Do You Need a Helping Hand?

Have you ever found yourself in the position of needing to get some support? Simply needing some help. Maybe you fell and were injured and later you recognized that you were hurt more than you realized. You can feel vulnerable, especially depending on what your life experience has been, feeling vulnerable may not feel safe. 

Maybe you’ve had to work out life on your own. As a kid you had to learn the hard way, by yourself, because there wasn’t anyone to ask. Maybe when you asked you were shut down, or shamed. Some of us have had the experience that when we ask for help, or guidance, we get dismissed or scolded. Told that we should have been listening. Or, we should have done what someone else told us to do. If we made a mistake and ask for help, we are belittled or put down. Through that experience we learn, ‘Don’t ask, just figure it out, somehow, on your own.’ 

Another experience we could have in light of that is believing that something is wrong with us. That we are a misfit and there is not a place for us in the world, so we work extra hard to be productive. To prove we are worthy of acceptance and inclusion. We want to belong. That is one of the most heartfelt needs that we have as a human, is to belong in community. 

Well, it’s possible to trust that you really are worthy of inclusion and belonging. It is safe to reach out and ask to receive support when you need it. We all need a helping hand now and then. Being able to build that bridge of trust from the inside out, and to trust your own inner knowing, when we can wake up at that level in our heart space, we can then be empowered to set authentic limits in conversations with others when they don’t get us. When they shift left and are not relational with us any longer. We can have self-compassion for our experience. We can have self-acceptance as we are that supports us to continue to pay that forward to others in our lives. 

So, what might that look like? For me, I slow it way down, I want to get heart-centered and drop down into my body’s wisdom by tuning into the sensations and noticing what it’s like in the moment. Noticing where my breath is and allowing my sensations to inform me what the emotion is that is arising. When shame comes up, and I’m thinking there is something wrong with me, I want to be really gentle with myself. 

Sometimes we can use cards, there are a lot of different feelings and needs cards that you can find online but having something to help you to have a language to describe what you are feeling can be really supportive. Then I want to slow it down even further to acknowledge the deeper needs that are alive underneath those emotions. Because the beauty of the need is where, when we can rest there, then things come back into congruence. Then the energy is productive, even if it was feeling uncomfortable, it will become productive.