The Control Series: Part 7: Why is it so hard asking for help?
Greetings Magnificent Souls to the Attract Health Build Wealth Blog where we have open and honest discussions about ourselves.
This is a place where we breakdown, breakaway, and breakthrough codependency allowing ourselves to attract health, build wealth and live a peaceful life.
We are tired of being sick and tired. We are tired, but we are not giving up. We KNOW that there is something magnificent inside of us.
Because we are fighting daily, hourly, and by the minute: fighting ourselves, our kids, our spouses, we have to do things differently.
We have to break the cycle. We don’t have a million chances. We have to be happy, NOW. We have to find a way. So how do we do that? How is that possible?
If you look around at what society is telling you, they’d tell you that what we’re doing is impossible.
Yet, it’s happening.
Every.
Single.
Day.
It’s happening through the practice and love that we call Awakening the Magnificent Soul.
We are all Magnificent Souls, and these are our stories of healing!
We are back on the last leg of the Control Series, Part 7 of a 10 part series all focused on control. Here’s a good one today, we are talking about asking for help. Do you have trouble asking for help? What does that mean from a codependency standpoint? And, does that have anything to do with control?
Don’t forget to let me know your thoughts about this episode, any feedback you have, or anything you’d like me to cover on future posts at epiphanyvault.com
Remember, you can share anonymously; it is a safe place and I would welcome the discussion.
Also, I wanted to make really cool announcement that I am excited about! If you follow me on any of the social webs, you probably will have seen that I am offering my SoulClass for FREE! I’m putting finishing touches on a new course called “How to Break Down, Break Away, and Through ANY Bad Relationship … withOUT Feeling Helpless, Afraid or Being Alone Forever”.
I want to make sure I don’t leave anything out, so will you let me know your biggest question about codependency?
It could be anything. You may think it’s silly, but I assure you it’s not. All you have to do is submit your question.
In exchange for your advice, I’ll give you FREE access to my SoulClass that’s happening on Tuesday, April 28th.
This course will sell for $297 soon, but you’ll get special access to experience the course free when you let me know your #1 question.
To submit your question, just go to the website and click on Free Live SoulClass, hurry up and get this in, though, as I am turning it off when spaces are full.
And now, on to a listener submission in the Epiphany Vault. This listener gave me permission to share. He or she wishes to remain anonymous, but I just want to say thank you for listening to the podcast and thank you for your entry.
Here’s what he/she wrote:
“I recently walked away from my marriage of 2 1/3 years with a narcissist whom I was friends with 8yrs prior to us dating. The relationship started off loving and like I was his dream come true. Then we had a car accident where I got hurt and his gilt (guilt) showed up as hate towards me and since then I wasn’t able to do anything right. When I lost sight of myself from pain and gaining weight I just never seemed enough and all he did would criticize me. We would go out to dinner and he wouldn’t talk to me, so I printed out questions to have topics to talk about. I thought he was supposed to be my mirror when I couldn’t see myself but it seemed like he wanted to tear me down.
When I asked him to leave and filed for divorce I started therapy to make sure I healed properly and I think (thank) you for helping me to see and connect how co-denpency can show up. Please know you’re helping someone.”
Thank you so much.
Dear listener, Magnificent Soul, it has been a few months since you submitted this question but I want you to know that I hear you and I understand the pain and courage that you have experienced.
Please know that you are the hero if your own life and you are doing the right and great things if you are thinking of you first.
Much love.
This makes me think of something that happened recently to me, someone asked me what my life mantra was and I’d never even thought about it before like I’ve felt a driving purpose, which is why I do this, but I had never thought of a mantra or a slogan for my life.
And, without thinking, this came out: I am worth it.
I am worth it.
And you, Magnificent Soul, or worth it too.
Just wanted to say that and thank you so much for listening, if you’d like to write back in, I would love to hear how you are faring and what questions are coming up as you are continuing your healing process.
So, today, BIG BIG BIG topic for me.
Does anyone else have trouble asking for help?
Maybe thinking that you can just do things on your own?
Or maybe not wanting to appear weak?
In some ways, I think, mildly, this is a human thing, at least nowadays. Remember, with codependency, we are talking about levels and scales being out of balance and yeah, I think we are raised to be independent beings.
We feel good when we do things on our own, and sometimes we feel good when we figure out our own way of doing things.
So, in some cases, I think that not asking for help is a natural thing.
But, here, we talk about extremes.
We talk about extremes because they throw us off balance.
Codependency is a break from yourself. It is your energy into someone else or something else. It is extreme.
I don’t know if I’m pulling at straws here, but I can definitely say that previously I had a REALLY tough time asking for help.
I would take on so many commitments, either wanting to stay busy or wanting to pick up someone else’s slack.
It would be hard for me to find any other solutions other than doing it on my own.
Sometimes, it was even hard to work with people because they didn’t seem to be doing things right or they didn’t have whatever it was I was focusing on as a high priority.
Come to think of it, this happened a lot when I was in my codependent relationship. Oftentimes, when I would ask my codependent other to help me with something or do something, I was pushed away or promised something but it never came to fruition.
So, I would just do it myself.
In fact, I think I got in this mode because I had to do this so often that it transferred to other situations, like at work.
I was used to being disappointed in others so I just shouldered the burden myself. If you’re interested more in that, I would recommend the recent post about taking other’s responsibilities and control.
Asking for help requires different emotional capacities that I guess I just didn’t have at the time.
Self-awareness
Patience
Boundaries
As I’m thinking about this, the list could go on and on. All of the emotional characteristics that I didn’t have that asking for help requires.
I know a lot of you are thinking, and I think it too. Asking for help makes me look weak or needy.
Let’s take a look at that real quick.
Why would that be so? Why would asking for help make me look weak or needy?
Could it be that I feel weak or needy because I feel that way in other areas of my life?
Maybe I have been made to feel crazy or out of sorts?
Maybe my insecurity is felt so deep that I do actually feel weak and needy at times?
Maybe my self-love muscle is not activated and I just don’t feel like it’s okay to be weak?
Maybe I have felt weak and needy my whole life?
Which, let me just say really quickly that while that feeling might be true, this is not your fault, likely it is just a state of being that you have been conditioned into.
That’s some deep and powerful stuff and I need to just sit with this for a minute.
Could it be that the outward manifestations of my self, my life, and my relationships be an actual mirror into my soul?
Could my insecurity with myself have been so great that I have felt like asking for help was a burden?
That I wasn’t even worth the help that people could provide?
I want to stop right here and say that this is just one of the top layers of the onion.
What I’ve learned through my codependency is that as I explored its depth, it definitely was not one dimensional.
But, if we’re looking at the top layer of asking for help, right now, I think it’s worth exploring why it would be so hard to do it.
In fact, if I had to do this practice on myself, if I continued to ask why and with each response, ask why again.
My resistance to asking for help was a baseline fear, it was a reflection of me not feeling worth myself, therefore, why would anyone care enough to actually help me.
The initial fear did stem from not feeling worth it from the get-go.
So, what does this have to do with control?
Have you ever heard the term martyr?
One of the definitions of “martyr" in Miriam Webster is a “great or constant sufferer.”
Raises hand!
Martyrdom and codependency have a unique relationship.
Sometimes, I don’t think we mean to, but we become martyrs.
We do everything.
We become sacrificial lambs in order to feel important, loved, or wanted.
Back to the theme, we don’t ask for help, because in a way, we want to be the hero and martyr for doing it all.
Much like sex, addictions, food, etc, martyrdom is like a big ole well that’s hard to fill and runs dry constantly.
So, my thought is that martyrdom is a controlling mechanism whereby we can shape our realities (more oftentimes unconsciously), however dysfunctional that reality may be.
That is our way of controlling and making sense of it.
This was a doozy today Magnificent Souls. Let’s be kind to ourselves as we work through this.
Much love,
💗Livin’ and Lovin💗
Lilli