"Help!  




I need somebody.  Help! Not just anybody."  Man I am so grateful to the Beatles for their words and music!  In this song the Beatles talk about asking for help. The is a primary need and skill that starts as a baby that we need to continue to assess and use throughout our lifetime.  WITHOUT SHAME!  Our society likes to break people into 'good guys' and 'bad guys' and those that are 'OK' and those that aren't.  We all matter and we are all OK.  Some people have more resources than others and some have more skills and no one has it all.  When you run up against a situation that you don't have enough resources or skills then it is important to ask for help.  And, while this might seem obvious, its surprising how often I have to teach this to people in a given week.  Our society generally hails the 'helpers' and labels and judges the needy instead of providing resources and skills that help to give a 'hand up' to those who have discovered that they can't do things alone.  The unfortunate but true reality is that none of us can do it all alone.  We HAVE to learn to ask for help.  And everyone knows at some level that it is much harder to be the vulnerable one asking for help and hoping that you will get it and not be judged for needing it than it is to be the 'hero' that gets to go provide support.  However, as a society we perceive vulnerability as 'weakness' and supporting as 'strength'.  I would say that the message that needs to get out there is how courageous it is to ask for help.  That there is no shame in needing support.  However, you don't want to get stuck in needing support and not trusting yourself to learn and develop the skills either so it is a tricky balance.  We must learn to be 'interdependent' instead of co-dependent or doing it alone.  It's not either/or; it's both/and.  This seems to be a good time to thank my admin support person, Cheryl, because weekly she helps me with a set of skills that are important for running my business but will never be my forte.  And as I was leaving Best Buy from having been rescued by the Geek Squad......again!......I was grateful that they had the knowledge about my external hard drive failure that saved all of my client files!  Everyone needs to ask for help.  All the time.  We just don't think of it as asking for help.  When we take our car to the mechanic or borrow our neighbours snow blower.  We think that this is just a skill when we are young.  However, have you  been to a seniors residence lately?  I feel for the people that are having to learn to ask for help at that stage because they've 'done it alone' for so long.  None of us gets through life unscathed.  We will all experience adversity and we will all have the opportunity to give a hand up or help someone.  I hope that you can learn to both ask for help and offer support to others.  There are great benefits to being on the giving and the receiving end of those two skills.
https://youtu.be/2Q_ZzBGPdqE

Have a great day.  Namaste.

Lee