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Michelle Gottlieb Psy.D., MFT, LPCC
Individual, Couple and Family Therapy
Resolving issues from your past that block your future

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Time to Ask For Help

June 2013

Do you find it difficult ask for help? I know I do. And yet because of the surgery that I just had, I had to ask for help a lot. One of the things that I found is that people were very willing to give. In fact, they would jump at the chance.

And when I would reflect on why we may be reluctant to ask, I realized I did the same for people that I cared about. When someone is hurting, whether that is emotional or physical, we want to help. But we often don’t know how. When I find there is something I can do for a friend or a loved one, it makes me feel good to help them. And I’m guessing, that for those people that I’ve asked for help that they feel the same way.

So think about that the next time that you need help and you are reluctant to ask for it, you’re actually doing the people around you a favor. They want to help and don’t know how. So let’s reflect on why we may be reluctant to ask for help.

Perhaps it is we are scared that people will say no. So look around the people in your life. Can you trust them to help you when you need it? If the answer is no then you need to think about two more things: why you surround yourself with people you can trust or why you think you can’t trust them? Oftentimes people surprise us with being more helpful than we give them credit for. You need to do an experiment to see if people are really more available for you then you thought. If it’s true that they are not available to help you, and go back to the first question. What you surround yourself with people available for you?

Is it because you don’t feel that you are worthy of people taking care of you? That’s a really important issue. We need to have enough self-esteem so that we allow people to help us. If that’s a struggle for you, you might want to reach out for professional help.

The bottom line is that we need to give help and get help. It makes the world a better place.

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