Asking for help for big stuff has always been difficult for me. I’m not sure when, but at some point in my life, I got the idea that it was easier to try to figure something out on my own than to ask someone who knew the answer. Yet, even though I knew that struggling through on my own wasn’t working for me, I still avoided asking for assistance. I’m not sure what changed in my mind to cause me to take that first step. But, I do know one thing: I should have done it a lot sooner.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I admitted I was wrong and I can’t do it on my own. Since I admitted that to myself, my life has been changing. From the outside it may look like things are the same, but internally, a lot of things have shifted. I’m still scared about the future, but on the other hand, I’m sure now that I’m not alone in facing it. For those who also fear asking for help in changing their lives, I offer you these lessons from my experience:
1. Others want to help, they just need to know exactly how.
For months I’ve been resisting finding a new doctor. I had a wonderful doctor who four years ago moved across the country. Since she moved, I’ve visited three other doctors, trying to find someone I had a real rapport with. My experiences with these other three were so bad, I downright dreaded looking again. However, finally, I took the step to make the appointment with a fourth. When I was waiting for the nurse to call me from the waiting room to meet the doctor, I was feeling ill – chills, upset stomach, and the beginnings of a headache. The nurse took my blood pressure and it was high – for the first time ever. I was clearly nervous to a fault.
Thankfully, this doctor was wonderful as well. She said exactly what I needed to hear and helped put me at ease. But perhaps the best thing about the experience is that I didn’t do it alone. My husband was there with me.
This was actually good for two reasons; first he was the support I desperately needed, and second, he heard from the doctor exactly what I need to do from here. For the first time, I felt like I could truly explain what I needed, not only from the doctor, but in terms of support from my husband. Taking the chance and reaching out paid off in a big way when I realized that I’d been shutting him out in ways I wasn’t even aware of, and all because I hadn’t been able to express what I really needed.
2. The pain of not asking for help can be it’s own form of reaching “rock bottom.”
After this experience at the doctor yesterday, I started reading Your Money or Your Life which outlines a plan for examining what money is and how you relate to it. Although I had only read a little of the book, I realized I had a lot of thinking and adjusting to do.
When I couldn’t sleep last night, I ended up doing a lot of that thinking. I thought about my job, my current finances, and my current state of health. And the more I thought, the more I realized exactly how my life got to where it is. It hit home, in a very painful way, that I am responsible for my health, for my finances, and for my life. All the excuses and all the denials don’t erase the fact that if I had made different choices, I would have a different life.
For me, this line of thinking led to very dark thoughts. The kind of thoughts that made me feel very, very alone and out of options. Thankfully, I realized I do have options, and I’m not alone. I wish I could change the past, and that I had complete control of the future, but that’s not possible. All I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward.
Once I had cried myself out for the night and gotten a big hug (or 2) from my husband, I crawled back into bed. As I drifted off to sleep, the phrase “rock bottom” flitted through my mind. It wasn’t the “rock bottom” I expected, there were no drugs, alchol or other substances involved. It was simply reaching the end of my emotional rope. Thankfully, I’ve already started to climb back up.
3. Stepping back and looking at your life may reveal that the number of profound changes you need to make isn’t as high as you thought.
Today, my husband and I sat down and did a full evaluation of our lives, from health to finances to our dreams for the future. As we did this exercise, it became clear to me that while we need to change a lot of approaches we have, the big part had already been done. We admitted the need and took responsibility for figuring out how.
Every area of our life was examined, giving both of us a much better view of how it all fits together. Where last night I felt that everything needed to be changed, and even for a moment wished I could wipe the slate clean and start over, today was much more rational. We identified a few key areas that need the most work. By changing our approach in these areas, we realized the rest of the little things we need to do would fall into place. Therefore, it’s not a matter of changing everything like I initially envisioned. Rather, it’s a matter of step by step work on a few big things.
Changing your life is never easy; if it was easy, there wouldn’t be hundreds of books, websites, etc. on how to do it. And a big part of what makes change so hard is fear: fear of the unknown and fear of asking for help. While I’m still overcoming the fear of the unknown, I’ve managed to overcome a lot of my fear of asking for help. And I’ve discovered that asking for help has benefits that make it worthwhile.
Wow. Things are certainly moving rapidly for you.
Hope you can find ways to enjoy the ride.
Some thing are moving rapidly for me, now that I’m loosening my hold on the old, nonfunctioning mode of thinking. However, other things are not moving nearly rapidly enough. All the planning and thought shifting in the world doesn’t bring the job offers to my door and the money into the bank account. And, since I haven’t achieved financial independence yet, I still need income.
I wouldn’t say the depths of despair are the parts I like of this ride through life change, but I most certainly do like the deepening of my marriage and the increased connection to my true self.