The Difference Between Helping, Fixing, and Serving

An approach to work that helps you avoid burnout

Joan Halifax is known as one of today's most influential Zen teachers, in particular through her activism or what she refers to as "engaged Buddhism." Her range of social work is impressive - from Upaya, her residential community in New Mexico, to working with The Dalai Lama, to her work in prisons, her groundbreaking programs on dealing with grief, death, and dying, and much more. 

I had the pleasure of speaking with Roshi Joan (“Roshi” is a term for a spiritual leader in Zen Buddhism) on the Zen Bones Podcast recently. We talked about acts of service as an unconventional source for radical joy and explored the way of the “modern Bodhisattva" - someone who maintains presence with compassion and a desire to help all sentient beings even in the face of extraordinary challenges. 

When your life’s work involves service and activism, it’s a known risk factor for over-work, anxiety, and burnout. However, Joan has a secret for avoiding burnout and it involves recognizing and shifting from the idea of “helping” or “fixing” so we instead recognize our work as an act of “service.” She shared a wonderful quote from Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, author of the New York Times best seller Kitchen Table Wisdom, that highlights the difference between these three ideas:

"Helping, fixing, and serving are three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see it as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.”
– Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

I really appreciate the distinction here. The language we use is powerful. There can be a strong unconscious habit energy around helping and fixing. Helping and fixing sends the message that something is lacking or missing - often in how we view ourselves, or others, or the world. These words also create a sense of distance and separation. Serving, on the other hand, adds a richness, connection, and dimension to how we show up, because it encourages more curiosity, acceptance, and openness in how we act.

Thinking of your work as service is a big step up from sales and selling.

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How do you see yourself, the work you do, and the world?

Are you helping, fixing, selling, or serving?

How do each of these labels feel, and/or influence your approach?

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Now, while offering our work as a service can feel really good there are also times when it’s easy to feel like you’re not making enough of a difference. We are wired to see what can go wrong (and there's no shortage of what can go wrong!) and given this strong negativity bias, a good dose of optimism as well as hope can be useful. I’m not talking about the "rose colored glasses" kind of optimism, but rather a sense of imagining and visualizing what's possible, and working for positive change.

"I'm not optimistic, I'm hopeful, so I make a distinction between optimism and hope...holding an attitude of possibility is, I think, our work. More curiosity and openness."

–Joan Halifax

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In what areas of your life and your work do you feel hopeful and optimistic?

How are hope and optimism similar and different for you?

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One of my favorite quotes by Wendell Berry is: "Be joyful though you've considered all the facts." There are many "facts" in our lives and our world that range from inspiring and motivational to challenging and downright grim. Just being alive, and knowing that one day we will lose everything, is scary and difficult to accept. And yet, Buddhism teaches us to not avoid or turn away from what is painful and difficult. The practice that Joan Halifax, Wendell Berry, and Buddha keep coming back to is to aim to find joy and peace, right in the moment, even in middle of life’s challenges.

So, how exactly can you do this?

Here’s what supports me, personally, in this effort: 

• Meditation and mindfulness practice. I’ve been meditating daily for over 40 years. I can’t imagine my life without this daily practice, which helps me to bring a sense of curiosity to everything I encounter. Meditating in community is also a great way to sustain a regular practice. My online sangha – Mill Valley Zen – offers free weekly group meditation and discussion, along with several meditation retreats throughout the year.

• Lots of support – I make a point to regularly connect with good friends, my therapist, and my bodyworker in order to nourish my body and mind, address pain points, and enrichen connections.

• If you run a business or lead a team of any kind, an executive coach can help you in identifying and working toward your most important goals. I work with a coach myself, and also offer executive coaching for high performing entrepreneurs, CEOs, and senior management teams. Learn more about my coaching work here. 

• Regular study and exposure to engaging books, conversations, and music, such as:
  

  • Joan Halifax’s book, Standing At The Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet - a guide to looking deeply at our lives and transforming challenges and suffering to greater acceptance and joy.

    
    "If we willingly investigate our difficulties, we can fold them into a view of reality that is more courageous, inclusive, emergent, and wise."
    

  • Sam Harris and Roland Griffiths' wonderful and inspiring conversation on Psychedelics and Mortality on the Making Sense podcast. Griffiths shares how psychedelics are supporting what he calls “secular sacred” - a way of experiencing what is sacred that changes our outlook and way of being in the world. He also talks about the relationship between meditation and psychedelics, and speaks openly and profoundly about his recent cancer diagnosis.
    

  • Some beautiful music that moves me is Adrianne Lanker singing Steamboat. The lyrics alone are beautiful:

Well I'm just a stranger

I'm only a walker

I guess I am human, but sometimes I feel like I'm only a ghost,

Like I'm only a wall

And if you come around, honey

I'll probably just follow you home

Cause it's all that I know how to do

I was born by a body and I'll die by one too

And places are nothing if they ain't got you....

Oh I wish I was better at being alone

Still every night I call you by phone

Oh I wish I was more than my skin and my bones

Oh I wish I was more than my skin and my bones.

Wishing you some hope, a touch of optimism, and an unwavering experience of the richness of this life.