Learning to Ask

 One of the things I learned as a child was not to ask for anything.

I became very good at it.

I learned to silence my needs before anyone else had the chance to dismiss them.

I learned to take care of other people while quietly ignoring myself.

Somewhere along the way, I came to believe that having needs was a burden.

So I carried them alone.

For most of my life, I prided myself on being independent.

I rarely asked for help.

If I could find a way to do it myself, I would.

Looking back, I don’t think it was independence as much as self-protection.

It felt safer not to need anyone.

These past few years have challenged that belief in ways I never expected.

Physical pain has humbled me.

I have had to ask for support.

I have had to ask for medical care.

I have had to ask for encouragement on days when I had very little strength of my own.

None of it has come easily.

Every request has asked me to loosen another old belief.

The belief that I should be able to do everything by myself.

The belief that my needs don’t matter.

The belief that asking for help somehow makes me weak.

I don’t believe those things the way I once did.

But I can still feel them.

Healing has taught me that receiving can be just as courageous as giving.

It takes vulnerability to let someone help carry what has become too heavy for one person alone.

I have made progress.

I can see it.

But I also know there is more work to do.

Perhaps that is all right.

Perhaps every time I ask for help, I am teaching the little girl inside me something she never learned as a child.

Your needs matter.

Your voice matters.

And you never again have to carry the weight of the world by yourself.