Stroke Day 22 – Asking For Help

February 10, 2017 Friday

Card reading for the day:

You have much to offer.

What you are. Who you are, is a gift for the world. You have much to offer, though you have felt more like a beggar lately, you have much to offer the world and do no good playing small.

Explore and embrace what you have to offer and receive with grace that which the Universe offers you. It is not well with your soul to give and not receive. It is not well with your soul to receive and not give.

The card today shows a balance, your bowl has plenty to share, and room to receive more. This is where you need to be. A good balance. Do not play the Martyr, the Beggar or the Orphan. Neither play the God/dess, the Ruler nor the Hero. While aspects of these are seen as positive, losing oneself wholly into one of them is too extreme…without balance.

Be humble without being self-deprecating. Be empowered without being overbearing.

See, how she is open and offering to the world, not hiding her gift and not forcing it upon anyone either.

One of the hardest things for me to learn to do has been to ask for help. Years ago I started by accepting help when offered. It was difficult at first; my first inclination always to politely refuse. However, each time I accepted the help I felt an opening occur. Specifically an opening up. Resistance builds walls and creates blockages. (If we are not accepting help from people then we are not accepting help from the Universe, which blocks our abundance, but that’s another topic.)

Then I moved on to actually asking for help instead of just accepting it when it was offered. Holy crap! I think I broke out in hives the very first time, but it worked. I received the help I needed! I wish I could say it felt amazing, but it didn’t. I had all these scripts still going around in my head about needing help meaning I was weak and a failure. The scripts were part of my toxic operating system. My empowered operating system said that everything is based on ebb and flow, give and take, and that anything other than that was a power struggle not a relationship. If I offer help I need to be able to request it as well. That is balance!

Chris’ stroke has been a new lesson in asking and accepting help. It’s hard to ask for something you don’t know you need. It’s hard to ask for something when you need everything. It’s hard to ask for something more than once. It’s hard to ask for something when you know others are in need, too. It’s hard to ask for something more. It’s hard to ask for help when it seems all you have been doing is asking for help.

It’s also hard to ask for help when you’ve asked and it doesn’t come.

I had to get serious about really looking at my life and where my energy has been allocated. Of all the people I have helped along the way in their times of crisis, it was very few who came to my aide. That was sobering to say the least. People I had helped, regardless of what was going on in my life, could not find it within themselves to do the same for me. Even simple things like phone calls or messages seemed to be too much.

The unexpected gift was that people I did not expect to come to my aide, not only came but came full force! THAT feeling was indescribable.

So, what did I learn? I learned that maybe I need to allocate my own resources a bit differently. That just because someone asks for my help does not mean I need to put resources towards that if it is not truly in my best interest to do so. That sometimes not helping someone can be the greatest help of all. Sometimes you have to realize that you have surrounded yourself with takers and that is a power dynamic not a symbiotic relationship. My life is about enriching people’s lives so that they empower themselves, so I need to take a real hard look at whether what I do is empowering or disempowering.

Second and third, I was reminded that people can surprise you and the Universe always provides. While it has been a struggle these past weeks, we have not gone without eating. We haven’t missed a payment on the house. We haven’t missed any payment of bills, in fact.

Its been close. REAL close. But it hasn’t happened.

Going back to the card reading today.

The card today shows a balance, your bowl has plenty to share, and room to receive more. This is where you need to be. A good balance. Do not play the Martyr, the Beggar or the Orphan. Neither play the God/dess, the Ruler nor the Hero.

To remain in balance. That no matter what, my bowl has room to receive and plenty to share!