{"id":2218,"date":"2013-01-25T03:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T08:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/?p=2218"},"modified":"2013-01-25T19:12:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-26T00:12:11","slug":"sharing-what-we-have-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2013\/01\/sharing-what-we-have-in-common.html","title":{"rendered":"Sharing What We Have in Common"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong> It’s said that when you help others, you’re actually helping yourself. Can you explain why that’s true?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> We share an uncommon possibility as human beings, but the uncommon possibility that we share comes from the fact that we all share common heartaches. I don’t care where you go in the world, you’ll find men and women in one way or another whose dreams have been broken, who’ve lost something that they love or someone they love, who have a regret or a disappointment that they’re unable to shake free from, and as a rule, when we meet people with problems, the first thing that we tend to do is keep them from ourselves because we think: “I already have enough pain.”<\/p>\n

But when we can start to understand,in the truest sense of the word, that this man or this woman is in fact a celestial brother or sister \u2013 not in some religious or hokey sense but in the sense that their needs and our needs are the same needs — and if we can help another human being, if we can hear, if we can understand, if we can bring any light whatsoever into the heart or mind of another individual, we do so because we have found it first in ourselves. And the extent to which we are capable (if capable, and only if asked) of adding some light to the life of another human being, we have first found that light in ourselves, and we have shared a light that is in common. In that common sharing of a new understanding is an uncommon possibility that we have as human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: It’s said that when you help others, you’re actually helping yourself. Can you explain why that’s true? Answer: We share an uncommon possibility as human beings, but the uncommon possibility that we share comes from the fact that we all share common heartaches. I don’t care where you go in the world, you’ll find…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,73],"tags":[1511,1510,246,1509,1508],"class_list":["post-2218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faithspirituality","category-love-relationships","tag-celestial-brother","tag-common-heartaches","tag-helping-others","tag-sharing","tag-week-of-prayer-for-christian-unity"],"yoast_head":"\nSharing What We Have in Common - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2013\/01\/sharing-what-we-have-in-common.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sharing What We Have in Common - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: It’s said that when you help others, you’re actually helping yourself. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. 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