by Carrie

My dear friend Beth recently shared a post from Yung Pueblo with a poem around the idea that nobody’s coming to save you. Yet, alongside that stark truth, there was a deeper realization: countless people have, in fact, saved us—through the words of a song, a genuine smile, or the simple act of opening a door. These moments have been personal life vests thrown our way in unexpected ways or unexpected moments.

This idea reminds me of a story of my youth. Then, as a waitress in the membership club at the off track betting, I managed a huge section of high stakes gamblers. This job was different from most waitressing in the fact that sections had about 10 eight tops each. The 8 tops holding multiple parties - usually resulting in 35 or more separate checks running during the day. A day that lasted through the horse racing all around the country, about 7 hours, depending on what horse tracks were racing.

This waitressing job often felt overwhelming, at times every customer deciding after a big race finish that they must eat before the next starters gun! I would tell my tables, “The Lord helps those who help themselves. Pleading to pacify the customers, keeping them calm and kind as I failed at keeping their coffees refilled - pointing them towards the urn in the waitress station where they could fill their own cups.

The lord helps them that help themselves.

It is the same as saying nobody is coming to rescue you and it also says that when you rescue yourself , help comes ! I believe both messages hold truth. When we help ourselves—when we fulfill our soul’s needs rather than just our earthly desires—we tap into our heart’s true voice. We begin to drain the ego and uncover the parts of us that have been silenced by our societal pressures: the pressures of how we show up in our rolls as parents, how we show up in our gender roles, and how we show up in the countless other rolls influencing that ways we shape our lives.

As we learn to serve ourselves, we allow our unique nuances of self to be seen by the world. We can remove the veils of filling the rolls society expects and allow our true expression to be witnessed . The individual recipe of our unique being is divine, and it deserves to be expressed without shame. When we embrace our authenticity, we can smile from the inside out, open our hearts, and sing our own songs. Our voices can then travel out in a manor amplified by our clarity, becoming an unintentional shelter and safety net for others.

When we try to be universally palatable, we often diminish our true flavor. However, when we show up as our authentic selves, we inspire others with our truth. We become the lifeline for someone who needed to hear our exact words on a dark day. We give a voice to those who have been silent in the moments we feel too much. In this way, we contribute to the ecosystem of humanity, raising the vibrations of both ourselves and those we encounter.

Today, let’s reflect on how we can send out our own life vests and save ourselves. Thank you, Beth, and thank you to Yung Pueblo for the inspiration. May our ripples continue, and may they become the waves that lift someone from deep darkness into the light. May our helping of self be just what the other needs.

And so it is.