Self-help, spirituality and love

[twirlgrrl]

An interesting quote from an article about a Harvard psychiatrist who wrote a book about spirituality.

"This is not about spirituality as some kind of self-help. It's more like a barn-raising. Self-help is like tickling yourself. No one since the beginning of time has been able to tickle themselves or give themselves a massage. If you want to feel good, get another person to rub your back. Even better, rub someone else's."

In many small ways over the past few months, two ideas keep revisiting me. One is that true fulfillment lies in connections with other people, which fits nicely with my personal life-purpose mandate to love God and my fellow humans. The other is that the way out of depression and despair is to focus outward, to do something for someone else. (I'm not saying that second one is true for clinical depression, but it can't hurt, right?)

Evan and I started on a project to define our family as a sort of business, with a vision, mission statement, objectives and projects. It sounds goofy, but apparently it's what we need to do at the moment because we haven't been so connected in a long time. And one thing we did was try to define our life's purpose, the reason we're here, the thing that we'd regret if we didn't accomplish in our lifetime. (I know, you're thinking of one of a thousand comedy sketches about the meaning of life.) It turned out that Evan's and mine were quite different, though related. I won't try to explain his, but mine is basically, you know, to love. There are a lot of ways to say it, but that's the essence.

What's yours?

Comments

[eac.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to come up with something here that doesn't sound pompous, but in the end it's something like "to support my community (family and friends) and live honorably."

Only, honor is a very sticky wicket, because I feel I have been so privileged that I have to excel, somehow.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Integrity" is a word that factors into mine somehow, and I think by that I mean honor. And hey, don't worry about sounding pompous; this is about ideals, not reality of what we're actually able to accomplish day to day. If it was, I would have said "My mission is to love and I suck at it."

[tellinellen.livejournal.com]

i'm very interested to hear more about evan's (if that's cool)... i suspect you and i have similar feelings on this. but, more specifically, if you had asked me about this before i had kids, having kids definitely would have been on my list of things i wanted to do while on this earth.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

I lost the page with his written on it! Dang! Although I probably got it wrong anyway... I tend not to be able to catch the precise nuances of what he says.

Interesting about having kids... do you know why you felt that way? I didn't, but now I do retroactively, if that makes sense.

[tellinellen.livejournal.com]

i don't know how i could possibly explain it. i guess it's not explainable, it just is. the idea that i might never have children was always a fear of mine as.... the worst thing ever? i guess being a mother was my most important priority, more so than anything else.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

That is so fascinating to me. Did you play with dolls a lot as a kid? Because I did, I totally got off on nurturing and caring for my gigantic family of "babies," but then the mothering instinct just sortof faded over time.

[tellinellen.livejournal.com]

i did play w dolls, and i had babies and everything but my memory is more of playing with them as characters in dramatic events - kids or teenagers rather than babies.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

We did that too, my sister and I had Barbies doing all sorts of adult things. But before that, I spent a lot of time having birthday parties for my babies and feeding them with those disappearing-milk baby bottles. LOL!!!

[f1ymetothemoon.livejournal.com]

That's a tough question. I think maybe mine is to teach. Or maybe it's to influence people back to nature, though I really have to start living that myself first.

[f1ymetothemoon.livejournal.com]

P.S. Is that you in the icon, pretty lady?

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

*blush* Yes it is. It's the only picture of me taken in the past 10 years that doesn't make me want to retch.

[f1ymetothemoon.livejournal.com]

Oh good lord I know that feeling. Photoshop is my friend.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Every picture of you that I've seen has been fantastically cute.

[f1ymetothemoon.livejournal.com]

I take digital photos at a time so I can choose one out of 3,576 ;)

[raw-julie.livejournal.com]

First off...whenever I see *you* in your icon, I smile :)

I think that is AWESOME seeing your family as a business, with a vision, etc. What a great idea! My mind is racing with that thought for my family...I may just steal your idea... ;)

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks! And yeah, the vision and objectives are FUN to come up with! Give it a whirl. :)

[alexisyael.livejournal.com]

I think the meaning of the name Alexis says it all: Helper of Mankind. That is why I am here, to help.

Love is a HUGE part of that, as is teaching, but helping can take many different forms, including just being there to listen to people. I consider LJ to be one of the biggest venues for my helping, these days.

Also, co-dependence is something I have to work on, as a personal issue. Helping other people out also means helping MYSELF to have enough resources to be able to help. Online helping is good for me, that way, because I can pull back when I need to recharge myself, much more easily than if I had a real life friend in crisis who wasn't understanding that *I* am tired/ grouchy/ whatever.

I like this idea of yours, for your family. I'm not sure if a business plan would work for M and I, but I'm going to bring it up and see what we come up with together!

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, and yes. I grok and agree and identify with what you've written here. I have a tendency toward codependence, too. It's something to watch out for, for us helper-types.

[righteousbaby.livejournal.com]

We have a vision board hanging in our kitchen. Our dreams and expectations for our family are on it.

I think I need to update mine and add that I want to be more loving and compassionate.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Nice to know I'm not the only one! Cool!

[psyko-kitty.livejournal.com]

My short summary of the gospel is "God would give ANYTHING to be with you" and that is, for me, the first guiding principle to be found in the life of Jesus. So my hope and goal is to be connected to God and to other people by living a life of compassion, connection, and reconciliation when that goes awry, which it constantly does because I am human.

[twirlgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you, this is pretty much the longer version of what I meant by mine. Including the human part. I didn't mean to say "I am a loving human" without saying "Oh yeah, but I suck at it!"