Volunteering Proven To Boost Well-Being And Connection

Volunteering can transform lives, both for those we help and for ourselves. In this session, we explore how acts of service build connection, strengthen our nervous system, and restore a sense of purpose. Inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Margaret Mead, we reflect on the power of small groups and individual contributions. Through guided inquiry, you will identify causes close to your heart, envision ways to make a difference, and explore how to overcome obstacles such as social anxiety or past negative experiences. Discover how giving your time, skills, and compassion can be a meaningful path to personal and collective well-being.

Transcript

Right now there's so much going on in the world and so much that we care about.

I've been helped so much and I have helped so much by volunteering.

And so I wanted to really focus in on that today.

Volunteering or activist work is something that we can get behind.

It seems like it's a good idea.

We can see that there are so many people in the world that could be helped and that need help.

And whether we volunteer time or money or hearts,

There's so many different ways that can happen.

It happens in our homes,

It happens in our communities,

In our friendship circles,

In the larger world as well.

Look at it from a nervous system perspective.

Helping others is really helpful for our nervous system.

Sometimes we feel kind of overwhelmed or powerless when we're thinking about that.

I wanted to explore this a little bit.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

She was in the news a lot about three or four years ago as a Supreme Court justice and passed from cancer.

She was a fierce advocate for justice and was also in a place where she had a lot of power and she had worked very strongly,

Dedicated throughout her lifetime to make a difference.

One of the quotes,

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.

It shouldn't be that women are the exception.

To fight for things that you care about,

But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

I know I couldn't have been as gracious as she was working with the other Supreme Court justices,

Many of whom had very opposite political views and voted in an opposite way from what she did.

She talked about how they were able to connect human to human.

The other quote I wanted to bring here too is by Margaret Mead,

Cultural anthropologist.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,

Committed individuals can change the world.

In fact,

It's the only thing that ever has.

I feel very inspired by people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

She made a personal difference to me in my life.

She was one of the people who put through that a married woman did not have to have her husband's signature to get a credit card.

And that's something I ran into when I was in my early 20s.

I'm 72 now,

So this is in my lifetime that some of what she did has had such an impact.

Some people are on a big stage and not all of us are comfortable on that big stage,

But all of us have a way to make a difference.

When we focus on other people,

It helps to take us out of our own perhaps social anxiety or fear.

We've all had experiences socially of being hurt.

Some of us have had a lot of that and a lot of intensity on that.

We also all have a lot to contribute.

Everybody who's doing these kinds of practices,

For instance,

Knows how to breathe,

Perhaps are really just starting that process of learning diaphragmatic breath.

And we all know how to relax our body.

We all know how to regulate our nervous system a little better than what we used to.

So when we're able to think about,

Well,

What do I have to share,

Which we'll get into a little bit more,

That could be one of the things that's so simple.

Well,

I could teach breathing at a local library for free.

I could do a little class on regulating your nervous system would be one thing that would be very helpful.

One of the things that I've found so much in my own life is volunteering has always brought me more blessings than what it's cost me in time.

Almost 10 years ago,

It'd be 10 years in December,

I made a commitment to do a free half hour online practice every day at 8 a.

M.

Eastern.

So that's like 3,

500 times.

What a wonderful thing that is.

It used to be three or four people come and now there's 100 or more.

The blessing in my own life of having that half hour every day of doing a practice is immense.

And also I have the satisfaction of knowing that other people also have that opportunity and regulated their nervous systems have gotten to know themselves better.

There's so many things that have come out of that.

The blessings don't stop with me.

And there's a lot of different ways that we can volunteer.

For instance,

A community garden can provide food for our neighborhood,

Bringing in the feeling of I can do something and I can do something with other people and I'm not powerless to do something.

When we think about all of the things we care about in the world,

We can do something with other people that would be helpful for us.

Sometimes this is informal.

In big cities,

It tends to be more formal.

We can't always know if we're in a big city what exactly is going on.

We might volunteer for an organization,

For instance,

That gives a ride to somebody who's going for a cancer treatment.

But in a small town or community or neighborhood,

We might know that person and we might say,

I'd be happy to drive you back and forth to the hospital for those treatments so you don't have to worry about parking and that kind of thing.

There's a lot of different ways that we can do this informally.

And when we reach out to somebody else,

It also helps us to put it in perspective,

Our own story.

I volunteered my whole adult life.

Some of it was activism in the 80s,

90s.

I was an activist around feminism,

Lesbianism,

AIDS.

I started organizations and it gave me a lot of opportunity.

Not only did I feel powerful,

Sisterhood is powerful.

I also got a chance to learn how to speak to the media,

Write grant proposals,

Communicate in a group and all of those different things.

So in addition to knowing that I was helping to change the culture,

I was also helping to develop my own skills and confidence and capacity.

Some of the jobs that I was doing as a volunteer,

I wouldn't have had the qualifications to be paid for.

I was able to volunteer to do them and learn them on the job.

In that way,

That was very helpful for me personally as well.

Let's come into an inquiry practice right now.

Take a breath.

We're going to do this staying with something.

If we think about where would I like to volunteer?

One place that we could start is,

Well,

What do I care about?

What I care about is what breaks my heart.

A few weeks ago,

We were working with a simple practice by Resmaa Menekum from his book Quaking of America.

He suggested that we stay with something difficult for three breaths.

So let's do that.

Specifically with this context of I want to change the world,

There's something going on here that I want to change.

I'm going to volunteer my time to do that.

What do I really care about?

Bring something to mind.

You might close your eyes,

Soften your gaze.

What do you care deeply about?

What breaks your heart about something?

It might be that animals are going hungry.

It might be that children are growing up not knowing how to read.

Whatever comes to your mind.

And then imagine that it's right here in front of you.

If you have a visual,

Put it right in front of your face and just look at it.

Imagine that you're looking right at that.

If you don't have a visual,

Just kind of bring it into your heart and stay with it for three breaths.

Breathing in and breathing out.

We're not trying to run away from it.

Turn away,

Brush it aside.

We're present with it.

This breaks my heart.

Breathing in and letting it go.

So three times and then let that move to the side now.

Now what was your experience during that?

When I'm present with that suffering,

I notice,

What do you notice in your body,

Your breath?

Was it something that you were able to do?

Did you find yourself backing away?

Perhaps your body got tight,

Maybe your shoulders,

Your upper back.

And what's happening in your breath?

Did you find that you were holding your breath?

We often find our heart rate increases.

What happened in the energy and sensations in your body when you were bringing that close in and staying with this thing that you care about,

Situation,

That suffering?

What are your emotions?

So notice your body,

The sensations,

The breath,

What tightened up,

What happened in your body as you were focusing on that?

And take some deeper breaths.

You might do a cyclic sighing,

Deep double inhale through the nose.

Breathe out through your mouth,

Like you're breathing out through a straw.

So whenever we're feeling pretty activated,

We can do something to come back.

We have the sensations,

The energy,

There might've been something uncomfortable.

Emotions,

We might feel angry,

We might feel a lot of grief.

When you were looking at that specifically,

But now as well,

What are the emotions that are here?

What does that feel like in your body?

Grief will often feel heavy in our heart.

Anger tends to heat us up.

It takes a lot of courage to stay with something difficult,

Even for three breaths.

So we could also offer ourselves some compassion.

This isn't easy.

We have some courage that we're doing this practice.

And then also bring in the thoughts that are in your mind.

Did you have an inner critic come in?

What's the matter with you that you haven't done anything about this?

Or,

Oh,

This is just too big.

There's no way that I can make a difference in that.

It's always going to be this way.

You might go into some kind of helplessness narrative.

These are thoughts.

They're not necessarily the truth.

They're thoughts that are in your mind.

And we can look at that.

Once we've had a sense of what that experience was like and what our response was,

Let's go into the positive side of that.

Making a difference.

Human society developed to care for one another.

Cooperating is one of the things that helped humans survive.

So if we think about the millennia in which most people were hunter-gatherers,

Everybody in the tribe supported each other.

Some people hunted.

Some people had good eyesight.

Some had good hearing.

Some were very calm.

Some were good cooks.

Some could always start the fire.

We all had to cooperate with each other in order to make it through.

That's something that used to be everybody's experience.

That was part of what made life meaningful,

But also made possible.

Human society developed that way.

And in our present time,

One of the most meaningful aspects of volunteering is that we connect with other people.

Let's think about some of the things that you might want to do.

And some of them are something that many people do,

Like volunteering at a food bank.

Many people donate money.

People volunteer their time to hug babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Some people are hospice peer counselors.

They hang out at the hospitals and hospices where people need an ear.

Some people are a peer crisis counselor.

In all of these jobs,

You might think,

Well,

I can't do that.

But they all have training.

What are your hobbies?

What are your passions?

Maybe you are passionate about art,

And you could volunteer to be a museum guide,

A docent.

Maybe you like to do art with children,

And you could volunteer to come in and do something in a classroom or something for children at your library.

You could read stories,

Story time.

So there's all kinds of things that might not be the first thing that pops into your mind.

If we broaden and look at it,

What do I care about?

What really makes me angry or makes me sad?

And then what could I do about that?

What is something that I could do that would make a difference?

And some things are so simple.

We do a neighborhood cleanup,

And sometimes that's supported.

We can get our neighborhood community to support that,

And other people come out.

There's the ocean cleanups.

We can do these on our own,

Or we can do it in an organized way,

And it makes a difference.

There's huge ocean cleanup projects going on.

Volunteering to be in an animal shelter.

If you really like animals,

And you're really distressed by some of the situations that animals are in,

That might be a great place to be.

You could also volunteer to be on a board of directors of a non-profit or a charity in your community.

I know somebody who started volunteering at a shelter and then became one of the board members,

Who was instrumental in raising funds and building a new shelter,

And there was certainly some stress in that,

But also she's a very valuable member of that community.

What comes to mind for you?

What would you like to do?

What would be something that would be meaningful for you?

And let yourself run through a few different options.

Once you've settled on something,

Let's do some reflection and inquiry and some visualizing around committing to take some kind of action.

So what's going on in your body right now too?

Take a few breaths.

Probably the more specific the better.

I'm going to do this specific thing,

So I'm not going to create world peace or something.

Maybe in my own mind,

I could commit to working with thoughts of anger.

That may be something you could do on your own.

But also,

What might you do in your community?

Something that we've arrived at,

And you could just pick whatever one has the most energy for you to work with right now.

And I commit to taking action to change this.

Just notice how that feels in your body.

I acknowledge it takes courage to not turn away from this,

To not turn away from suffering and injustice.

I am not the reason that this happened,

And this is not mine alone to change.

I can't change everything about this.

I can do something about this.

Some of us here have been lifelong volunteers,

And some of us here probably never volunteered,

Not in a formal way anyway.

To sit with that,

If you haven't ever been inspired to volunteer,

What might help?

What gets in the way is another way to work with that.

I need to change the world in this specific way,

Locally,

Community,

Globally.

Maybe for some people,

It will be to work with a cancer organization,

Raise money.

Some people will go into schools and help a child learn to read.

Or if you know two languages,

Maybe you could help immigrants who are coming to your country to learn a second language.

There's so many ways that we can do that.

Start with,

We care about something.

We care about a lot of things,

And some things we care enough about that we would be willing to commit time to.

So that's a given.

We care about things,

We all do.

We're working towards being able to let that in more.

I'm not at all suggesting that we should be wide open all the time.

We can't really live like that.

That we can let it in enough that we're going to go,

I'm going to do something about this.

What would be your first step?

If it's something that's already around,

Then you might contact an existing organization that does something around that.

How are you going to find other people with this passion,

With the same passion that you do?

How are we going to get started?

If it's an animal shelter,

We just call the local animal shelter and find out.

Many communities have volunteer directories or volunteer organizations.

It's easy to do that now with the internet.

If you're sitting here thinking,

Okay,

After this,

I'm going to get online,

I'm going to find out who does this type of work,

Or I know I really want to do this.

I'm going to go right into that and find the person or the organization.

But if you're still sitting here feeling like,

Well,

That's a good idea,

But I tried volunteering once and it didn't work out.

They weren't very well organized,

And they didn't seem to respect my time.

Or maybe it's just,

I'm shy or I'm socially anxious.

I can't do that.

One of the things I found about volunteering is that there's a structure there.

It's not always perfect.

For sure,

It's not.

A lot of volunteer positions are also managed by volunteers.

So sometimes it's not perfect,

But do we have to have it be perfect in order for us to move ahead and take some action?

Sometimes we need to work on our confidence,

Our social anxiety.

We need to stay away from this hopelessness of it's never going to change.

It's going to be too much.

You know,

That one time I volunteered,

I didn't feel welcome.

I felt really awkward.

Now that we're doing all this work on our own,

On building our nervous system,

We have a lot more capacity perhaps than we used to.

If we were to look around at the world and see what is it that I could do to help make things better,

That's a really good place to start.

What do I really care about?

And then how could I contribute to that?

And then take a breath and then really sit with this.

It can give us a start and perhaps an inspiration of I do care.

I see the cost in blocking this out of my heart.

I'm willing to take some action here and I need to support myself in these ways.

And I'm willing to do this and to move forward.

Whatever your inspirations are,

That's where you go.

You start there.

Maybe like me,

You start doing this and then it spreads.

It lessens that feeling of powerlessness.

It's really good for our nervous system.

There's a whole bunch of studies that say volunteers and people who have good social contact live longer.

There's lots of good reasons to do it.

We all have these tender hearts and this is one way that we can make a difference in the world.

Reviews

I loved the inspiring live and cherish this track as wonderful reminder and empowerment! Thank you!!!

Hugely helpful and inspiring
Don’t know where to start yet…..but encouraged