Why is it so hard to ask for help?

A young man working with me 1-1 recently shared how hard it is for him to ask for help. He wondered whether that difficulty was connected to his relationship with masculinity: the idea that men are supposed to be able to do things on their own.

As we chatted, we realized that women feel this way, too.

We all feel like we’re supposed to do it on our own.

It’s remarkable to notice what actually happens when we ask for help. After our session, he took on the task of asking for help in situations where having someone else there could make things easier, even if their help wasn’t entirely necessary, or where asking for help could get something done much more quickly than doing it alone.

For example, he cleared a space outside his house for a small garden. Instead of going to the store to buy plants, he asked his neighbors. Within an hour, he had a garden full of new plants. Along the way, he also had the chance to enjoy connecting with his neighbors.

A simple act of asking for a favor, for support, for help, is an expression of our own vulnerability.

It’s also an invitation, an opportunity for connection and relationship.

We need these connections. And in this time of so much isolation, it’s easy to feel that we don’t have anyone to lean on, that we don’t have anyone to ask for help. You might be surprised by what you discover when you simply go ahead and ask.

Often, asking for help reveals how much support is actually available around you.

This support is available not only from other people but also from observing and leaning into the teachings of the natural world. You might also be surprised by what you discover when you recognize the presence of this support and rest into it.

The wisdom of how to grow something strong lives in the observation of a tree. A tree sends its roots deep into the earth to absorb water and minerals, anchoring itself firmly in the face of a storm so that it can grow tall and spread its branches. This is a teaching about how to build something from the ground up. We even use that expression in everyday conversation when we talk about creating something new.

When we take a moment to pay attention, we can recognize that these teachings, which live in the natural world, also live within us.

But we have to be willing to listen. We have to be willing to listen to the messages in our bodies and our relationships with the animate world, and to notice the movement of the cycles of life.

Noticing that movement, attuning ourselves to the cycles of life, is one way we can support the regulation of our nervous systems.

The act of asking for help allows us to remember that we are woven into the web of relationships that holds us together, and into the natural movement of the cycles of life that shape those relationships.

with gratitude to the relationships that sustain us.