Serving and Sacrificing

Audio By Carbonatix

In this article, I want to take a look at servanthood and sacrifice. These are things that I talk about a lot. But, right now, I am going to focus on these topics from a different angle than the one that I normally focus on. I want to tell you that if serving or sacrificing are the only things you do, that can actually be a problem! In other words, if all you do is constantly serve or constantly sacrifice, that leaves you in a really unhealthy place. Too often, I think we push and promote the idea of serving and sacrificing without making sure that message is balanced out by also talking about the importance of each person taking care of themselves. 

Right now, I am working to help my daughter understand that balance. She’s somebody who wants to help anybody and everybody as much as she possibly can. And I’m good with that! But I’m trying to bring some balance to that desire by reminding her that she needs to also help herself and make sure that she’s healthy and getting what she needs. 

It’s a tough needle to thread at times, and it’s even more challenging because of one simple reality: Some people are too self-centered and they need to work on sacrificing and serving others more often. But other people are too others-centered and they need to work on making sure that they are factoring their own physical and emotional needs into their decision-making process. So, you see how addressing this topic can be challenging, right? Because depending on who is receiving the message, they might actually need the exact opposite advice! 

As you’re reading this, I invite you to do some self-reflection. On the topic of sacrifice and serving, where do you fall on the spectrum? Do you need to correct your behavior because you realize that you have been erring on the side of being too self-centered or too others-centered? 

If you’ve been too self-centered, you can work to correct this by being intentional about considering other people’s opinions and experiences more often. It’s easy to get so caught up in what’s going on in your life that you don’t even notice what’s going on with the people around you. But once you start making the effort to be more aware, you’ll start seeing things that are going on in their lives where they could use some help or encouragement. 

If you’ve been too others-centered, you can work to correct this by starting to notice when you’re more worried on somebody else’s behalf than they are about their own situation! If you catch yourself trying to solve everybody else’s problems to the point where you’re stressed out on their behalf, that can be an indicator for you that it’s time to focus a little more on yourself and your own needs rather than imagining that you can carry a burden on somebody else’s behalf.

I believe that we can all benefit from identifying where we fall on this spectrum of serving and sacrificing. Because we can’t work to improve on something if we’re not aware of the need for improvement in the first place! When we take the time to see what’s going on in our lives and to work to correct it, we’ll be winning more often at home.