The Basis for Helping Others

Question: It has been years since my husband died and I've done so very well. Yet, now I find that I'm stuck between wanting to move forward and just wanting to reach him and be there forever. Not long ago I met someone who lost their wife a lot earlier than I lost my husband. I found that when I talked to him and he looked at me, it was as if I was talking to my husband and he was looking back at me. Someone suggested that it was the universes way of telling me that I could move on and I've been trying to look at it in those terms. I'm a great believer in going with the flow, but I guess that experience has made me very impatient with myself. I'm a wonderful essence and after having 43 years of a beautiful marriage I refuse to chase after happiness, but where I am now is intolerable........ I know that helping others is a way out of this place, but if I can't help myself, how in the world can I help others? Friends who have lost a loved one have told me that all of this is normal, but I don't want to be normal, I want to fly free and live and love again. Answer: The best way to honor your love with your husband is to live that love in your life right now. Don’t treat your love as some museum relic under glass that exists only to be preserved and admired. Living the love in your heart does not mean you will be chasing after happiness—quite the contrary—when you act from a full heart, you are happiness. The answer to your question about helping others follows this same point; If you are living your love in the present moment, you are automatically in a position to help others, because you are coming from a place of completeness in yourself. You recognize that you are a wonderful essence, that is all the help you need. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to have everything perfect and tidy in your life in order to help others. Simply being there for another shows you care, and that in itself is more helpful to others than you might imagine. And what comes out of this for you is that by giving of yourself, your love becomes more active and powerful. A momentum and direction to your life will be generated that has been lacking of late. This phenomenon validates the Biblical adage “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Love, Deepak