by Rachel Naomi Remen

In recent years, the question, how can I help?  has become meaningful to many people.  But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider.  Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? … but … how can I serve? 

Serving is different from helping.  Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals when you stop to use your own strength to help those of lesser strength.  If I’m attentive to what’s going on inside of me when I’m helping, I find that I’m always helping someone who’s not as strong as I am, who is needier than I am.  People feel this inequality.  When we help them we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them.  We may diminish their self – esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. 

But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves.  We draw from all of our experiences.  Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve.  The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life.  The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me.  Service is a relationship between equals. 

Adapted from a talk given at IONS fourth annual conference, “Open Heart, Open Mind” in San Diego, California, July 1995.  Rachel Naomi Remen is Medical Director and Co-Founder of the Commonwealth Cancer Help program in Bolinas, CA.  She is also Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine.