Filling the Vessel

We are all vessels serving others.  But you can't serve from an empty vessel.  When the body is just used to serve others, but is not acknowledged for itself, or given time to heal, or reflect, or grow, or regroup, or experience love, it becomes a machine in the middle of many machines, a cog in a meaningless wheel.  It becomes its job, or its relationship, or its perspective, or its value, and not itself.  There is a challenge to seeing oneself removed from all the things that touch us and depend on us.  And sometimes it is comforting to exist in relation to them.  It can feel good to be needed.  But only as long as our vessel has something to give, and only as long as we know how and exercise our ability to refill it.