Help me, Help you , Help me

I love helping people.  It's in my nature and it's who I am.  I believe that a good part of it comes from my famly and how I was raised.  My parents helped people all the time.  Not a grand gesture or large monetary gift, but small things that they may not even remember or think was out of the ordinary, but we saw it and learned that the greatest joy in life is to help other people.

Need a ride somewhere? Call me.  Hungry? Come over and I will feed you? Sad? Upset? Call me or let's get together and talk.  I would probably give someone my last $5 if they needed it more than I did and not think twice about it.

I want to help people for a living.  I am in school to do just that.  I am involved in organizations that help people.  And when I say help people I mean all people in all circumstances. It doesn't matter the situation.  I want to help women who are in abusive relationships, children who are at-risk, the homeless, those who cannot help themselves.  My problem is I want to do it all because everyone deserves the same love and same chances and same resources.

But ask for help for myself?  Ha Ha you silly fool. Never. I hate asking for help.  I am an independent, strong, able-bodied woman who can do things for herself.  I will figure it out.

That works only so long before shit breaks down and you are sitting on your floor bawling your eyes out because you don't know what to do.  NEWSFLASH: You can't do it alone.

It has taken me years to get to the point where I will accept help or even ask for it when I need it. A turning point for me was when I heard Brene Brown for the first time.  To hear someone take the feelings you have, the ones you keep buried deep down, the ones that never see the light of day can rip you open so fast and wide you don't know what hit you.  To hear someone vocalize your exact thoughts or reasoning and then make sense of them....it's unnerving.  It's also enlightening.

The way she explains helping and being afraid to ask for it has made me rethink my own mentality on the subject.  I have slowly come around to accepting the fact that asking for help does not in fact, make me weak, pathetic or sad.  Vulnerable, yes.  Vulnerability is not a bad thing to me anymore.

I have started asking for and accepting help because if I won't take it, then how can I save the world?