Why is it so hard to ask for help?

Somewhere along the way, we ended up doing everything ourselves.

Sprinkle in our perfectionism and control tendencies…and we find ourselves literally unable to ask for help.

For many of us, we grip to our independence with vigor.

Why can’t we ask for help?

We have gotten so used to doing it all single-handedly, that it feels wrong to stray.

It feels wrong to mess up the system we have created. It feels wrong to expect someone to do it just as we would.

And on some days, it feels wrong to “put our burden onto them.”

We overload ourselves with work, with our kids, with our house, our relationships…

We take such ownership of the way we do things that it would be more painful to break that habit than it would be loosen the reigns just a bit.

“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”

We have taken this semi-inspirational piece of advice and used it to hold ourselves to a standard of what is “right” and then convinced ourselves that anything other than what we think it looks like is wrong and completely unacceptable.

Because my husband doesn’t give the kids a bath like I would, doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it just means it’s different from how I would do it… and because my daughter doesn’t wash her hair exactly like I would, doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it just means it’s different…. (and probably not as thorough, just saying, but letting go is very important if we are going to grow here)…

Why would we rather do it all ourselves?

Our attachment to doing it our way has grown…

I see it in my daughter as she wants to lead a group, or do it her way when working on something with her brother.

Fast-forward 15-20 years and we are full grown adults, with piles and piles of additional responsibility put onto us as the years go by…. decisions, careers, relationships, marriage, mortgages, children, health and wealth…

We are all my 9-year-old….

Committed to “our way or the highway”…

…just as the stakes are high for her to let go of her opinion,

… the stakes are high for us because this is our livelihood…

… no more messing around, we have skin in the game and we  are not about to leave our destinies up to chance… or worse… failure at the hands of others…

We have lost our willingness to give up control.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the ability to rely on others.

We experienced disappointment.

We felt the abandonment of reliability and safety. We built a wall and we said, “I’m the only one I can trust. I’m the only one who has my back. I’m the only one who I can rely on.”

Also, somewhere along the way, we made a mistake. We experienced the loss of control. We harbored guilt and shame and disappointment.

We, in our honorable, sweet, loving minds, swore that we would never screw up again.

We’d take life by the horns and never let outside forces get the best of us again.

So, we cling to control.

We make things perfect.

We panic and stress when we sense for one second that we are loosing our grip on our system of gentle and soothing predictability.

We fall into a tailspin of worry and anxiety when it all becomes too much, too overwhelming, too much left to chance… our calculations were incorrect and our ship is nose diving with chaos at the wheel.

So, we don’t ask for help… it’s too risky…

…and we literally have to un-naturally talk ourselves into it.

Our willingness to receive

Receiving energy is feminine energy.

If it’s hard for you to ask and be willing to receive help, gifts or even a compliment, it’s time we build our feminine energy muscles.

We live in a masculine world. What’s happening in the world now, is a direct reflection of how we are transitioning to a more balanced place between the two.

We are meant to be the ying and yang, and somewhere along the way, we moved into a much more masculine dominated energy of living.

Force (an attribute of masculine energy) is being challenged.

We are becoming more allowing (an attribute of feminine energy).

In order to balance this energy, we must tap into our own feminine energy…. our maternal instincts, our allowing energy, our creativity, our inspiration, our willingness to receive…

This includes our willingness to receive abundance, health, wealth, love and truth.

So think of it this way…

By allowing ourselves to receive help, we are changing the energy, we are allowing it to move, to shift, to re-align, to balance.

As we are receiving and allowing the universe to hold us in a sacred space of uncertainty, we buzz in an energy of possibility and abundance.

We are contributing to the energy of the planet, as we contribute to the redistribution of energy in our own lives.

We can ask people in our lives for help if we normally don’t… and we can ask for God’s help if we normally don’t.

Sometimes I forget to ask my angels for help… I forget to pray and ask for assistance..

…I forget that I am not alone.

So I make it a point to remember when I notice I am forgetting.

 

Make it a point to allow whatever miracles are going to occur and whatever blessings you are meant to receive…. we must allow the beautiful things in our lives to happen… we must let go of expectations and rigidity… if we are ever going to live the lives we are destined to live… that we were born to live… that we are meant to help others live.

Have a beautiful week.