The power of ;Help

The Dreaded Question; Can you help me?

How many times have you said to a friend or relative in need, -"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help,"
and when you didn't hear back, fail to follow-up?

Despite the fact that we’ve come a long way in our culture regarding the de-stigmatization of therapy, it still seems as if reaching out and asking for professional help is the last option for millions of people
Here's what I've learned about people who offer to help:

1. They're sincere in their offer: they mean it.

2. The responsibility falls on me, not on them, to follow-up.

3. The best way to take them up on their offer is to give them a specific task to do.

Numbers 1 and 2 are consistent with my experience when I was in a position to help others: I meant it but I rarely followed-up, sometimes because I got distracted and sometimes because I thought I might be bothering them.

As for number 3, friends and relatives aren't mind readers. We need to tell them what to do.

And, the more specific the request, the better. "Can you help with my laundry every other week?" is more likely to be successful as a request than, "Can you help with my laundry sometimes?"

Why would they think asking for help is a sign of weakness? And why is it so hard to ask in the first place?

While you were growing up what kind of messages did you get about asking for help?
Did your family place more value on “doing it yourself” or “letting others in?”
When you did attempt to reach out in childhood, how did the people in your life respond?

Many of us don't like to ask for help.

We may have been taught that it's a sign of weakness, so we cling to the notion, "I can do everything myself," even if it's no longer the case.

I suggest you practice asking for help

The person you've called or emailed is likely to be thrilled to finally be able to help.
If you strike out, muster the courage to try again. You may think you're placing a burden on the person you've contacted, yet if you did the very same thing for that person, you wouldn't consider it a burden...

so, go for it!

What are the situations in your life that would benefit from outside help and support?
Who are the people in your life who would be safe to reach out to for assistance?

The refusal to ask for help is a kind of arrogance,

; a blind insistence on doing it all by yourself no matter what, because along with it comes the message that no one’s help is worth the price in vulnerability it will cost you, that ultimately no one can console you or ease your pain, and no one is that strong if you yourself aren’t.
Such cussedness betrays a tremendous lack of faith in others, in the tensile strength of love and friendship, and in your own ability to survive embarrassment.

Resourceful people, however, gather their resources and join forces.

Among people, the refusal to seek help is not rugged individualism; it’s ragged individualism, and it’s a function of fear.
Not that there’s nothing to fear.
Asking for help requires not only the admission that you need help—which takes either some guts or enough desperation that you don’t care anymore what other people think—but also the willingness to allow those people some say in your personal affairs, which inevitably triggers the fear of falling into the hands of numbskulls, petty tyrants and control freaks.

They possess that elixir called perspective, one of the characteristics of which is distance.

The closer you are to a thing, that is, the more you're entangled in its intricacies and the less you truly see of it

This post have been delivered to you by my sponsors; Sony, Apple, Fila, Volvo, Marlboro & a crap load of unspecified coffee... ^^

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near her.
♡ 🐲ℒℴve 🐉♡

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