Accepting Help

"To receive is such a beautiful experience"

Hi Friend!

Many of us have felt so isolated that we've forgotten we're not alone. We've come to believe that we must handle everything on our own. Some of us have been abandoned or gone without love. Others have grown accustomed to people not being there for them. We've all faced struggles and learned tough lessons.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of people who care about you. If we take the chance to ask for help, it's available.

We all long for caring gestures and thoughtful offers that show someone understands our needs. However, many of us feel uncomfortable receiving, even though it can benefit us and be what we desire. This discomfort can challenge us.

Too often, we've been taught that asking for less is better. Feeling like a burden or imposition can lead us to avoid accepting things in general. As a result, our conflicted responses to receiving can often leave us confused.

Here is a Guide to Accepting Help From Others

1. Allow yourself to be vulnerable

Accepting help requires you to be vulnerable and give up control and some people do not like that. They believe that accepting help puts them in an inferior position. They feel as though they lack something and require someone else to fulfill what they are lack of

Being weak is strong and being strong is weak

However, vulnerability isn’t something to be deemed as a weakness. Being vulnerable requires strength. It requires you to surrender to what is given. Sometimes, people put on a hard shell as a defensive mechanism thinking it will protect them from getting hurt. But the truth is their protective shells are blocking themselves from receiving love from others.

As a receiver, you have no control over what you receive. Good or bad. Something you want or something you do not want. You don’t get to determine what you get. And that makes most very uncomfortable.

But that’s where the true test of strength is. Everyone can do well when they have control over things. But in reality, we don’t have as much control over external events as we think we have. And there is where your true strength comes into play. Are you able to accept help from others, let go of your ego and be vulnerable for a moment?

2. Examine your beliefs on receiving

When someone gives you love or kindness, accept their compliments, and help graciously. If you find yourself uncomfortable to receive their help, examine your beliefs on receiving:

• What’s stopping you from accepting help from others?

• Do you feel that you don’t deserve to receive their compliment or love? Why do you feel that way?

Most of the time, there’s some inner work to be done on yourself. For example, recognizing your own self-worth and being conscious of how your past influences your beliefs on receiving:

• Perhaps your parents weren’t good receivers too

• Perhaps you are told by your parents that it’s better to give than receive

• Perhaps someone accuses you of being greedy when you are young.

• Perhaps your parents are always suspicious or doubtful of people’s nice gestures.

• Or perhaps your parents never praised you, so you believe you are not good enough to receive anything.

Whatever the case is, realize that when someone decides to give you something, it means in their mind, they have already decided that you deserve to be the receiver of the gift. So don’t question whether you deserve it or not.

3. Give others an opportunity to give.

Receiving is not only about you. It’s also about the giver. Imagine a well-intention, loving person giving you something and you reject their gifts. How would that make them feel? Unappreciated? Awkward? Embarrassed?

If you don’t receive well, you stop the flow of love.

When you receive, you give other people an opportunity to give. I have observed people who are always fighting to be the ones to give. They want to be the one who pays for dinner. They want to be the one giving advice. But when it’s time for them to receive, they turned down other people’s acts of kindness.

We can’t always be the one giving. I know how good it feels to give and be the one that others depend on. But it takes two to give and receive. If you keep giving and not receiving, eventually people who couldn’t reach you would find others to give. You are not letting the energy flow through you. It’s like a dead-end. The flow of love stops when it reaches you.

4. Pay it forward instead of returning it

Sometimes when people aren’t comfortable with receiving, they would return the love, the compliment, or the gifts in another form immediately. For example, when someone gives them a gift, they feel obliged to find something to give back.

When it’s your time to receive, it’s important for you to embrace the moment. Don’t be in a hurry to give back to the other person. You are just deflecting their love back to them. It’s like: “I can’t receive your love. Here have it back.” Then what you give them, would not be authentic.

There’s no need to return the love

It’s better to wait until the next time when it’s appropriate and give the person something they need. Then, it wouldn’t be like returning the favor or love. You would be like the origin of energy and love.

And when you find it uncomfortable to receive, instead of giving back, how about paying it forward? Pass the love energy to someone new.

5. Practice accepting help everywhere

You don’t have to wait for someone to give you help to practice receiving. Whenever you need help, just ask for it. Don’t worry about being rejected. Give others an opportunity to help you. If they aren’t the one, move on to the next.

And you don’t need another person to practice receiving

There are already a lot of gifts from the universe which you might be oblivious to. The sunlight that keeps you warm, the trees that keep you cool and give you shade, the roof over your head, the air that you breathe in, the electricity, and so on. Without any person giving you anything, you can still receive the beauty of the world by being aware of it.

It could also be your love for yourself or something you receive from paying. For example, you are grateful for the bus driver for helping you get to your destination, the hairdresser who cuts your hair, or when you give yourself a break when you are tired.

Start a -GRADITUDE journal and write down what you are grateful for. That would make you a better receiver.

Receiving is part of life. It has nothing to do with worthiness.

You are a dependent when you are a kid and when you are old, you will return to the state of being a dependent again. Instead of resisting help from others, learn to surrender. Learn to accept help now.

Do you struggle asking for help?

XO Jenna