Zero Point Cosmography

Do you have the tendency to help others, but neglect to help yourself?

Can you spout off plenty of health advice but don’t take the time to exercise and eat responsibly?

Lot’s of people do this. I’ve known a lot of over-weight nurses. I’ve seen mothers and fathers take care of their children and spouse, but not themselves.
I’ve seen people out to save the world, but forget to include themselves in the picture.

What inspires this post, you may ask? Well, I’ve had the latter pattern myself and am coming to unravel it. I have neglected my finances and aspects of my health and life at times because I’m on a mission to help the world.

Well, it’s a great and noble cause.. but let’s not forget that I have to take care of my own needs as well. Do not confuse this with selfishness. Selflessness does not occur simply by putting yourself out. It is not simply a matter of helping other people over yourself. Selflessness is a quality of action with concern for the other and the complete surrender of your own will with regards to the other individual’s wants and needs. Notice that this definition says nothing about not taking care of yourself and focusing solely on everyone else.  Also, I want to clarify that by the surrender of your own will in the situation, I don’t mean that to be taken as you should blindly do whatever hare-brained thing the other person wants you to do or to get yourself into something that you yourself are morally oposed to. 

No, it is not a selfish thing to take care of yourself, and for that matter to take care of yourself first.  It is your responsibility.

Anyhow, this post is further inspired by a good friend of my family that has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She has consistently struck me as a person who does not take care of herself. Her house was always filthy. Not dirty, but filthy. Her dietary habits were high in sugar and she has a weight problem and a breathing problem partially due to the former house conditions. She has since moved and has a clean house, but I have noticed that the breathing problems persist. I am not sure if this is a matter of asthma or a somatic pattern that she developed or is entirely unrelated to the former house.

She has taken some issues with work and has developed a pretty toxic attitude which she emotionally stuffs. I am reasonably sure that this habit is directly correlated with the rise of her breast cancer. I have seen this before.

She is a nice woman. Don’t get me wrong. On ALL of the occasions that I have been around her for many years, I have always enjoyed her company.

She also does a good job of taking care of her family and does a good job at work taking care of her job and people there.

She does not do a good job taking care of herself.

This is one of those goofy patterns that people create in their lives, (myself included) that makes no sense when you look at it from a distance.

Taking care of yourself is a good thing. You are the only individual who is truly suited for the job.

In terms of helping other people, by taking care of yourself, you set an example for others and people learn best by example.

By taking care of yourself first, you then come to appreciate what other people need and do not need in terms of your assistance, and so can do a better job helping them.

By taking care of yourself, you remove the burden of responsibility from others, thereby alleviating the time and energy they would otherwise have to invest in taking care of you.

This applies on so many levels.

How many people do you know that now or once had to take care of a parent or grandparent or brother who had a stroke or heart attack or cancer or some other malady that could have been prevented if they had just taken care of their health?

Have you ever seen someone who donates a lot of their time and money to helping others but their personal finances are a mess, and they have to borrow money and time from other people to clean it up?

If you take care of yourself first, then you free up your time and energy to 1. Do the things that you want to do with your life, and 2. By having that time and energy and stable financial situation, can do a much for effective and thoughtful job at helping others.

** I am sure that such patterns are not just simply that the person doing them is a dolt necessarily. I’m sure there are a multitude of reasons.

I was reading today about teaching/mentoring/problem-solving methods and one area of a chapter in the book, “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow” was about how our adult responses to the problems and challenges that we encounter are influenced by the way our parents treated us in these situations when we were children.

Did they rush in to help us solve the problem and do everything for us?
Did they help where needed, but stand back and let us figure it out on our own?
Or did they neglect us all together?

Each of these patterns sends a message to the children and the way the child developed a response to their parents response may still be a pattern that is going on in their adult life to some degree.

If the parents rushed in to help and did everything for the kid because they could solve the problem and do it quickly and not mess it up, then the kid was left without the opportunity to mess up and know how deal with the creative process or trial-and-error process of solving some problems. The underlying message also sent here is “you aren’t good/talented/capable enough to solve your own problems”.
If the kid buys into this, then they may continue ending up in situations with this dynamic by placing themselves into jobs that they are overqualified for, or relationships, or such (in order to rationalizing treating themselves like they are not good enough in response to the silent message recieved earlier.)

*Note though that blaming the parents is useless to the resolution of the problem, because the kid actually had to agree with the parents, even if they were lying to themselves or settling for substandard treatment, and say “yes, I can not handle this myself, you are correct, I can not handle this problem.”

Giving the kids a chance to do it on their own assumes that they are capable enough to handle the issue and if the parent helps when help is needed, then this helps to encourage both self-assured reliance and teamwork.

On the other side of the spectrum, if the kid is ignored or told to go away, then the kid may end up with the pattern of thinking that they are not worthy in some way to get the attention and help of their parents and this pattern can continue on into adult life in some form or another.
The adult may find themselves in relationships or jobs where they are always trying to please others that cannot be pleased. As kids they agreed with the hidden or not-so-hidden message that the they were a problem and the adult in question was beyond reproach, when actually, it was the adult who had an issue that they themselves were unwilling to deal with. So the lie continues in another relationship later on where the now-adult finds a partner or friend or boss who has problems that they pretend to be beyond but actually are afraid to confront, and the now-adult puts themselves below their companion and tries desperately to be good enough for the other person. (That they really should just blow off.)

This patterning need not occur at childhood to develop.

It happens all the time with people who are elderly, disabled, mentally imbalanced, etc.

I know a lot of people who treat older people like they are incapable of doing so many things that they are still capable of doing, and some times the older person conforms to the assumption that they are indeed as lame as other people make them out to be, which then in turn tends lead to further lameness.

Granted, some older people DO need help from time to time, as do kids. It is good to learn how much help to give, and how much help to not give, and when.

If you assume that the other person can handle the problem or significant portions of the problem by their own salt, or at least until proven otherwise, then it will ensure fostering self-reliance and this is good for them and you.

In the beginning, God created the blog and the blog was void and nothing existed within or beyond the blog except the blog and the blog was emptiness.

And first came the attempts to figure out blogging posts and they were full of inane babblings and faulty image uploads and there was much frustration and much learning and calling up of friends to get help and God saw that this was good and that the friends did not get too impatient.

Then were created the words and fonts and HTML code within and throughout the blog and links and images and all the puncutation contained within the posts and God saw that it was good and there were no typos or dead links.

Then was created posts of relevant content which were to pique the interest and further blog reading of all those children of God who were blessed enough to stumble upon the blog and these posts were read well and the children of God rejoiced and God saw that it was good.

Then were created backgrounds and properly placed image files and borders that were artistic and though provoking in nature and these things filled the blog and ran throughout the blog and the eyes of the readers were pleased and the mood in the blog was pleasant, and all were happy and God saw that it was good.

Then the creator rested and went home for the night and the blog was so and it was good.