~Rachel Naomi Remen

In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how can I serve?

Service is different than helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. If I’m attentive to what’s going on inside of me when I’m helping, I find that I’m always helping someone who is not as strong as I am, who is needier than I am. People feel this inequality. When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals.

Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.

Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When I serve I see and trust that wholeness. It is what I am responding to and collaborating with.

There is a distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing. Fixing is a form or judgment. All judgment creates distance, or disconnection, an experience of differences. In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. This is Mother Teresa’s basic message. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.

If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender, and awe. A fixer has the illusion of being causal. A server knows that he or she is being used and has a willingness to be used in the service of something greater, something essentially unknown. Fixing and helping are very personal; they are very particular, concrete, and specific. We fix and help many different things in our lifetimes, but when we serve we are always serving the same thing. Everyone who has ever served through the history of time serves the same thing. We are servers of the wholeness and mystery in life.

The bottom line, of course, is that we can fix without serving. And we can help without serving. And we can serve without fixing or helping. I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. They may look similar if you’re watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different, too.

Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.

Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. Fundamentally, helping, fixing, and service are 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. 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.

Lastly, fixing and helping are the basis of curing, but not of healing. In 40 years of chronic illness I have been helped by many people and fixed by a great many others who did not recognize my wholeness. All that fixing and helping left me wounded in some important and fundamental ways. Only service heals.


Adapted from a talk given at IONS fourth annual conference, “Open Heart, Open Mind” in San Diego, California, July 1995. Rachel Naomi Remen is Medical Director and Cofounder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Bolinas, California. She is also Assistant Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.


[Edited 6/28/06 11:59am]

Interesting read, Freespirit I believe the definitions of help/aid, healing, service, etc. are different to each individuals' outward perception of the deed, even though (in my mind) their periphral essence can be intertwined without overlap of the core tenet.

For example, my notion of "devotional spiritual service" can not chime true within the above framework.

However, your post still makes me think and question ideas Thanks Julie

senik said:

Intriguing words in this article... yes? My Coordinator at work gave this article to all of us in the office. She said she has had it for years... her service as a Social Worker and now Child Life Specialist/Coordinator has extended for more than 22 years. I am not sure if others have read it... or if they have, if it has risen "thought" within themselves, as it has and continues to rise within me. As I come more into clarity, my own purpose in this life... no other words have spoken as clear to me as the words and meaning of this article. No other words have related as close as to how I am living my life right now and how I have lived my life in the past.

Servicing vs. Helping...

Interesting concept, yet in actuality... servicing seems more ideal, personally. Servicing correlates so close to how I am living life now.

I know these words "In the Service of Life" will vary depending on each unique soul and the individual life they have lived, or may be living today.

...

I am curious to hear what others may feel. If nothing at all... a read, a ponder or "thought" is all I intended when sharing this.

Thank you for reading Senik. If possible may you share a bit more about your "Devotional Spiritual Service" or any other question or thoughts you may have?

I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. They may look similar if you’re watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different, too.

i agree with this ..

though i beleive that fixing / helping with a tempered ego is just as important as serving with pure soul energy

even "serving" can be ego based

Mach said:

I feel I understand what what you are saying Mach.

Although these few mentions I can relate with the most... especially in correlation of my past and definitely in relation concerning this literal day.

But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve.

This is how I understand this... when we serve, say, go about our day. We don't have a plan, there is no mission (I am going to help all I can today). In saying, it is waking within each day, knowing ones purpose it to live with truth (not saying I have always lived in truth), but to make a decision to live in truth and abide by that decision. As you live within each day, you tend to situations that arise, not because you want to help everyone, but because you have the power and moment to serve, to act upon a situation because it was presented within your path and present what we have the power to give. There is a balance in which to serve, and quite honestly... it is the ultimate challenge for me to recogize that balance within my own service.

Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.

While I don't fully agree with this (incurring debt)... for I have not helped in the past to expect anything in return. This relates to my family, my oldest sister, her children and my biological mother. While this type of help, did not render satisfaction... but continuous stress... I can still understand the feeling of gratitude and the difference between the two.


Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.

This is where it makes the most sense to me, the most personal understanding. For example, in my everyday... my service mission is, what I serve each day will... in hopes, continuoulsy serve others.

My mission to Educate our children is one prominent example. It brings daily challeges most indeed, although it's my commitment to serve our future.

I do feel I have been drained and depleted over a long course of time, due to my "helping"... only now can I understand the difference. (plus, yes, I have been my own worst enemy) True.

Sure I face challenges everyday, as we all do to different degrees... (continuous lessons, most definitely exist), yet I can totally understand in "When we serve, our work itself will sustain us", being our "Mission of Service, understanding our purpose." In the end, my hopes in serving to sustain a better future for many more lives to come.

Egotistical? "We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy."

Thanks for responding Mach. Interesting, yes?

"Only service heals."

beautiful.