Allowing Others the Gift of Helping You
Joy loops and putting away persistent pride
It used to be so flipping challenging for me to ask anyone for help. I’d rather walk deliberately through the fire barefoot, and put the wet rags on my feet myself. Hissing all along the way.
Seriously, even asking a tall person to grab rice for me from a tippy top shelf at the store. I’d rather climb the shelves like a mountain goat than ask for help. You get the idea, I despised asking for help.
But I love, love, love giving help so much! Go figure, eh. It’s one of my greatest joys. So in a sense, it is not always selfless service in helping others, because it gives me the warm fuzzies every single time.
Mind you, I give help, without any expectation to get any help back. Just the action of making someone else’s life a little bit lighter, that’s my joy. Many have done this for me, even when I was pushing, with full strength to not receive it.
I reach out my hand to offer help, if I have the space and grace to do so in that moment. I am the first to be there.
This is when I realized something, though. Getting onto an exit one day for the highway, I had a revelation. In not asking for help, or flat out denying it, as to not burden someone else, I was actively denying the…
