Asking for help and saying no

Asking for or accepting help is challenging for me. It usually is if you’ve had to raise yourself and grew up feeling like you were responsible for doing everything on your own. When you’ve been conditioned this way, you worry about being a bother, of friends saying “yes” out of obligation, or worst yet, when they go through a lot of trouble to help you when they really don’t have the capacity to do so. Or maybe you’re a people pleaser and have a hard time asking because you’re too busy managing everyone else’s feelings.​​​​​​​​

Anyone else know what I’m talking about?​​​​​​​​

Could you imagine what would shift if you knew that your friends would only say “yes” when they actually could help and had no problem saying “no” when they couldn’t without guilt or lengthy explanations as to why? ​​​​​​​​

When I need help and feel that resistance in my body to ask or receive, I try my best to do it because it models for our friends that asking is okay and it reminds me that saying ‘no’ isn’t my responsibility, it’s theirs. It also helps to say ‘no’ to my friends when I can’t so that they aren’t afraid to ask. ​​​​​​​​

I definitely have more work to do in this area and have far to go but shifting how I see things does help. ​​​​​​​​

Do you find it easy to ask for or accept help? ​​​​​​​​

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash