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Self-Care Tip #138 – Stay aware of “Me” to be more present with them.

The second thing I learned from Toastmasters is that no matter how good I get at doing the 1st lesson, in my eyes, things will always be about “Me.”  No matter how skilled or self-aware or Mother-Theresa I become, “Me” won’t disappear.

Mother Theresa, by the way, did exactly what was congruent with her temperament.  Doing what she did for others tied her in more closely than ever with them …her.  Doing what she did naturally only made her more present with herself, her own journey, her own awareness of self and at some point with others.  There is a symbiotic relationship so to speak.  Remember Nemo and his home in the sea anemone?

Doing well for myself and for others is not a problem of effort towards altruism or other saintly motives.  It’s a matter of biology.  More than ever, I believe in hard-wiring.  Acting like it isn’t about “Me” is boring and even irritating at times for others to watch.  Even when we are trained actors or Toastmasters in this case.

When we say that the acts of heroism someone did was temperamentally congruent, it takes a little shine off.  Would you still call Mother Theresa a saint if you knew this?  How about “Me?”  That shouldn’t make it any less wonderful, what we do in life when we do it this way.  Yet the sense of enchantment gets a little fainter.  It’s a shame because who we were made to be is magical.   Doing what we do best by design is what our personal angels might have a hand in, I think.

If we can’t keep sight of ourselves, of “Me” while still seeing who’s around, there might be something medical going on.  No one wants you to disappear.

Question:  How do you keep it about you even while remembering that it isn’t?  How do you live symbiotically?  Please tell me your story.