Awesome Stewart’s Burning Question: “You may remember some time ago I wrote to you regarding a post I had written, “A Firefighter Never Gives Up” and you posted it on your blog. I want to thank you again for that Melody, it meant so much to me then, and still does now.
The reason I write to you today is that In connection with that post. After spending 20 years as a Firefighter, I am rapidly realizing that my time in the Service is coming to a close, and that I need to seek fresh pastures. I have helped a lot of people in those 20 years, from the old ladies stuck in their bathrooms, the shy child at the back of the class desperately wanting to ask the Firefighter a question on a school visit, the Farmer desperate to save his livestock from a barn fire, the motorist stuck in his smashed car, the list is endless. All needed my help. And I gave them all as much as I could give, even when I thought I had no more strength left to help.
Some of those sights over those 20 years have taken their toll on me, and I have now found myself needing help from other people in the form of counseling to let me process some of the things I’ve seen, come to terms with it, and move on.
I was so busy helping others that I neglected my own needs, until it made me ill and unable to help anymore. After some time off work, and some truly first class therapy, I’m nearing the end of the process of healing, and I’m in a new world now, it’s peaceful here, and I’m ready to help again, but this time It will be different.
I’m pushing 40 now, and I want to give my help people in a different way. I have a real calling here, and I know it’s the right thing to do. I want to take courses in NLP, mindful living, meditation, you name it I want to drink it all in and get the certificate. I want to learn from the best, and then be the best myself. I have a lot of training to do, I will get there, I just don’t know how yet. I will go out and find the resources I need to do these things.
My question Melody is this:
Is the law of attraction more powerful if I have such huge positive intentions to help other people?
Will it help me find the resources to train like I want to, and get busy changing lives?
Could you point me in the right direction and tell me where I need to focus?”
Dear Awesome Stewart,
First of all, thank you for your incredible service as a Firefighter. If I’m ever in an emergency situation, I hope, no I intend that someone like you shows up. But also, congratulations on figuring out that this path is no longer the right one for you, and having the courage to make a change.
I think your story mirrors that of many lightworkers. You choose a profession that serves others, and at some point, realize that it’s actually hurting you. You then begin the struggle of making the decision to allow yourself to choose a different path. This usually brings up tons of resistance (hence, the struggle). Before I answer your questions, I’d like to dissect some of the most common limiting beliefs that come up in these types of situations.
“I have an obligation to serve/heal/uplift others”
Lightworkers are generally people who have been born with a strong desire to help others in some way. We often choose to be born into heaps of contrast (read: we often have difficult childhoods), which helps us to develop many valuable skills. For example, in order to truly help others, you have to keep your vibration high, even if those you want to help are suffering. You have to learn to acknowledge their pain without making it a part of your vibration. You can’t suffer along with them. But how can you learn to stabilize your high vibration in the face of suffering or negativity (or just generally lower vibrations) if you’ve never been exposed to them? You can’t. This work isn’t theoretical, it’s practical. If you want to learn how to keep your cool around people who are bleeding, you’re going to need to see some blood.
So, lightworker babies usually come into an environment that’s incredibly conducive to their “training”. It’s not generally fun (mostly because we don’t understand what’s really going on and there’s no one to explain it to us, but that’s all changing now). One of the main reasons it’s not fun is because we tend to misinterpret our desire to help others as an obligation to do so. And because we haven’t yet learned to be discerning, to filter out those who aren’t a vibrational match to our particular help, we try and help EVERYONE. And we fail. A lot. We think we’re here to save the world, but the world won’t freaking let us save it. This leads to a great deal of frustration, anger and pain. And it also often results in feelings of unworthiness (“I can’t help these people. I must be broken”).
Here’s the thing: we have no obligations of any kind. We do not HAVE TO help others. To put it another way: the Universe doesn’t need your help. You can, however, help if you WANT TO. You can let the Universe call upon you to help when there’s a match to your particular vibration. And when you help this way, when you realize it’s fully a choice and you don’t try to save the whole freaking world, the process of helping not only feels amazing to you, the helper, but it provides the most possible benefit to the helpee. It’s FUN to be of service when you let yourself be inspired to it. There’s no sacrifice involved, there’s no suffering needed, and it certainly doesn’t drain you. And no, helping others from a place of pain is not more valuable than helping others from a place of joy. Quite the opposite, actually.
“Who will take my place if I quit?”
So, what happens if you decide to leave whatever profession you’ve taken on because it no longer feels right or good, or has even become downright painful? To many lightworkers, this feels like leaving a dying, broken, bloody accident victim lying in the gutter. It feels cold and irresponsible and not at all like the helper they want to be.
Remember how I said that you have no obligation to help others? And how the Universe doesn’t need your help? Well, you don’t and it doesn’t. People do not get helped. They have to manifest their help. You can participate in that process if you like, but it’s not YOUR process. It’s theirs. So, if you are no longer volunteering to play in their game, someone else will be found. In fact, if the whole process isn’t fun for you, you’re not the best fit for them.
Think of it this way: so there’s this metaphorical victim in the gutter. First of all, they are not dying. They are not broken. They might think that they are, and be wailing at you to help them, but they are ultimately perfectly fine from a spiritual perspective. The suffering they’re experiencing is self-inflicted, even if they’re not aware of it. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t in pain, or that we should blame them for their situation. It’s not their “fault”. But it is worth noting that they are far more powerful than they realize, and when they finally do step into that power, they will release their suffering.
This power means that whether or not they realize it, they are manifesting all the help they’re experiencing. If they are not getting all the help they want, it’s not because there are not enough helpers. It’s because they’re not ready to let in more help.
So there they are, in the gutter, asking you to “save” them. And you think you’re the only one around for miles, so even though it feels awful and they’re actually kind of draining you, you stay. Because you’re a good person. But all around you, there’s a crowd of others, other lightworkers, willing and able to jump in if you get out of the way. There’s even a doctor behind you who would be better equipped to deal with the victim’s wounds, but you insist that you’re the ONLY ONE who can help *dramatic sigh*. You’re not. I promise you, you’re not.
When someone is ready to manifest relief from their pain, those who can help to facilitate that (and who have volunteered for it) will come into their lives. Anything that’s necessary to help manifest that relief will show up. When someone is not ready to manifest relief from their pain, no one can do it for them, no matter how kind and good and dedicated they are. If the helpee is ready to be helped and you step out, someone else will step in. But you might not be able to see it until you’ve actually left. The vacancy cannot be filled until there actually is one.
“I can’t just pick and choose whom I want to help!”
Yes, you freaking can. The idea that you can’t stems from the beliefs that 1.) It’s your obligation to help (I’ve pretty much obliterated that one), and 2.) If we all just helped those whom it was fun to help, we’d all be trying to help the same people. So, the really annoying ones would just be left out in the cold to freeze. After all, isn’t it a sign of a truly virtuous person if you can help someone who clearly doesn’t deserve it?
No. Just no. OMG, no. There’s nothing virtuous about helping or even spending time with someone if it feels awful to you. When enlightened teachers show love towards those who make everyone else want to punch them in the face, they are not trying to teach us about any obligation to help those who act like douchebags. They are showing us that whether or not we are compassionate or in a state of love, is our choice. Someone doesn’t have to be loveable in order for us to choose to love them.
And really, to think that everyone in the world thinks exactly like you, and is a match to joyfully helping the exact same people as you are, is kind of arrogant. I promise you, if everyone in the world only helped those whom it was fun to help, every helpee would still be able to manifest a helper. Or a book. Or a song. Or an insight. You’re also forgetting that everyone is essentially a helper, even if they don’t know that they are. A grumpy-pants pessimist can still be helping someone and not even be aware of it. It really, really, really isn’t all up to you.
It’s all about joy
Listen carefully: Your value, your real value, is YOU. It’s your light. And you cannot provide that value if you diminish your light. You have to let it shine as brightly as it can. The only way to do that is to be in joy as much as you can. So, the more you’re in joy, the more you’re automatically going to help those around you. The more you operate out of an icky place of obligation, the worse you’re going to feel and the less you’re going to actually help people. Oh, and the more people whom you can’t help but who will suck the life right out of you will come right into your reality. They are your helpers, showing you that you’re not shining your light as brightly as you can.
So, to recap:
Your joy = true help = YAY!
Your pain = no real help = EWW!
I think I’ve made my point.
And now, to answer your questions
Now that I’ve laid the basis, I’m happy to answer Awesome Stewart’s burning questions.
Is the law of attraction more powerful if I have such huge positive intentions to help other people? – No. The Law of Attraction is always equally powerful. The difference between it working “better” and “worse” is determined by how much resistance you have to what you want. It’s all about your beliefs. The Law of Attraction doesn’t judge your desire to be more worthy because you want to use it to help others. As I’ve explained above, if you make your own joy the goal, you’ll be helping people automatically. So, making self-sacrifice and helping others even at your own detriment the goal, isn’t actually nearly as beneficial.
Having said that, when you supply something that a lot of people are asking for, when you provide an answer to a large question, you have to be willing to let all that energy flow through you (they are manifesting through you, remember?). This means that you need to clean up your own crap even more. Then, when that energy flows through you, it can seem like it’s more powerful (because there’s more energy), but it also means that it can be more difficult if you still have some fears in relation to helping others, stepping into your own power, abundance, etc. You might need to be more diligent in cleaning up your beliefs, but if you do, the payoff is also larger, because when you really let a large amount of energy flow unimpeded, it feels like you can conquer the world. Pure awesomeness. 
Will it (LOA) help me find the resources to train like I want to, and get busy changing lives? – Absolutely, yes! You can’t really stop it. You set the intention to help others before you were even born. It’s coursing through your veins! Acknowledge this intention, along with how you want it to feel (Hint: good, not draining, no sacrifice, just pure awesomeness) and then just follow your intuition. It will get you there. It’s not going to be a straight line, but that would be boring anyway. The most important ingredient here is trust. Trust that whatever presents itself is taking you where you want to go, even if it’s not apparent in the moment. It will become clear in hindsight.
In other words, decide that you’re going to head for joy, and then hang on and enjoy the ride!
Could you point me in the right direction and tell me where I need to focus? – Like I said, figure out what you want and how you want it to feel. You don’t have to define all the details, but you do need to define the feeling. The giddier you get when you do this, the more aligned you are. Then trust and just follow the breadcrumbs. That’s really it. The problem is that we overcomplicate things. Do what feels right and DON’T do what doesn’t (out of obligation, etc.). So, basically,
Feeling good + Trust = Awesome Success
You’re welcome.