true service

"helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. when you help, you see life as weak. when you fix, you see life as broken. when you serve, you see life as whole. fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul...from the perspective of service, we are all connected: all suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. the impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.
serving is different from helping. helping is not a relationship between equals. a helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. the danger in helping as that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them...when we help, we become aware of our own strength. but when we serve, we don't serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. my pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.
...what is most professional is not always what best serves and strengthens the wholeness in others. fixing and helping create a distance between people, an experience of difference. we cannot serve at a distance. we can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. fixing and helping are strategies to repair life. we serve life not because it is broken, but because it is holy.
serving requires us to know that our humanity is more powerful than our expertise.
...only service heals.
service is not an experience of strength or expertise; service is an experience of mystery, surrender and awe. helpers and fixers feel causal. servers may experience from time to time a sense of being used by larger unknown forces. those who serve have traded a sense of mastery for an experience of mystery, and in doing so have transformed their work and their lives into practice."

rachel naomi remen