't say or do anything.

I think the first and foremost thing to do with all this is just contemplate and sit with it,

And especially how does it feel in the body to be with something and to just be in the midst of it,

Unless it's,

Of course,

Too overwhelming.

And of course,

This is not an excuse for abuse,

Right?

So if we're not in an abuseful situation,

How can we be with it?

What can we learn from it?

How does it stir the heart?

How does it come out?

How does it land?

What's the best way to go about this in search for inner guidance on how to go about things,

Including how much time do we actually want to give to any particular thing in our lives?

Are we giving it too much attention,

Too much time?

Are we doing it not enough?

So again,

When people say,

Going back to the service to self by helping others,

It makes me feel good,

Well,

Again,

When do we need to turn inwards and take care of our own hearts?

And that's not a selfish act either,

Because everyone is connected.

Everyone benefits from our own self-care,

Too.

How we show up in the world makes a difference,

You know,

Even if it's just a tiny bit,

Like each drop,

Drop by drop,

A bucket's filled.

I know I say this metaphor a lot,

But it's just this willingness,

You know,

Of care,

I feel,

Too.

So a service to self,

I think,

Is what can I get?

And I'm not saying don't dream,

Don't get things,

Don't set goals,

You know,

Don't welcome things into our lives,

But what we want for ourselves,

We should want for everyone.

I think that's a good guide,

Too.

And if it comes from a place of care,

Then it's okay.

Is this an act of care and goodwill,

You know,

Or is it just,

You know,

This whole thing was actually inspired by a video I saw the other day,

And I didn't watch the whole thing,

So I don't know if it's completely accurate.

But what I was getting is the guy was encouraging other people to be selfish,

Basically.

I mean,

Not to sugarcoat it a little,

Maybe,

He was,

You know,

He was giving encouragement to have people,

You know,

Get what they want,

Have everything they desire.

And I'm not saying that's wrong so much,

But what if it came from a place of,

How can I be of service to the highest good of the many?

And now,

This doesn't have to be really grandiose,

You know,

It can just be,

You know,

What makes the heart sing.

And when our heart sings,

Then everyone's going to benefit from it,

Right?

Or maybe it means just shutting down for a few moments,

And I can't take this right now,

And it's not okay,

And it's okay not to be okay,

And withdraw and retract.

You know,

Sometimes that can help us and everybody else,

Or we can be a little bit daring and shine our light.

One of the biggest things I can be of service here in Denmark is to just eat my hat and say,

I don't know crap about the culture yet,

And just this willingness to assimilate,

To keep kicking myself in the butt to learn the language more.

You know,

Today was a little bit embarrassing,

I was at the library working on the laptop.

I was really unsure,

This two or three women came in,

And I was unsure if they were talking to themselves or me.

So I eventually take the headphones off,

And she approached me a little bit,

And I said,

Oh,

I'm sorry,

I don't know Danish yet.

And then she told me how she had reserved the room,

And,

You know,

Welcome to stay in there while they talk,

If they're going to talk in a quiet room.

And I said,

Oh,

That's absolutely okay,

And I could be in here too.

And at the same time,

Going to give you the gift of,

You know,

Woman time while I go downstairs.

So I felt a little bit embarrassed that I wasn't able to understand them right away in the native language.

So what do I do?

Do I feel guilty about that?

Do I beat myself up?

Well,

I don't think that's too helpful,

But in a way,

I think that embarrassment can be motivation to learn a little bit more.

So if I'm getting embarrassed or feel bad that I'm,

You know,

Then how can I use that instead of beating myself up,

To use it as motivation for action to be of good in service.

Pengu,

We allow someone to be themselves,

And then they become able to help themselves.

Oh,

Wow,

This is a really less ongoing lesson for me too,

How I can just be,

Yeah,

Instead of allowing someone to be their selves.

I mean,

You couldn't really have said it better yourself,

So.

The only thing I would say up against this is,

You know,

When to intervene and not to intervene,

Right?

Why I really like this question is,

Is everything okay?

Is there any way I can help?

Is there anything I can do?

And then that way,

It's not me imposing what I feel is wrong or needs to be changed,

Which a lot of times it comes from my annoyance with something and wanting it to be different so I can not feel as unpleasant,

Right?

And so that's not the greatest place to come from.

However,

To be of real care and service,

Just the willingness to do that,

And I don't know,

I think it's okay and not out of line saying,

Hey,

How you doing?

Is everything okay?

Can I help?

Is there anything I can do?

And in that way,

The other person can say,

Oh,

Wait a second,

You know,

Why are they asking that?

Do I need help?

And then giving them the option of how one else might be of service,

Just how can I serve you?

These type of questions.

Really allowing others to serve us too is being of service as well,

Because it's great to have a million servants,

But if there's no one to serve,

Then what,

Right?

What kind of refreshes ourselves to be of service?

You know,

What really restores and renews us?

That one for me is easy.

It's going inside in meditation,

Seeing what needs to be addressed in contemplation,

Reflection to recharging one's batteries,

Getting a fresh perspective,

Checking if one can see clearly about things.

What inspires us,

You know?

Who do we go to for inspiration?

What do we go to for inspiration?

Nature,

It's inspiring,

But for more,

It's more refreshing,

Because I feel just more human I guess in nature a lot of times.

What does it actually mean to serve?

Serve others and serve oneself.

Pinnagoo says,

Doing something that feeds my soul.

Yes,

This notion of nourishment,

Right?

We can nourish ourself with healthy food,

But there's also nourishment for feelings.

What we eat,

What feelings we pay attention to,

Invite,

Get drawn to,

Allowed to be there,

Allowed to amplify.

Of course,

We'd love to be there,

But the ones we try to get more of,

These are affecting our well-being too.

Just like we don't want to put poisonous crappy food in our mouth,

We don't want to be around toxic emotions all the time if we don't have to,

Right?

But at the same time,

Have the courage not to avoid them either when we need to face them directly.

And then we have the nourishment of consciousness,

And that's a little bit above the pay grade here for a couple more minutes.

And then we have thoughts,

You know?

What are we paying attention to in our minds?

What kind of media sources do we tune into for nourishment?

How do we notice others serving?

In America,

I missed out on the Labor Day weekend.

You know,

How does that holiday,

Whole holiday,

Inform service?

I know people maybe in nonprofits have a little bit easier time,

And all it takes is just a reminding,

A remembering that they are being of service,

That what they do every day is being of service,

And renew that refreshment of why they're there,

What they're doing,

What needs to be addressed,

What needs to be dropped away,

What needs to be paid more attention to.

Jerry Joe says,

You're not special.

We're only special to other people.

Jerry Joe says,

Service is the fuel to happiness.

I would totally agree with that one,

Because at a certain point,

We've taken so much care of ourselves,

And we're in a really good spot.

And then what's left before we realize awakening is that we're here to be of service to others,

Right?

Because we've got our own house in order to a large degree.

And this notion of special,

Oh,

I can do a whole other thing on that.

I can see it both ways,

Right?

Everyone is unique and special in their own ways.

And at the same time,

The other perspective is,

You know,

No one really sticks out or has to be,

You know,

A tall poppy or whatever,

That we can all find commonality and,

You know,

Not have to be better than or worse than or even equal to anyone.

We're coming up on 15 minutes,

Y'all.

So thank you for joining.

And may you all be blessed with true service to all beings everywhere and may all beings everywhere realize awakening and be free.

Bye now.