The Best Act For The Heart Is To Help Others Rise
Helping soothes and rewards, however it’s not always easy. Sometimes it requires that the person is first aware that he needs to be helped, and that grabbing a helping hand is not synonymous with weakness but rather with strength. Secondly, it involves investing efforts, time and emotions. However, those are not burdens that are too heavy.
Life itself should always be a natural meeting place for love and respect, where universal empathy is that implicit power in our hearts, that allows us to fully express our kindness.
We know it is not easy, and sometimes, we are filled with expressive phrases that we all like to share on our social networks but ultimately, some forget.
Sometimes it is our own family or our own friends who need such support to rise. Someone they are the ones experiencing depression or in need of understanding, support and closeness.
Or maybe our adolescent children are going through a hard moment of life with harassment at school, or are just now experiencing their first emotional disappointment. It’s easy to overlook because we have no time, because we have our eyes focused on other things.
The heart needs eyes to see and inner freedom to feel. We must strip ourselves of what is superficial to tend to what is essential, so that goodness, which is natural in humans, allows us to help those in need.
Learning to listen from the heart
Maybe your best friend is talking to you with a smile painted on his or her face and their words sound cheerful. However, your eyes meet theirs and you sense that there is a tear that is about to fall.
The heart that knows how to listen is wise and is free of egotism, oblivious to the closed and universe that only feeds its own needs. Goodness knows how to sense and can read between the lines.
Sensing the emotions of others is a gift installed in our social brain through mirror neurons and empathy. We all come into this world knowing how to recognize such basic emotions like sadness, anger, love or fear.
However, sometimes, either by social, educational or personality influences, there are people who concentrate all of their insights towards themselves. Into what “I feel,” what “I need,” and what “I want.” It is around these three themes that their life begins to be structured.
To live from the heart one does not have to be naive as many believe. Being sensitive is not being weak, and helping others up is not letting them pull your leg. Absolutely not. Those who build their lives from the heart are very clear about the following aspects.
I help you because I help myself
Whoever offers their hand to those who need it does not actually do it for anything in return. They do it because it is part of their being, because they can’t act in any other way. And they do not expect anything material in return nor do they seek favors or great praise.
The greatest reward is to feel useful. If we turn our heads and pretend to not see that someone else is in need, it would cause us some internal dissonance. It would be going against our values.
The act of helping is a kind of wisdom that enriches us
One may have several university degrees, speak five languages, have several cars, and in their hands have the most sophisticated cell phone on the market.
However, all these artifices will not help much if they do not see that their mother, for example, needs help because she has dementia, their partner feels lonely despite them always being by their side.
Offering help enriches us because in doing so we recognize our fellow man. Offering help enriches us because it teaches us the language of the most basic emotions. Offering help enriches us because it becomes it is how we give people happiness and new opportunities.
The goodness that comes from the heart is the only investment that never goes bankrupt
There are many who think otherwise. That being good is exhausting, that doing good sometimes brings disappointment. However, we must be clear: good people should understand that there are limits and also have the right to say stop if needed.
Because goodness is offered freely and with intelligence. We know that acts that are done from the heart are great investments. It helps us to advance free of grudges and very full of freedom, emotion balance and well-being.
And no one can walk with more joy than one who carries the sun inside of them and knows how to face any storm.
Images courtesy of Martin Poole, Janaima Medeiros and Tomasz Alen Kopera