On a recent television magazine show, I saw a report of a doctor who regularly offers free surgery to needy children from around the world – to those with cerebral palsy, who’s bodies are contorted or otherwise challenged, and, I believe, to children with other kinds of physical malformations, as well.  In this particular story, the doctor had chosen a young man from Mexico, who had an extreme deformity of his spine that caused him to be twisted in a painful and difficult way.  Without surgery, the young man’s eventual survival and quality of life were in question. The doctor chose this particular patient for the surgery because of the young .man’s incredible talent as a poet. 

The doctor and patient began an e-mail correspondence prior to the surgery that created a friendship between them, and they had  many cyberspace conversations about poetry and other interests they shared in common.  If I recall correctly, the young man had sent a good bit of his poetry to the surgeon, and the surgeon knew he had encountered someone who had a special gift.  In fact, after surgery, when the young man was just coming back to consciousness, he wrote a beautiful poem to the surgeon about his gratitude for the operation, which the surgeon read on the air.

The miracle the surgeon performed allowed this young man’s twisted body to straighten and it was amazing to see him standing so much taller than he had been when his spine was dramatically twisted to one side.  As he practiced walking, his mother cried and the surgeon smiled.  The young man’s internal organs would now have a chance to function normally and he would be assured of being able to breathe.  It was quite moving to experience the enormity and impact of the gift the surgeon had so generously offered.

At the end of the show, the surgeon told the interviewer that one of the main reasons he knew he absolutely had to help this particular person was the depth of the young man’s talent.  The surgeon said that even though he, the surgeon, would soon be forgotten after he was gone, this young man’s poetry and reputation would live for a thousand years.  It was deeply moving to experience the surgeon’s unshakable commitment to do whatever he could to help this young man.

As I reflected back on that show, and recalled the beauty of this young man’s words, I found myself thinking about the ways in which we are moved to reach out and help people at certain times in our lives.  Sometimes the urge to help is loud and clear and we can’t resist it even if we want to do so.  At other times, we may experience a subtle nudge to help someone that we can either overlook or choose to follow.  At other times, we find that we are living a life of constantly giving and responding to opportunities to help, and that we do so without much thought or much cost to ourselves.  At other times, giving asks a lot of us and we find that we feel moved to act anyway.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to become aware of your relationship with giving to others.  Notice where you give spontaneously and easily, and where you find it a challenge and would prefer not to give.  Of course, there are times when giving would be bad for you and for the other person, so it’s important to recognize those situations where you feel that giving would be a codependent or unhealthy response for you or the other person.  Some of us grew up having learned to rescue everyone around us and, for us, giving can be a double-edged sword.  So, it’s important to know your own history, and to know the difference between the old response of rescuing and a healthy, updated response of lending a hand when it’s appropriate to do so.  I’ve talked with people who give so much that there’s nothing left for them, and that ends up being a replay of old patterns, which isn’t where any of us want to go.

Even in the smallest ways, we have almost daily opportunities to practice compassion in action, toward ourselves and others, so I hope you’ll enjoy exploring this experiment with the constant companion of curiosity and a lightness of being that’s free of “shoulds”.