If You're Alive, You Need Help!

Yes indeed. If you’re alive, you need help. In fact, I believe that giving and receiving help is at the very heart of what it means to be human! We are truly designed to help each other. And this is a very good thing because to be our best, we must have help, and lots of it!

Yes - it takes a lot of help to realize our unique potential. To prove the point, take a moment to think of someone you consider very successful. Now take another few moments to ponder how much help they have likely had on their journey to success. Take Oprah for example ... now we are talking about having some help! To be able to do the things she most wants to do, she is literally surrounded with help. The Oprah show alone employs 10 Producers and over 250 staff!

Most of us, however, are much better at giving help than we are at asking for it or freely allowing others to help us (without objecting). It can feel nearly impossible for some of us! Somewhere along the line many of us learned to take great pride in our independence and so we often wait until things are really falling apart before we ask for help or accept it.

And there are other reasons we don’t ask. Maybe we don’t want to appear weak or “needy”. We might not want to feel indebted. We might think there is something wrong with us if we ask for help. And yet, that couldn’t be more of an illusion!

The truth is that asking for help is a sure sign of strength, wisdom, and sound judgment! If Oprah phoned you and said she could really use your help, I’m guessing you wouldn’t think “Oh my gosh, poor Oprah has really lost it. She’s not who I thought she was ... she’s so needy!” You’d be more likely to think “Wow – I obviously have something special to offer because Oprah wants my help!” Am I right?

According to the law of giving, refusing to ask for help is refusing someone the chance to be helpful. Let me say that again. Refusing to ask for help is refusing someone the chance to be helpful. In other words, refusing is blocking the natural flow of abundance and love. To give is to receive and to receive is to give. Think about this. This is big, big, big. If you are serious about boosting the flow of abundance in your life, you must not only give help, but you must let it in too.

Another great thing about asking for help is that it leads to deeper connections with others (and with our inner self and the Universe). Each time we ask, we’re demonstrating our faith in others to want to help when they can, our faith that others have gifts to offer, our faith in ourselves to be strong enough to ask, and our faith that the Universe has more than enough resources to provide all the help we need to live our very best lives!

A great spiritual teacher, Marianne Williamson, boils it all down to this ... she says we were born with one purpose (from ACIM). We were born to love and be loved. In other words, we were born to help and be helped - to reach out and to let others reach in. If you’re alive, you need help.

Now, if you’re already really great at asking for help, congratulations! Thanks for being a model for the rest of us! If, however, you could use some “help with help”, read on.

You could start by asking for help in common ways. Ask someone to pray or send out positive thoughts for you or someone you love, ask to be driven to an appointment, ask for help carrying packages, ask for help taking care of your kids or parents, and/or ask your teacher for an extension on an assignment. These are all great ways to let help in.

Yet when it comes to asking for help, I highly encourage you to think out of the box too. What could help look like? What are the possibilities? I like to share a personal example. A few years ago, during the winter I would drive to work in another city - about an hour’s drive each way. During a particularly snowy stretch of weather, I noticed that many of my colleagues would get a call from a loved one to see if they were okay driving home. At the time I was single and living alone. I really missed getting a call! And one night, just when I was getting into a pretty good pity party, my inner wisdom nudged me and said “ask for help!” So I did. I called a good friend and asked her if she would be willing to call me on nights when the weather made the roads slippery – to check in and tell me she was thinking of me. I was grateful for the idea and she was thrilled to be asked. It made our bond even tighter. And it sure felt good to get those messages from her!

What would thinking out of the box look like for you? If you were really brave, what would you ask for, and who would you ask? Some of us are fine with asking for help from therapists, coaches or family members but not friends, colleagues or strangers. We’ve developed rules we’re not even aware of! So I invite you to ponder what out of the box would look like for you.

This spring, take one small or one giant step to invite some fresh help into your life, to open up that flow of abundance and to dance with new possibilities. You deserve it. The people you ask deserve it. We all deserve it. Because, if you’re alive ...

Thanks, love and blessings,
Lee