Why and How Is It Good For You To Ask for Help Sometimes?
You ask for help because nobody can do everything alone.
I’m incredibly self-sufficient. I’ve been this way since my early 20s. Asking for help doesn’t come easily to me.
This is due to any number of reasons, ranging from control issues, fear of appearing weak, and fear of rejection, to having my self-respect lost both to myself and others. And of course, there have been outside lessons borne of human nature and lack of reliability in some people.
Self-care, self-awareness, and self-help are all about you, the individual. The answers, thus, will be found within rather than without.
Because these answers are found within, nobody but you can find and discern them. You, and you alone, can have a mindful, conscious awareness of these.
But the process doesn’t need to be completely solo. And sometimes, you’ll reach points where you must ask for help to get where you desire to be.
Sometimes it’s a very good thing to ask for help.
Health, wellness, and wellbeing issues
I know my body rather well. As such, I’m in tune with large aspects of my health, wellness, and wellbeing.
For this reason, I do at least some exercise every day, meditate daily, and have taken up journaling again.
Sometime in the very recent past, an old injury, which hasn’t bothered me in over 25 years, came back. Tennis elbow – or, in my case, since I don’t play tennis – fencer’s elbow. Tendonitis.
Then, for added fun, around the same time, something happened to my left hand, and it felt like I’d dislocated my ring finger. Discomfort ensued.
While I could have run with my guesses about this, and listened to my body – I decided professional help was the answer. Now, there’s a diagnosis. I was right about the elbow. The finger – apparently, I have developed a trigger finger. But, rather than suffer, steps have been taken to heal it.
Getting help was the answer.
There have been a lot of things happening in my life that are impacting my overall mental, emotional, and spiritual health. That, in turn, is impacting my physical health – and will worsen, if I don’t deal with it.
For the sake of my mental, emotional, and spiritual health, I write blogs. As mentioned above, I’ve also been striving to get back into meditation regularly, and have begun daily journaling again. And they certainly help.
But I also recognize that it’s not enough. I need more help, and that specifically means therapy.
After months of hemming and hawing about getting back to therapy, I’ve taken the steps to get a therapist and begin again. Because without stabler (or less frenetic/chaotic) mental, emotional, and spiritual health, everything is a greater challenge in walking any given paths than it needs to be.
Ask for help when you get stuck
Nobody lives in a vacuum.
Even the most introverted people in the world still require minimal human interaction. We are all social creatures. Thus, you and I need to make connections from time to time.
While you’re the only one on any given life path of your choosing – and you walk it your own way – you still interact with others. Sometimes this is direct, other times indirect. But you still exist on this planet with 8 billion other human beings.
No matter who you are or what you do – sometimes, you will get stuck along the way. Why? Because nobody can or does know everything.
I’m not sure a legitimate measure of all the information on every topic humankind has any awareness or knowledge of exists. The sum total of all current human knowledge is probably an incredibly huge number followed by lots and lots of digits. Ergo – nobody can know everything about virtually anything.
Sure, there are subject-matter experts in the world. But even the best of these acknowledges shortcomings and continued growth.
Hence, there will be times when you’ll need to ask for help. Particularly when you get stuck – which you will, because everyone gets stuck from time to time. And there is nothing wrong with that.
You don’t and can’t know everything. Recognizing and acknowledging this is healthy. Because from there – when you get stuck – you can ask for help.
It’s good to ask for help. Why? Because it acknowledges your limitations and opens you to learning more and opening you to greater potential and possibilities.
How does mindfulness impact this?
Mindfulness is conscious awareness. That can only exist in the only real time that is – the here and now.
Thus, when consciously aware – mindful – you can know the genuine answers to what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, and your intentions.
That leads to recognizing where and how you might need help.
Asking for help without mindful thought can get you unnecessary or wrong answers. It can also put you in a position to be more lost – because without being mindful, the questions you’re asking might not be what you need answers to and for.
That’s not to say you can’t ask random questions or questions just because. Random trivia is gleaned in that way sometimes. But if you’re trying to work out a path or life direction – the answer is what you seek, which requires the correct question.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, part of the story is the tremendously lengthy quest for the answer to the question of life, the Universe, and everything. The answer – 42 – makes no sense. But that’s because the proper question wasn’t asked.
Mindfulness is the way to ask questions to get to the answer you’re seeking.
Ask for help to connect
When it comes to publishing, marketing, and selling my sci-fi, there is a whole lot that I don’t know. And if I don’t ask for help – learning it will be a challenge.
Just like working on my own internal problems and challenges – something like this, connected to my art and my career path, can help me. If I ask for help I show how open I am to learning, growing, and gaining more knowledge.
And from there – I will give back as much as I get. Because I believe that knowledge shared is for the greater good of all.
That’s why and how it’s good to ask for help sometimes. Because you don’t have all the answers. And though your path belongs to you and you alone, others might have knowledge from their paths that can benefit you, too.
But until you ask – you’ll never know.
Are you willing to ask for help sometimes to better your life experience?
This is the five hundred and eighty-sixth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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