Going Above and Beyond: The Purpose of Being Helpful

A serendipitous meeting with a friend ignites a conversation about the expression “Going Above and Beyond” as a way of life. In this episode, we explore how to discover our life purpose by recognizing all the ways we wish to contribute to this world. Discover the keys to exceeding expectations, bringing joy, and embracing a spirit of helpfulness. 

Set your intuition in motion as you seek ways to follow your innate desire to be your uniquely helpful self. Being helpful brings clarity of purpose while sharing your gifts in both healing and wholesome ways.

Watch or listen to Hilary's TEDx talk now 

Transcript

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I was out to breakfast with a colleague the other day, and something came up as she was telling me a story. And right there, I said, Oh, I'm going to do an episode about this. I'm going to do a podcast episode about this. The story was that she was taking a phone call. She helps find resources for people in healthcare, overflowing resources in the form of people and their talents and their abilities and their willingness to be helpful. And so she got a phone call from a nurse. And the nurse had said, Can you help me find this resource? I have a patient who really, really, really would love to have a therapy pet come for a visit. And my friend and colleague said, Oh, I'm not sure about that. That's not the nothing I can easily get my hands on. And the nurse said, Okay, but can you try? Because I'm going to keep trying. To which point I inserted, Wow, I love this energy of going above and beyond. And she said, Yes, the nurse was going above and beyond, right? And I was like, I just think that this is the key to like breaking out of this limited thinking and problems and this energy of complaining and replacing it with uh curiosity. Let me say that again a different way. The energy of like scarce scarcity and understanding that we are limited and replacing it with this openness and ability to understand that we're unlimited. We just have to widen our view and look a little bit more around, you know, more, look, look more. The word that I'm trying to not say, but I'm gonna have to say it is it's actually the action of optimism. And I don't want optimism to go into that low vibration of like optimism makes me think of pessimism and all that stuff. It's actually optimism means the wide view, right? And so if you find yourself in a situation where you are asked a question, can't can you help with this? And you look at your resources right in front of you, you know, right in between the like the direct vision in front of you, not looking peripherally or turning your head, or you know, actually making that phone call or actually meditating on it or reflecting on it or asking around all those things. But if you don't just look right in front of you, you're not not telling the truth when you say, Nope, I don't have that. I don't have that. But the widening the view allows us to go above and beyond. And so while I'm at breakfast with my colleague, we drop into this energy of above and beyond. And we think about inspired by the nurse who went above and beyond to reach out to her as a resource. And then she immediately said, No, I don't have that resource. But that was within days or hours, and now we're sitting and we're like, but but let's widen the view. And um, I was able to share with her a name of somebody who does work with therapy dogs, and I don't know if she'd have the therapy dog that would be right for this particular situation, but you can be sure that people who work with therapy dogs know other people who work with other therapy dogs, and now we're setting off a chain of helpfulness, a chain of helpfulness. Um that organization, I think, is called Thank God for Dogs. What a great name. So beautiful. And um, yeah, and so the nurse um, by going above and beyond, created a conversation where we kind of named it as going above and beyond. And hopefully, from there, um, this sense of courage and going above and beyond and optimism becomes contagious simply because it's really fun to be and to go above and beyond. Um, so as I think about um the beauty of all of this, I want to continue to um reach deep into what does it mean to go above and beyond in your life? What does it mean to not go above and beyond? Well, first of all, let's just talk about what the opposite of above and beyond is, like below and stock, right? Because beyond means you're you're going beyond boundaries, you're going beyond um expectations. So I guess the opposite would be um underneath, you know, being underneath expectations, not meeting expectations. Or, this one sounds a little bit more familiar to me, exactly meeting expectations, which means like this is what I agreed to do. This is all I'm doing, I'm not doing a little bit, even a little bit more. Way back when um, after I'd been working at a job for a few weeks, um I'd started a job working in customer service in a healthcare environment. And um that was one of my jobs. And um, a few weeks into the job, somebody, knowing that I had a good sense of humor, thought it would be funny to tell me what everyone's calling me behind my back. And that, you know, I might want to adjust my role a little bit and adjust my my way of being because, you know, a lot of people have, you know, assigned this kind of like nickname to me. And I was like, what is it? I don't care. What is it? They're like, oh, they're calling you the overzealous one, the overzealous one. Like, is overzealous in here yet? Overzealous? And uh, and I was like immediately like, um, first of all, how is that a bad thing, right? Like, how is that actually a bad thing? I'm not sure. And so I was just like, okay, I gotta, I gotta think about this for a second. But what was a bad thing is it didn't seem like it was coming from a place of love or kindness. So I was able to kind of figure, you know, figure out like, okay, this is good. I'm getting more information about how I come across in the workplace of overzealous, and I'm going to sort of casually and easily ask, why is that so? So I um so I asked around, especially to the people that I trusted, and they're just like, you're not playing by the rules. The customer, the guest, the member, whatever we want to call them, comes in. And if they have a problem, that would be a them problem, not a you problem. You seem to like care deeply about solving problems. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that um that just happens to be like how I um get through my day. And yeah, it could actually be me being overzealous. And if I'm honest with myself, and I'm being honest with you guys as as um listeners as well, call it what you want. But I get bored when I don't have a lot to do, and I also get a dopamine hit, call it what you want when I'm helpful. Um, if you guys have met me, if you ever come to a session with me, it's a thing. I get a real like filled up with like good, happy hormones when I'm helping people. So do not kid yourself. They're correct, calling me out on it. It is totally selfish that I love like a difficult customer situation. Um, the hardest thing for me in any difficult customer situation is when I'm not allowed to address it. Does anyone relate to that? That feeling of like, no, you're not allowed to solve that, you're not allowed to address that. Hence maybe why I don't have a boss. I mean, I've got a million bosses or a thousand bosses because every client I have is a boss, and every speaking gig or teaching gig I go to, the administrations obviously I'm serving at their, you know, I'm I'm serving them. So they're my boss. And then all the students I've ever had are are my boss. But um I'm allowed to create my own job description. And um, I hope you are too, no matter what world you work in, where um, yeah, I do get like a little bit of a energy, energized good vibe when I go above and beyond. And I'm not saying that in any way like that's a good thing. I'm just saying find out what energizes you because um probably the overzealousness of me did feel overzealous. Um maybe I was shirking other responsibilities because I was getting hyper-focused on one problem. That actually is a problem. And if I was managing me, I would want to say that as well. But this was said in the spirit of um, a little bit in the spirit spirit of like, you know, groupthink and I don't want to call it bullying, but it wasn't, it wasn't like warm and fuzzy and we love this about you. It was more like warning, warning, you check yourself there, Hillary, because you're overzealous. Okay. So um what I'm really excited to talk about today, welcome to the Good Energy Healing Show. What I'm really excited to talk about today is how we find our ways that we go above and beyond to help us discover our life purpose. Over and over again, I've worked with people who have a purpose put in front of them, usually in the form of a serious health condition or a life event that has happened. Okay. And so one of the times that we're not really looking for life purpose is when we have an event that's kind of dictating how we have to dig deep and learn more about ourselves. However, when that event is resolved and when we are healed, and that will happen, it's not if we're healed, it is when we are healed. When that happens, we are absolutely all coming to the same question. And I've seen it over and over again. Now that I've grown through this, now that I've experienced this, now that my life is normalizing again, now that I'm feeling like whole again, whole and healed again, I have one big question, Hillary. What is it? Now what is my life purpose? I've never needed to know what my life purpose is more. What an excellent question to ask. And it's worthy of asking every day. And we can wonder over and over again, how do you find your life purpose? Is it a journey through um discovering your intuition and deepening your fluency with your own inner language, your own intuition? Absolutely, yes, it is. Um, because otherwise, people will be more than happy to put a life purpose on you. Um, my next door neighbors um found this amazing young man, and I don't actually know how this story goes, but it's just occurring to me that um way before he was 18 years old, he has a gift for gardening, right? And so um I could see myself saying, I don't have a gift for gardening, and you do have a gift for gardening. So I'm going to let you know that I think you should become a gardener, and I could put this life purpose on him, and I could even pay him to get reinforced and rewarded for that. But for all we know, this young man might have a gift for uh nature, and it could be the garden, but it also could be traveling to see beautiful places in the nature in nature all around. It could be that he has a deeper, deeper gift and an ancestral gift to be a farmer, right? And who knows what he would be farming? Who knows what his life purpose is? But can you see that right away at a young age, I've identified somebody who is good at a craft, and I could turn that craft into, you know, a partial career for him, because I could say, oh, I want that craft too. And then a bunch of people will tell him, okay, you're good at that craft, but only he gets to decide if that craft, that ability, is a clue to his life purpose or is his entire life purpose. I will tell you one thing. If you're wondering about the shortest question around how to find my life purpose, is just simply change that up a little bit and meditate and reflect on it and ask yourself when it's time for me to go above and beyond, how do I like to be helpful? How do I like to be helpful? And if you want to look at it in the reverse, because I've been talking and reflecting on this idea of seeing things from the shadow, which is sort of the edge of the cave, looking out or looking in, trying to find things in the dark, right? However, you want to think about it, people. Um the shadow of it is um how am I doing things that are limiting my ability to be helpful? What doesn't feel helpful to me? What are the things that I have no desire to be helpful with? Um, what are the things that are taking me down and maybe putting me into not a happy hormone, but more to more of a cortisol hit and stressing me out. So it's giving me energy, but it's not giving me helpful energy. There are just a lot of things that we do in our day that are above and beyond. Watch for the things that you do or you want to do or you wish you could do, or you here's the big one. You knew you wanted to do, and you told yourself, I'm not doing that because that's going above and beyond. I'm gonna stay inside an expectation. Just check yourself on that. At the very least, make a note that when the time is right, you're gonna want to go above and beyond. What are your stories where you make that extra, how do we put this? You when you make that extra effort. When you make that extra effort because it brings you joy, it brings you zeal, which means what you want to kind of pursue and care about. Um, it's got an element of passion, which means it's worth it for you to kind of take a deep breath and put a little extra energy into what are those things that help you go above and beyond. And then you won't be left with this um empty um vessel um that you want to have filled up when you ask yourself, what is my purpose? What is my purpose? And when you um allow yourself to lean into how you can be helpful, how you want to be helpful, you will find yourself finding your purpose, naming it, noticing it. Then you'll have a whole world of early adventuring thoughts like, is this gonna give me punishment? Is this gonna be rewarding? Is this worth it? Is this gonna be um accepted by my tribe? Is this gonna be rejected by my tribe? Is this right? Is this wrong? All of those fabulous questions are just part of the journey. Notice them, listen to them, answer them, ignore them, whatever you want to do. But at the end of the day, you want to make sure that when you're looking out from the quiet of your soul onto your life, you're able to say, Yeah, that's how I wanted to go above and beyond. That's how I wanted to be helpful. Um there's a really fun little um trick that I've noticed. Um you see it all the time in customer service. Have you ever sat on the phone for like a really long time, just waiting to talk to the bank or I don't know, getting a piece from the furniture of furniture that you ordered, whatever it might be. But you find yourself that like customer service has now become a blind um process to which you're just navigating your way through human interactions, sometimes robot interactions, but when you get to a human, you can feel that, and then you want to navigate your way through all this customer service. And um, and it also happens in real real time too. But what what what I've found is that there's this amazing expression, which is I don't know. And I say it's amazing because I don't know can be kind of the lowest vibration answer or the highest vibration answer, and there's only one thing that's gonna separate it. Does anybody have an idea as I'm saying this? I don't know or I don't know. Um, I'll give you a hint. The lower vibration one tends to sound like I have no idea about that. I have no idea about that. Can't help you. I have no idea about that. Whether or not they say out loud can't help you, but that's the energy of it, okay? So the lower vibration of I don't know is a stop, is a scarcity, is a stopping where it's at. The high vibration of I don't know, which is above and beyond so beautiful. I don't know, but I'm going to look into it. I'm going to find out. Of course, if you say that in a way that's not honest, which means I don't know, but I'm going to look into it, but I'm not going to look into it, then that's really low vibration. But I don't know, but I'm going to look into it, is the definition of above and beyond. And it's something that I'm saying, not just so that you notice it if you're at a checkout register or you're on hold with somebody. It's more of your conversation with yourself, with your with your deep, beautiful inner self. I don't know, but I'm going to look into it. And then suddenly you have a whole new relationship with I don't know. You have this amazing new relationship with I don't know. You'll say that's a good start. It's a great start. A wise person once told me that of all the um amazing instructions we have in this world from Eastern philosophy, western, northern, southern philosophy, all the collective philosophy of um human being, being human. Lat zoo's expression, be kind and be honest is a beautiful way to find your way into going above and beyond. Kindness means that you are patient, you are loving, you are curious, and honest means that you are simply opening your mind, widening your perspective. And so optimism means that you're widening your perspective, seeking and believing that there is an answer you just haven't looked or seeked enough. Okay. Zealous to have zeal actually means to seek. So going back to that little story, has anyone ever accused you of being overzealous about something? Um, the tribe will tell you what your life purpose is. The tribe will will challenge you on what your life purpose is, whatever your tribe is, whether it's family tribe or neighborhood tribe or work tribe, um, they will tell you what your life purpose is because they will notice that you're doing something that is a little bit more seeking than what they desire. And you can be sure that what you're seeking and what your life purpose is is going to be very different or only slightly different, but it's gonna be uniquely you. It's gonna be different from other people. And so if there's any fear of everybody all being alike, um, which is what can happen with tribal thinking, it's it's it's very much part of being human, is that we we need to be able to walk together. We're nomadic in our original or origins. Um and so we do need to keep in step together, right? Um, but we also need to have our gifts that we that we bring. Um, and all those gifts are going to be uniquely different, uniquely you. Okay, so try to think about ways that. Maybe early on, with people who are not aware of this beautiful aspect of our desire to be helpful leads us to how do we want to be helpful? Leads us to, I notice I want to be helpful this way, leads us to be unique, which could feel like we're leaving the tribe. So the tribe will be like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I've noticed you're doing that. And then you go, yes, but I'm dinging you back, and saying the fact that I do want to do that that way, that could very well be a clue to my life purpose. And now I want to pursue and bring that fully up to life. There is a lower consciousness that's always been around. Um, but we're all communicating, so we are comparing notes more than usual. We're in the peak. I don't know if it's the peak, but it's we're definitely well into the communication revolution happening right now. And so probably for the first time in human history, um, the most people are talking to each other and sharing with each other the most. I mean, like, I mean, we people talk in terms of millions, millions of people like it's like an ordinary thing, like, oh, a million people watch that um message that somebody put out on social media, or a million people uh watch that speech, or a million, how many million people watch the Super Bowl? Like um, we are just all talking to each other now and talking about what we're talking about, you know, it's amazing. And in that, um, we're all able to easily identify, oh, this is very, very different. I'm this is making me very different than what everyone else is doing. Does it feel helpful? Does it feel whole? And does it feel healing? Well, if it brings you joy, you might be onto something with a life purpose. And do not do not underestimate how you wrapping yourself into your life purpose, doing what is purposely yours, do not underestimate how that has impact, as it gives other people permission to enjoy their own life purpose. And also don't underestimate what you think might be small and might not be impactful or might not be fruitful. Um, if you are true to yourself in the spirit of the seed that I've talked about and written about, if you're true to yourself in the spirit of the seed, that will grow. That will be fruitful in ways that you can't imagine. It might connect you to a lot of other seeds and create an amazing garden or forest, you know. It also might uh just grow into a great big tree. Um you will find your way um when you notice times that you have been allowed to be helpful. And you might really find your way if you've if you find yourself in places where you're not allowed to be helpful, where your helpfulness is squashed, or you get um called into the office for being overly something. Uh I've seen it in my practice um with client stories um frequently. They have something else that they want to do, and they think, get this, everybody, you think that your vocation is your life purpose. I don't even know what my upcoming life purpose is. I know that I love the arts, and so my vocation right now is to be an energy healer and to teach, and I and I love it. And inside of that, there's some artistry to that, and that's a non-negotiable for me. I absolutely feel like I'm helping myself and helping others in a very, very small way, which is by writing. And for those of you who have written a book, a book is actually a very humbling thing. Um, there's a handful of you out there, and I know some of you, you can write books, and it it's immediately fruitful and it's fulfilling. God bless you. You're actually giving us um permission for us to follow our own purpose. But I don't know. I can feel on the on the outer horizon that I'd more than feel that there are other things I'm going to write. Um, there are other things I want to write about, there are other stories I want to tell. They might be fiction. I'm all about nonfiction because look at me, I just like love gathering true stories. It's my thing. Um I might be that I'm moving more into speaking. Um, I love speaking here with the podcast. Um, and I obviously love one-on-one and I love teaching, but I've recently become been called to literally a bigger stage. And so I might be doing more of that and I'll get to decide: does this feel helpful? Is this um while I'm doing this, is there something more I want to do above and beyond? Hint, hint, the answer is yes, because I can feel it. I can feel that I'm being called to go above and beyond instead of below expectations. One of my uh listeners out there, uh, we were having a conversation once, and I heard him say that when he works with people, he only works with people who live in a uh state of mind of exceeding expectations. So not meeting expectations, exceeding expectations. Does anyone relate to that? That's a really good way to go through life. And I don't mean exceeding expectations in terms of pushing yourself past the point of exhaustion or burnout. Have you guys heard the latest detail that came in about burnout? It turns out burnout is not the burning out of lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, lack of self-care. I get that. I mean, we've got to take care of that. But there are plenty of people who um get plenty of sleep, maybe too much sleep, right? And they're feeling burnt out, um, that um get perfectly good nutrition, but they feel burnt out. The data has come in and it shows that the one factor that um most impacts, whether or not you feel burnt out or not, got this, is that if you're working against your moral code, if you're doing something where you feel like you have to be stopped to not uh care in the way that you want to care. So let's go back to this original conversation that's easy to keep confidential because I have no idea who the nurse was making a phone call on behalf of her patient. She could easily have had a supervisor that says, What are you doing? Um, and she could say, I'm doing it on my break or I'm doing it on my off hours. She could easily have had that conversation. And she could have a supervisor, because I've seen it over and over again different times, that will say, Yeah, that's not your job, that's not your role, don't do that, don't, don't, that's not your expectation. And truth be told, um, that's really not that's you have to, you honestly have to receive that correction, you have to receive that discipline, you have to even maybe feel the yucky, shamey feedback of it. And then you get to decide like, what am I going to be? You know, how how am I going to do this? Because I cannot not live with myself. I cannot live with myself if I morally feel like I need to be helpful. We will be morally pulled to be helpful. And if anything stops us from being helpful, which is harm, doing harm when you're getting called to do something that's helpful, and then you say, not me, not my job, not my turn, and I'm not gonna pass it on and delegate it to anybody, the buck stops here and it's just gonna stop here. When you'd not do that, that actually causes burnout. So quietly, quietly, quietly doing loving acts of things that are honest and kind. Um, you decide what is out there. You're gonna find your purpose and it's gonna be amazing. Don't look at other people's gifts and saying, oh, I'm gonna take their gift and turn it into their purpose. Encourage people to say, listen to yourself, follow your gifts, follow your purpose, and I will model that because I'm gonna listen to myself and I'm gonna follow my gifts and follow my purpose. Why am I sharing all this today? Well, because there's a lot of noise out there of people thinking that worrying is their purpose, or just thinking and stressing about things makes them feel purposeful. That if something gives them high cortisol and they're suffering alone, then they must be like onto something. That is the way the brain keeps us in a survival mode and keeps us functioning. So, you know, let's tip our hat and give credit to that, but not thriving, not thriving, not thriving at all. So take some time to ask yourself, because you're gonna get an answer. You'll get an answer every time. Once you identify that there's something you're stressed about or worried about, take some time, reflect and meditate and say, but how can I be helpful? How can I be helpful? How can I go beyond and above? And you will find some beautiful insights to this age-old question that we all ask: what is our purpose? What is our purpose? And don't worry about being judged on what your purpose is. When you work from the spirit of being loving loving and kind, it doesn't matter what the greater tribe or the politic of it is going to be. It actually doesn't matter. By the way, politic means many people. It means to be working with the with the greater group mindset. And that's okay. Um, but one of the most beautiful ways to make uh impact is to be helpful. And you have your own unique, beautiful version of being helpful. Expectations put on you that stop you from being helpful, stop you from following your helpful self is going to cause some type of burnout. And burnout is no small thing because cellular burnout leads to dis-ease. Okay. So do the thing. Do the thing. Ask yourself, what does it mean for me to go above and beyond? And do it in a little way every day. Find a way. Um, I am trying and have been trying as preparing for this episode to find like a great example. Um, but I'm having trouble kind of pinning anything down. And when my mind is very clear like that, it is a form of almost spirit guidance, which says, don't give away all the ways that I'm going above and beyond, even for the purpose of my own episode. Instead, it's for you listeners to just like notice, clear your thoughts, and ask yourself, How have I been recently helpful? And then listen for the answer. And then ask yourself again, in what ways do I wish that I could be set free to go above and beyond? And then listen for the answer. I'm Hilary Crowley, and thank you for tuning in to this episode about being above and beyond. I hope the episode continues in your heart and your mind as you ask that question and you go through your day and you're and you find a way to absolutely discover that your purpose has been waiting for you all along. So seek, be full of zeal, be full of wonder, um, set yourself free and uh let go of any meeting of expectations and go above and beyond in your day, with or without your job description, and you're gonna have an amazing adventure, life's adventure to find your gifts. Thank you so much for tuning in. Um please um subscribe. I'd appreciate that. And um you can find me on hilarycrowley.com. Hillarycrowley.com. You have to spell my name with one L. So it's H-I-L-A-R-Y-C-R-O-W L E Y. And if you're driving down the road with a buddy, uh click on you can find out more about me. Um I'm gonna be continuing to do presentations and teaching in person because we can, and I love that deeply and dearly. And my book is out there, uh, The Power of Energy Medicine. I wrote that with my heart and soul. I'm very proud of it, and it's a wonderful resource for anybody. Uh recently, people have told me that they've read it, you know, exactly where I expected them to be reading it, in a moment where they're not feeling well, they're sick, or they're on vacation and they just have a time to really reflect. And it was written to be an easy read. Um, but easy doesn't mean that it's not powerful. So enjoy my book. Uh thank you for enjoying this podcast. Um, I will um think about what the next uh episode is going to be, but I hope you all have an absolutely beautiful day.