Category: Guilt

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Why is it so hard to ask for help?

I sat with my phone in hand, staring at the text message app with tears streaming down my face. My son was due in a couple of weeks, and all I needed to do was ask a friend to accompany me to a doctor’s appointment. I was scared to go alone, and I couldn’t type the words without bawling my eyes out.

Why on earth was it so hard to ask for help?

At the end of my pregnancy, things started getting complicated as he was still breech and the due date was creeping closer. My midwife was sending me to see an OB. My husband was out of town for work, and all my family members had work schedules they couldn’t adjust. I had to weigh out which fear was harder to swallow, going to this doctor’s appointment alone or asking for help.

In the end, I had three appointments where I had to ask for different friends to join me. Each time I cried through sending the request.

Since then, I’ve become acutely aware of how hard it is for me to ask for help.

It manifests in many ways. Piling all the tasks for work projects onto my list and having the hardest time asking other people to manage some of the weight.

Hearing the request of “let me know if you need anything,” and never letting anyone know when I need something.

Taking on more than I can handle, and then letting things slip through the cracks.

And so much more.

Two years ago, sitting with my phone in my hand while the tears fell, was a cross point of three fears. The fear of lack of control, the fear of rejection, and the fear of vulnerability.

I remember being most scared that they may say no. It’s as if I was attaching my self-worth to whether they saw my request as a priority in their lives. All three times I had to ask for a companion I started it with “do you have plans on ____.” That way if they were busy I could move on to the next option without having to hear no.

It became obvious to me that I like to be seen as strong and independent. I desperately wanted everything to be okay and for me to be able to rock these appointments solo like it was all no big deal. In asking, I had to admit to them that I was very scared. I had to admit I wasn’t okay. I had to admit I needed a support system to get through this experience.

The other fear was rooted in a lack of control. I had researched all the birth plan options. All the best providers and locations. All the Plan B’s. All of the “if this, then this” scenarios. But I didn’t map this one out. Having a breech baby and changing literally every detail of the birth plan the last couple weeks of the pregnancy wasn’t in the playbook. I felt vulnerable. I felt unprepared. I felt highly uncomfortable. Needing help just added to the vulnerable state I was in.

Since this experience, I have tried practicing asking for help more often. It’s still really hard for me, but at least now I don’t cry through the asks. Here are a few of the things I have learned:

  • Don’t be the friend that says “If you need anything let me know.” Most people don’t even know what they need and if they do, it’s so far out of their comfort zone to communicate it. It will be so hard for them to ask you to help with something, that they will probably stay silent. Just show up. Just do something.
  • The more you practice asking for help, the easier it becomes to recognize the old habits that aren’t serving you. Now when the overwhelm starts to hit, I have a much stronger radar for “I probably need to invite someone into this process to help me carry this load.”
  • Asking for help is a sign of strength. I believe one of the reasons it’s so challenging is it makes us feel weak to ask for help. In reality, it takes great courage.
  • Most people really like to help, they just don’t know how. Letting them know how you could use some help will empower them to feel wanted and needed. Being direct about our needs can actually be helpful to our friends and family.

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Don’t should on me

Yesterday at church I was talking to my priest and mentioned that I’ve been coming as much as I can, but I’m juggling a lot right now. It was obvious she could hear the guilt in my undertone, and she quickly reminded me that the world doesn’t revolve around how we spend our Sunday mornings, and she was delighted to see me whenever I could make it.

It was like she lifted a weight off my shoulders.

It flashed me back to a conversation several years ago. I was invited to a girls night out with a new friend, and I ended up sitting across from her bad ass entrepreneur friend. I was struggling with what to order because they didn’t have a single thing on the menu I wanted. She said to me, “Oh…I see what’s happening here. You’re still catching other people’s guilt.”

Huh?

She said that she stopped participating in the guilt game. There are people who walk around throwing guilt on others, and there are people who walk around catching guilt. Once she realized it was happening, she stopped participating. If there is not something on the menu I want, I don’t HAVE to order something. This concept was too much to wrap my mind around in the moment so I settled on a hot tea, deciding that passing on any food items was enough outside my comfort zone.

I’ve never seen this delightful human again, but she helped change me that night. She told me that when someone starts “shoulding” all over her (telling her what she “should” be doing) she just smiles and says “are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

Since then, there have been a couple times that I’ve felt extremely uncomfortable as someone tried to throw guilt on me, and I decided to test the idea. I smiled and said “are you trying to make me feel guilty right now?” Bam. Conversation ended. It freaking worked.

It’s been almost four years since that night, and I have come so far in managing my guilt. I realized not only did I frequently catch others’ guilt, but I was also regularly projecting onto others as well.

The most common occurrence I’ve noticed of this usually involves the word “should.” What I/you SHOULD be doing or SHOULD NOT be doing. Or maybe SHOULD HAVE done by now. Guilt is usually at the core of this phrase. When I hear the word “should” in my own thoughts I try to ask “according to who?” Often times it’s a result of the comparison game or an unfounded belief system.

A great replacement when having these thoughts or speaking these words is to exchange should with could. “I could have gone, but I chose not to because….” I love using could because it returns the power where it belongs. It gives me back my personal responsibility to do what’s best for my situation, and not what did or didn’t work for others. 

Obviously, I will be working on this for the rest of my life. I mean, just yesterday I was apparently concerned with the fact I thought the priest was thinking I “should” be showing up in the pew more often.

If you are still playing in the game of guilt throwing and catching, I hope you find your path to freedom as well. Just because it’s happening all around us, doesn’t mean we have to participate.

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Dear World…I Give Up

Dear World,

I give up. I give up trying to please you. You are absolutely impossible. You are full of contradictions and hypocrisies. I refuse to let you get under my skin anymore.

I refuse to be yelled at anymore for following my convictions.

I refuse to be belittled because I made a choice different than the one you wanted me to choose.

I will turn you off when you start making me feel like less of a woman, less of a mother, less of a human because I don’t see the world through your lens.

You see, as women, and especially mothers, we have been given so many mixed messages and contradictions that I cannot even keep up with them anymore.

Don’t let your kid have too much sugar, but also never deprive them of an opportunity to “just be a kid” so I will make you feel guilty every time you decline the free sugar being thrown in their face everywhere you go.

Here are 1,000,000 ways to lose the weight and get into shape immediately but also love yourself just as you are and you don’t need to listen to what society says about your body…except for that here’s all the health risks for not having an exercise and food plan that is on point…but YOLO so eat the tiramisu.

Post all the pics of your kids. We love them so much. It makes the world brighter. Don’t post any pics of your kids, you’re invading their privacy and subjecting them to the risk of being on a porn site.

You’re a horrible human if you don’t follow the CDC schedule for vaccinations for a baby but also, here’s all the potential side effects and risks that inherently come with injecting something foreign into your small child.

Do whatever it takes to get your child into the most affluent school you can afford, or the best public school that you can afford the real estate to get into the district. But oh, all the parents abandoning neighborhood schools are ruining the public education system and causing education inequality.

Never let your child out of your sight but don’t be a psychotic helicopter parent.

Here is every book, podcast, Pinterest board, magazine and documentary on how to organize your house and keep it clean, but also don’t be OCD and stressed out over a messy house.

Dear society, you told me to aim for the sky and dream of being whatever I wanted when I grew up and aspire to climb the highest mountains. Then you shamed me when I wanted to follow those aspirations and be a mother too. I was apparently supposed to sacrifice all of that to be a “good mom.” And you shamed my friends when they decided they were so dedicated to those dreams they didn’t want to be a wife or a mother. So which is it?

2020, I can’t with you anymore.

You want me to stand up for what is right except when it isn’t want you want to hear. Apparently that doesn’t apply when we have a difference of opinion on what “right” looks like, or more realistically, how to get there.

So I’ve decided…I dissent.

I will beat to my own drum. I will live a life that requires no one’s approval. I will begin each day in my quiet meditation with my God. I will discuss my decisions with my partner because my choices affect his life. But everyone else is optional.

I don’t care if my presence makes you feel uncomfortable.

I don’t care if what you thought was best for your kid is different than what I thought was best for mine.

I don’t care if my clothes choices aren’t in style right now. I literally could not care less what Instagram influencers are wearing in their feeds.

I don’t owe you any explanations.

To all my female friends, may you find the strength to mute the voices.

May you step into your greatness, without needing anyone’s approval.

May you find the joy and the peace that comes from showing up in this world with full authenticity.  

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson