Help-less

Do you find it easy to ask for help? I suspect not, if you're anything like me!

Not long ago, I went to an evening wedding celebration. As well as feeling happy for the couple, it was great to get dressed up, open my jewellery box and my make up bag and apply a bit of bling, powder and paint! There haven't been many opportunities for that over the past couple of years, have there?

So you can imagine my horror when, a few hours in (and stone cold sober, I promise!) I felt myself skidding across the overly polished floor in the hotel foyer, totally helpless to stop my ankle turning over and nose diving to the ground. Ouch!

I've never broken a bone. It wasn't on my bucket list. But there you go. The very end of my tibia (the long bone on the inside of the lower leg if I remember my school biology lessons correctly), cleanly sheared off in one sickening "crack". Luckily it's a "stable" injury requiring only time to mend. I'm in a boot rather than plaster in the hope I'll be able to drive (and work) sooner.

But here's the thing - for the past week I have been totally dependent on my family. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm used to being the helper, not the helped. So much so, I rarely ask for help even when (arguably!) perhaps I should. I'm out of the habit and asking for help really doesn't come naturally to me. Now I have no choice and what an eye opener it's been!

It's a lesson in humility, for sure. But it's also opened my eyes to the love and compassion there is around me that, for whatever reason, I have failed to see until now. I think I've been so busy coping with various life situations over the years and generally getting on with the day to day business of living, I've never stopped to consider who might be there for me if I needed help. The answer has been very humbling.

So, I've found a positive in this pretty negative experience, and I invite you to take a moment to pause and consider - who would you ask for help if you needed it? To whom would you gift that experience? Because I have been surprised by how pleased people seem to be to offer their time and help. And I've realised that, just as we sometimes get more pleasure from giving a present than receiving one, when you love someone, you enjoy helping them.

OK - let's get real. Maybe they're not exactly ENJOYING waiting on me hand and foot! But they're doing it, and in such a way that makes it easy for me to receive the help. Because I don't have any bloomin' choice 😁

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