“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.”

― Rachel Naomi Remen

I love this quote by Rachel Naomi Remen, a great teacher of integrative medicine and I still need this reminder at times.

Of course, this is no judgment about helping others or fixing things. We are deeply wired for connection and to support each other.

This post is about mindset and the deeper, often subconscious, driving forces behind these distinct ways of thinking and behaving.

For me, feeling overwhelmed and my body starting to ache are key indicators to tune inward and dig deeper … to hold space for somatic inquiry and those parts in me that struggle to trust, that don’t believe yet things will be OK without helping or fixing …

I used to be a fixer and a helper … as the oldest daughter helping my mother with taking care of my younger brothers and the house, I organically assumed this role from an early age. Of course, accompanied by continuous cultural conditioning with self-sacrifice as a core value to aspire …

So much so that it became part of my identity.

All I wanted was for everyone to just. be. happy.

If someone wasn’t happy, I’d fix, help or rescue.

I actually had a remarkably successful career fixing problems and rescuing people.

Working for international projects where everything needed to be agreed upon in unanimity certainly set me up for plenty of opportunities to learn. These years have been a masterclass in diplomacy, crisis management and … Life.

Taking the responsibility to fix or help as a way of being, came at a steep cost:

😩I felt like a failure when I wasn’t successful (which happened more times than I remember)

🤒The driving forces underneath the desire to fix and rescue created so much stress that it contributed to my health breaking down.

Please note that I wasn’t fully aware of any of these dynamics at the time as these beliefs were playing out subconsciously, but having done my own healing work and working with lots of clients over the years I have come to recognize the patterns rather quickly. We all have our individual stories, but no one really escapes cultural and ancestral conditioning.

When I could no longer help or fix the world that I felt was broken,

• I felt broken.
• I felt my body betrayed me, as it “made” me feel like a disappointment to my family.
• I disappointed the people I cared about, and I worked with.
• I felt like a burden.

My own healing work helped me shift to a place where I serve in alignment, which feels like flow … ease.

A teacher really helped me see, and more importantly *feel* the energetic difference between helping, fixing and serving, by asking the following question:

Are you walking away from something or are you walking towards something?

Helping and fixing are rooted in fear, seeing life as weak and broken. Serving is rooted in Love.

Most days I see life as whole …

Yet, other days, my heart feels heavy, sad about the state of agony that the world is in, the amount of suffering and hurt. It sometimes even shakes my foundation of trust in humanity. Some days I feel heartbroken, angry, and helpless. However, this time, instead of fixing, I hold space for myself and the world and allow that compassion to fuel my commitment to being the safe and kind world that I so desire to see … including for myself.

These are moments I return to my core values and gratitude. Not to leapfrog over those hard feelings but to remember the miracle that Life is, to anchor myself into my core values and to stand up for them.

Living consciously with our hearts open wide takes immense courage.

While deeply sensing and being humbled by its impermanence, it also comes with the profound gift of aliveness and joy.

To surrender and trust. Every single day. Some days with more grace and ease than others.

Life is incredibly messy, mysterious, and challenging … The gifts come when embracing all of you …

Today I serve … by guiding my clients through their dark night of the Soul, crisis, chronic pain, or a difficult life transition. I empower my clients by teaching them to regulate their nervous system and connecting the dots to come to a place of awareness and acceptance of underlying psycho-spiritual root causes of the suffering they experience. It is a profound healing journey that brings forth a re-activation of our own inner healing intelligence and blueprint for well-being that is inherent in our essence.

And I remember …

My wish for this world is for us all to re-member who we are underneath all the layers of wounding and conditioning so we may all co-create the world we want to belong to, and a world that we want our children to inherit.

May this post offer you some food for thought about dynamics in your own life.

I would love to hear from you if you feel called to share …  also, what are your core values that ground you when life throws you lemons?

Happy Summer everyone 🍋🍋🍋

With Love,

ina