Comments on: Just Ask. An Ugly Update.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:16:42 +0000

I so appreciate this post Kelly – I’ve seen my equally ignored bathroom floor from this angle – although it was pre-kids – and I felt your push and pull there. Nothing like actually wanting your pillow next to the throne.

For some reason, I can understand not asking for help at that point. I can imagine your small team huddled around you – taking care of their captain. When you’re that yucky, you sort of have a one track mind anyway…

Can’t wait to dig into your files and see what else I can find – I really enjoy your writing… good luck to you.

By: wholly jeanne

wholly jeanne — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:15:26 +0000

oh, sugar. i wish i lived closer. we’d go to the mat every day as workout buddies strengthening our askus requestus muscle. we would.

By: Kelly Diels

Kelly Diels — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:14:25 +0000

@Lianne, this is a wonderful, meaningful story that doesn't deserve to be buried in the comments. Please cut and paste it immediately into your blog. It is so good, Lianne. You are a gentle force of reckoning.

By: Lianne

Lianne — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:57:24 +0000

My best friend has this problem. She will do anything for anyone but has trouble asking for help. This summer she started building her art studio- we had spent years talking about it and dreaming together about what it would look like, and even buying things at thrift stores that were going to “be prefect for your studio someday”. So here it was happening and she was doing it all herself, getting tendinitis from hammering, etc – “I know you’re busy”and “I can do it myself” she would say when I complained that she hadn’t called for help.

Finally she saw the light when I told her this story, which I heard from the phenomenal Jan Phillips:

Jan was in India in a small village where they were building a school. They were making cement for the walls and to do this they had a line of all the people from the village from the banks of the river up to the building site. The person at the river would take a small container, fill it with sand from the bank and then the container would be passed from person to person up the line.

Jan was in the line helping, and as they worked under the hot sun she noticed a small tractor and truck sitting idle not too far away. Jan was getting very hot and uncomfortable, so she said to the woman next to her, “This is crazy, why don’t we just go get that tractor and use it to fill up the truck with sand and the drive it up there? It’ll be so much easier and faster instead of all of us baking in the sun here.”

The woman looked at her and said, “You don’t understand, every person in this line wants to be here. When this school is done they want to be able to walk by and say- I helped build that. And they want to tell their children and grandchildren about the day they helped build the school. If we use the tractor and trailer, we will be robbing them of that joy.”

So whenever I dismiss asking for help, I think of how much I like to help others, and I realize that it is not my right to rob others of that joy.

(ps, I notice in my coaching practice a strong correlation between people who have trouble saying no and people who have trouble asking for help. Once you can trust yourself to say no, you can trust other people to say no if they need to and then it will get easier to ask.)

By: Kelly Diels

Kelly Diels — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:43:18 +0000

@ami | 40daystochange, I do! I really DO! I just left it in my purse. I think.

By: Kelly Diels

Kelly Diels — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:41:56 +0000

@Julianne Fuchs-Musgrave, I didn't know that - every recovery program is built on the ask for help premis? Really? That is significant. I'm going to mull on that. You just taught me something.

By: Kelly Diels

Kelly Diels — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:40:36 +0000

@Regina, there was a lot of me in it…after I posted this, I thought, umm maybe this is TMI. Or, maybe not

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:49:28 +0000

(a) I had food poisoning in March. Also from a turkey sandwich. NEVER. AGAIN. I threw up on the street outside Starbucks at rush our. Klassy.
(b) You are making me laugh even as I wipe tears of affection and empathy from my eyes
(c) I totally relate. Was at the ER alone (husband traveling) all night long with my newly diagnosed peanut allergic son in anaphylactic shock and his traumatized sister without ever thinking of calling my mother who lives half a mile away. She was pissed. I was wondering why it never occured to me.
(d) I look forward to learning askus requestus exercises from you.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:30:56 +0000

Ah yes. Asking for help. I believe that we’re all guilty of the superhero complex at some point or another. It’s an easy trap to fall into. I do it all the time.

Added note: your girls are amazing: strong, intelligent, and articulate. I hope that when I have babies that they turn out at least a little bit like yours. <3

By: Justin Matthews

Justin Matthews — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:40:07 +0000

My askus requestus muscle has serious atrophy too. Since my daughters kidney transplant I haven’t asked for much of anything from anyone. It was hard to ask for help through all of that.
Hope you are feeling better my wife had something similar last weekend but she is pregnant so it could just be that.
hope this weekend is a good one!
Justin