The Week of Inward Looking: Day 4 - Serving

The Week of Inward Looking: Day 4 – Serving

December 29, 2011 in General

DECEMBER 29 – QUESTION #4

Topic: Serving

Question: How did I serve in 2011? Whom did I serve? What aspects of my service brought me alive? What aspects drained me? If I could serve in any way possible in 2012, what would I create? Let your imagination run wild.

Service can sound so dull and feel so heavy, something only really good (cue white toothy smile) people do or something you do to other people for their own good. Yuck. Let's ditch those ideas. Instead, try on the idea that service is your heart's desire made visible. Service is the act of sharing what you most care about for the greater good. It requires no special goodness, thankfully. After our basic needs are met, we all yearn to make a difference and service springs from listening to that yearning – and taking action on it, step by little step.

Service makes you tingle with aliveness like all true acts of intimacy. It's deeply creative, generative, and yes, risky, because it means you share your heart. It's also as natural as breathing, and like breathing, must include giving and receiving.

How will you serve in 2012? I can't wait to hear!

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Background: Author Susan Piver and I are hosting "The Week of Inward Looking" during this week between Christmas and the New Year. It occured to us that this inbetween week is a time for examination, a time to build a bridge to a peaceful, joyful, creative, and wildly successful 2012–whatever success means to you.

So we invited five extraordinary thinkers to join us in creating a 7-day journey, starting today.

You are welcome to join our Facebook group to connect with others participating in The Week of Inward Looking, or not.

You are welcome to post your answers on that Facebook page, or not.

You are welcome to journal in your private journal, on your blog, anywhere you'd like–the questions are simply put into the universe for you to consider as we move in this week toward 2012. Share as you would like.

Each day will have a different questioner, and a different theme:

Dec 26: Patti Digh – On Bendiness
Dec 27: Ken Robert – On Shadows
Dec 28: Andrew Mellen – On Becoming Organized
Dec 29: Jennifer Louden – On Serving
Dec 30: Jonathan Fields – On Creativity
Dec 31: Susan Piver – On Spirituality
Jan 1: Seth Godin – On Being an Artist

I hope you'll join us in this exploration.

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.