Asking for help and support without feeling shame
Being transparent and asking for help and support can feel shameful and create thoughts and emotions that are strong enough for us not to reach out for help and support. It often connects with our self-narratives and assumptions about what will happen if we do it.
We might think that we are unskilful, weak, self-centered, egoistic, disturbing the peace, or ruining the flow, or that our role is to be the one giving help and support to others. If we have difficulties asking for help and support, we can easily convince ourselves that it would be better to do things ourselves and not engage or disturb others.
(Learn more about how to support your personal power of your blind Enneagram type)
Reaching out for help and support is a deep psychological part of our being. Without collaboration, celebrating victories, and facing fears together, we would never have been able to build such sophisticated languages, communities, inventions, and lives as we have today.
When we don’t ask for help, we prevent others from connecting with us, we prevent the sharing of ideas and experiences, and we are co-responsible for staying at a plateau or learning and growing for our family, relationship, team, or community.
Also, sometimes we should not ask for help and support or give help directly when it is asked for. Sometimes, we need to find the way ourselves or invite others to find the way and solutions to a problem themselves.
Your weekly question
In a way, it is a balance between asking for and giving help and support, but if it is difficult for you to ask, here are some suggestions for practicing the art of asking for help and support.
- Write down a list of things you would like to ask for help and support with. Don’t show the list to anyone and don’t practice asking for help and support, but practice formulating it by writing it down. Remember that your request has to be precise and specific so others don’t need to guess about it.
- Find a practice partner with whom you can experiment with asking for help and support. Your practice partner should not actually do what you are asking for but only listen to and witness the verbalization of your request. Your practice partner will only give you feedback about how it feels for them to receive the request.
- Catch yourself asking for help and support indirectly. The practice is only to catch yourself doing it and then journal about it before going to bed for the night. The purpose of this practice is to direct your attention to when you need help and tend to ask indirectly rather than precisely and specifically.
Your weekly quote
Vulnerability and transparency are where all great relationships start and thrive.
Your weekly recommended reading
Listen to “Work On Yourself And Heal Generations by Safy Mousa”
Det drejer sig om kærlighed (Danish)
