Because I love myself, I ask for help.

I used to never ask for help. It’s taken me a long time to become comfortable with asking for help. Even now, with all the progress I have made it still feels like a new language. I fumble with the verbs and the terms. Asking for help still feels like that moment when someone is talking to you, and their spit lands on your arm. Your entire body recoils; and a bright light is flashed on that tiny spit bubble… with a glaring voice in your head screaming “THAT IS SPIT. THAT IS SOMEONE ELSE’S SALIVA ON YOUR ARM”.

That’s how asking for help can sometimes feel like.

I used to be a founding member of the “I don’t need help” club. Our motto was “I got it. No thank you, I got it”. I thought I was stronger for not asking for help, that by being a strong and independent person — I don’t need shit from anyone. No “Damsel in distress” bullshit for me! No, I crawled through the mud, fought the dragons myself, kissed my own self out of a deep slumber… you get the jest.

Only recently have I learned that love comes in many forms, shapes, and languages. And help is actually one of them; it is an extension of love. I now know that accepting help is accepting love. Same goes for giving help, giving help is giving love.

Funnily enough, I am known to be a helpful person. I genuinely enjoy helping others, giving back is something that is second nature to me. However! The way and the why of helping has changed for me.

I used to help endlessly without asking for it back because my intention to help was rooted in a need to be approved, to be accepted. It felt like by helping I earned my place in that person’s life. To the old me, the only way I earned my place is if I helped you somehow. And that by simply being me, wasn’t enough.

When helping someone, I would feel a rush of validation, like I did my part. I did good, I made up for something. But when it was time to receive, where I needed help — my throat shut, I became reclusive, feeling weak for even considering the thought. Sound familiar?

In writing this, it is an act of love. To be outspoken of this, is not a fish for pity. I am writing this as I wish I had told this to myself years ago, and if someone reading this can recognize a part of themselves in the words and resonate with this, and learn to ask for help — well then, I’m blessed. I write this in the hopes that I reach someone out there who like me didn’t learn to feel that they are enough. I write this for those who are preoccupied with externalizing love to make up for the love that can only come from within.

Letting people help you is a natural act of love! Help, empathy, acts of service, and kindness are the fundamentals of humanity. And it goes both ways, are you and I not a part of humanity too?

I spent so many years refusing help throughout my relationships, whether personal or professional. I struggled to ask for help from my friends, partners, teachers, family members, colleagues etc. Thanks to a lot of healing, shadow work, therapy and real tough conversations, I found out that this is rooted in a few more things:

1. A lack of self-love (aka low self-esteem).

2. Inability to trust — we think no one will help, or they will help but ask for something in return.

3. Codepency — placing ourselves in fulfilling roles. Fulfilling for others not ourselves. We are conditioned on giving, as we feel responsible for other peoples emotions. So we do whatever we can to be chosen by that person.

4. Inability to relinquish control — to ask for help is to let someone do something for you instead of you. That means letting the person do it in their own way and you dont have that control anymore. This is difficult if we are in a constant need of control.

5. Self neglet — we put others first always, we perform or do for love. We place our worth in others.

I had to rewire my brain, change the “I don’t need help” mindset, and get to know myself again. Learn how to love myself and how to give back only because I want too and only when my cup is full. I now give back and help because I know I am so blessed, I have so much. I found so much healing, so much betterness that I want others to feel the same way. Helping others now feels to me as though I’m trying the best ice cream in the whole world — it’s the right texture, right amount of crunch and cream ratio and all I want to do is share it with you. So, you can taste this bliss and share the good experience, resulting in happiness.

Happiness is not selfish. It’s an itchy multiplier, like help.

Asking for help becomes easier the more your practice it, especially when you see that the same way you feel good when you help, others feel good when they help YOU! Your friends, neighbors, random strangers, family etc. are all human and they are benefited from helping you too. Yes, there are jerks out there who will only help you to get something in return but in the bigger picture who cares? You would probably end up helping them back in a way or another, a kindness for a kindness. Should they be ingenuine with the help, then you can always use this interaction to weed out your circle, elevate it so you can keep the good ones… more on this in another piece ;)

Asking for help is also you recognizing that there is something you need and getting it will replenish you, it will refill your cup. Replenishing your cup only means that your cup will overflow and from that you can give easily without resentment or effort.

Asking for help is couragoeus. It takes strength and confidence to say “hey, I don’t know how to do this, can you help me?” — there is power in that vulnerability. Remember: Ask and you shall receive.

Sometimes, the people around you are waiting for ways to help you. They jump at the opportunity because it makes them feel good. So, if anything, think of your asking for help as a favor to the other person and give them the chance to feel good. It is possible that you may ask for help and the person can’t help you, but don’t despair! If they can’t help you, they probably will be able to connect you to someone who can.

Asking for help builds a bond or a new bridge of community; it creates a positive exchange between one and another.

If you are a “ask for help” noob and you feel taken aback by asking for help directly from someone, start with good old social media. Use your social platform to ask for some kind of help and see the answers flood in.

Today, love yourself a little bit more and ask for help. Start small, if you can’t reach for something, ask someone taller to get it. Need a car battery restart? ask someone on the road or call a friend. Don’t know how to use a program, ask for help. Can’t carry your groceries alone? Ask for help.

Ask for help and see what happens.