My last post talked about how many people (myself included) often feel like a burden when they ask for help or support. This has been a big challenge in my life. Then a friend of mine posed this question:
“What if by asking someone for help – by allowing them to support you – you are actually giving them a gift?”
This question blew me away. I’m pretty sure I stared at him with a painfully puzzled look on my face for several minutes. The concept of this seemed too radical to wrap my brain around. I think my brain is still wrestling with it.
This question, however much it has baffled my brain, hit me hard in the deeper, inner knowing part of myself. It was like I’d been struggling for years with a locked door and if I could just open it, I could free myself and I would be able to ask for and receive the support I desperately wanted. My friend’s question sprang the lock and opened that door.
This radical new look at asking for help and allowing someone to support me, freed me. Does that mean it suddenly became easy and I instantly knew how to ask for and receive support? Sadly, no. I was – am – still afraid of being a burden or needing too much. I still often fumble for words or hesitate uncertainly before I can spit out the request for support. I still feel the automatic urge to say “I’m fine” when someone offers support.
However, the idea for viewing my request or need as a gift to others created an opening in me – a crack in the shield of desperate self-sufficiency. It created space for me to at least consider the possibility of not having to do it all alone.
I don’t yet fully understand what that question means for me. I’m not sure I quite know what gift others might receive by my asking for support. My sense is that there is a deep truth to my friend’s question and that truth with unfold for me with time and experience. I do know something in me shifted and opened with this question.
So, I am wondering – what is your reaction to my friend’s question?
“What if by asking someone for help – by allowing them to support you – you are actually giving them a gift?”
I have used a similar line of reason myself so I totally understand it. For me, giving someone support, a shoulder to lean on, encouragement makes me feel good. Also when I encourage someone, I feel encouraged…when I am compassionate then I feel some of that compassion for myself and so on. Make sense? One of the hardest things is to allow other people to support us emotionally or physically…I guess because we think we are “weak” if we require help? Just my thoughts on this
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Connie!
Completely makes sense and I agree. I also think there is something deeper to this idea as well – I’m just not sure what! Allowing others to support me is definitely what challenges me most in my own healing – which is kinda funny because supporting others is what I do everyday! Just goes to show that our fears and thoughts don’t always make sense
(and are not “truth”!)