Did you ever stop to wonder about the nature and real essence of benefits?

What are "benefits"?

What's beneficial?

What's the nature of this?

A lot of people don't understand what benefits are.

They think benefiting someone is okay when it's for the detriment, or for the sacrifice ,of someone else.

They think benefits can co-exist with self-sacrifice.

And that is just SO not true.

Benefits, first of all, happen and manifest when everybody benefits - when something is for the good and the best for all people involved in a situation.

So what are not benefits?

What are not beneficial situations?

When you sacrifice yourself to please someone when you do something you hate just so the other person won't feel hurt. This is not a beneficial situation is.

It is so not aligned with the truth.

And the interesting thing is - this situation isn't benefiting you, obviously, but it's not benefiting the other person either!

Why? Because

you are enabling that person to either be clueless and completely unaware of healthy boundaries.

If they're asking too much of you, or of other people, and you witness that kind of emotional abuse and don't really say anything, being complacent with it, 

no one benefits.

We usually have no idea how energy behaves when this kind of thing happens.

So we think being diplomatic is the most beneficial thing to do, but that's the exact opposite of a benefit.

It's a distortion.

It is an imbalance of energy.

We want to expand in life and do things that challenge our comfort zones, but doing something we hate to please someone else is not one of those things.

It's not what gets you out of your comfort zone.

On the contrary.

Maybe your comfort zone is pleasing.

And then... you're not defying your comfort zone.

You're reaffirming it.

So just pay close attention to this.

Start putting your focus in situations that involve "draining people" - people who will only do what they want (you can call them takers if you will).

This is not to judge others, but the reason there are takers in the world is that there are excessive givers who enable them.

The reason there are takers is that we are unaware of the real nature and essence of benefits.

Remember,

a benefit exists when everybody benefits.

It's for the good of everyone and no one gets hurt or drained in the process.

If someone is being wounded, or is doing something they hate, or something that's not aligned with their truth,

it isn't a benefit. It's something else. It's a pleasing situation.

It's an imbalanced situation disguised as a diplomatic situation.

And it's a comfort zone, detrimental to your well-being.

So don't hurt yourself in the process of interacting with takers.

Do not do something you hate just to please someone else.

There's a video about the Ahimsa principle in Yoga that I recorded way back, years ago, that you can check out in our YouTube channel too.

Another consequence of this distorted idea of benefiting, or sacrificing self for others, is total martyrdom. And

martyrdom, in the end, is an ego trip.

People who take pride in being martyrs have a sophisticated way of feeding their egos.

It's the image of a martyr. The distorted, unhealthy ego can create all kinds of sophisticated mechanisms and instruments to fool us into thinking we are doing this for the good of all involved,

but we're really being martyrs or pleasing other people, not standing up for ourselves and not honoring our truth.

So benefits are very aligned with the truth of life.

And sometimes

the truth of life is in a tug-of-war with love.

Don't get me wrong - love is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful energy. We need it. We cannot ever discard love.

But if you are 100% love and you don't balance that love with truth and wisdom, you're in trouble (that's the whole reason why offer A Course on Human Nature, by the way).

Truth does not take from love. It just brings a new energy that balances and coexists with it, which is wisdom coming from the higher mind- not just the beautiful spiritual heart, but also... the higher mind.

We're in trouble if we just love others and do not love ourselves enough.

If you don't balance love with wisdom, your life is not going to be that great.

The nature of benefits is that everybody benefits from a situation and you don't want to hurt yourself in the process.

You don't want to enable takers or clueless people into keeping themselves on that track, do you?

You want to wake them up a little bit and set healthy boundaries, which is such a powerful way to live your life in true connection and keep your focus on your purpose.

You can start setting healthy boundaries when you face these people (there's a whole chapter in my book Your Cardinal Connections and a video in my Youtube Channel explaining how you can start doing this ASAP).

Don't disrespect your truth.

Benefits are aligned with the truth, not just with love, and use healthy boundaries and discernment in order to create real, a true benefit for everybody involved - including the clueless takers.

Benefits are about growth and expansion as long as everybody benefits, and not just one person at the cost of someone else's well-being.

This is what I wanted to share with you today.

Thank you for being here! I'm very happy and honored with your presence in our YouTube channel, blog, Facebook community, and all social media.

Thanks for subscribing to our YouTube Channel, and have a beautiful day!

I will see you soon!

Much love,

Paola.