Youtube recommended this video to me...ha, go figure! And wow, I really did have an "Aha" moment! I don't know what prompted me to casually click the link to watch the video, but I'm so grateful to my impulse.
I obsess over this tussle between being true to myself whilst being altruistic and doing my duty to others around me. It means that I tend to put others in front of me, when duty and inner-need don't align together. I go back and forth on this topic, never really believing that it is indeed okay to put myself in front of others. But Iyanla explains it so beautifully. I like the way she puts it. Her metaphors bring balance and clarity, with or without the spiritual connotation.
My favorite lines (if and when the video is removed some day):
"It's inauthentic that you always put other people before you. How you treat yourself is how you treat God. So, you're putting God last. Because you are the representative of God in your life.
In your life, you've got to be as good to you as you want to be to God, in order to be of service to others in the world.
It's self-full (not selfish) to be first, to be as good as possible to you, to take care of you, to keep you whole and healthy. That doesn't mean that you disregard everything and everyone; but you want to come with your cup full.
My cup runneth over. What comes out of the cup is for you all, what's in the cup is mine. But I got to keep my cup full.
So many of us think that we're going to get brownie points in heaven, like we're going to get to sit in the box-seats section if we just give and give and give and give. The course of miracle says, when you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief. When you start sacrificing yourself for other people, you make them a thief, because they are stealing from you what you need and they don't even know it."
5 comments:
Nice ! I like the way she has put it .. Thanks for sharing ... And congrats on your new theme :-) Though I again have to say, I liked your earlier one better ..:-)
Thanks for the honest feedback Kathik! Yeah, I agree with you. But I am pushing myself to be different every year :)
Finally! Something about self-interest that makes utter sense! Preach this to yourself when you're reaching the line where, if you sacrifice more, you'll deprive from yourself and make the other a thief. I recognize that line so well. And have understood that stopping elegantly JUST A LITTLE BEFORE reaching that line saves a lot of emotional energy failing which there arise great conflicts inside - conflicts between self-preservative and altruistic instincts.
Thanks Anon :). It would be great if we could see the "line" and gracefully stop just before it. Somehow we only realize that the line has been crossed, after it's been crossed :)
With experience and experiment, we can learn to stop earlier. Mostly we just need to allow ourselves to ask and get what we need before we cross the line - and we need to ask in a nice way and get it without inner conflicts. Its always a challenge for people who wish to stretch till the very best they can. We got to remember not to.
We can also trade :-) We can give something that we can give and take something else which we better have and make sure that we've communicated it right to whoever it is...
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