ASK AND YOU SHALL...

I don't know if you are like me in this regard, but after the third sign I have to act. Some thing good might happen and I might try to dismiss it. So if a message is for me, sometimes it really has to be hammered home before I get the hint! Of course I'm a woman, so events that are connected in my brain might seem completely unrelated to someone else!

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I made a pact with myself at the start of the year, one I still break with inexplicable regularity, and that was to ACCEPT HELP. It can be so difficult when we feel we have things under control, to let someone help us. It feels indulgent to let someone carry something for you when you have two perfectly good arms, and we assume if we always say yes when people offer to help us they will eventually stop! But here's the thing; people who offer to help DO actually want to help, or at the very least they DON'T MIND doing the thing they've offered to do. 

You can tell yourself you don't need help, you've no RIGHT to the help they've offered. But if I, as a mother of three small children, turn down a stranger's offer to take my trolley back to the corral (when actually that would be a very helpful thing for them to do, and would help me get on the road faster!) then the NEXT time they see ANOTHER mother struggling they will think "Remember what happened last time?" And if it wasn't a positive or rewarding experience they won't bother to help someone else. By not accepting the offer, you DEPRIVE someone else of help!! Think of that!!

AND if you don't learn to accept help when you DON'T need it, people won't offer when you DO. 

However, what I've witnessed in the last couple of weeks is people actually ASKING for help. And in those moments, which I have just happened to be standing in the right spot to witness, I really saw the beautiful side of what the human animal is capable of. 

When I say "asking for help" I don't mean "Can you hold this for a sec?" type help, I mean actually asking for a favour. Asking for something that was against the normal rules. Asking for something that they had no RIGHT to ask.

Yet in every event the favour was granted.

I think that's because the person being asked was able to see the vulnerability of the person asking. They saw that that person KNEW they had no RIGHT to what they asked for, but they were asking anyway. And though they knew that it was against the rule, they saw that it was within their power to break the rule.

Have you ever asked anyone to break a rule for you? Since having children I seem to do it all the time, most commonly asking "Can we use your toilet?" I hate asking people to make an exception for me, I hate being late to an appointment because of "the children". I get grumpy when people offer to help me, because I assume they're ONLY offering because they think there's going to be a CRISIS if they don't!

But I do NEED help, I am not an island. And I think if you don't ask, you might find yourself surrounded by people who would like to be able to ease your burden, but are too overwhelmed to know where to start. 

So, if you've been putting off asking for something, try it. Ask for what you need and let people love you. Ever so humbly ask someone to break a rule for you.