accepting help

Ashley from After Nine to Five and i are hosting the Living the Right Life series to share how we are making changes in our lives to bring true happiness and joy. we also are opening it up to all of you to link up your own thoughts and feelings of how you are living the right life for you! 

i don’t like to ask for help, especially for what i think are “little things.”
maybe it’s a pride thing…
but to me, if i ask for help, it means that i’m not good enough to do it on my own.
i’m not adequate.
i’m not capable.
i’m not enough.
but others are more than enough so that’s why they can help me when i can’t help myself.
and honestly it’s a terrible terrible way to think i have learned.

before i wrote my post on friday, i went to a church activity and was able to talk to some of my friends.
much to my own surprise, when one of my friends asked me how i was doing i just started crying.
it was the end to a very long week and i was so exhausted from basically being home alone with Elijah all week and i just couldn’t stop the tears from coming.
[did i ever mention that Adam is at school 12 hours a day? he leaves right when Elijah wakes up and then is home for an hour or two before Elijah has to go to sleep. which might explain a little more why i don’t do anything until the weekends cause i finally have time to myself!]

after my embarrassing breakdown in front of basically my whole Relief Society, and then my terribly long & pitiful post on friday, the most amazing thing happened: all of my friends stepped up and offered to help in any possible way they could.
i had emails, text messages, comments {from all of you!}, people stopping by, all of these wonderful women offering to watch Elijah anytime i wanted or take me out for cupcakes or telling me to call them if i ever need to talk and even bringing me a sandwich and cookies for lunch [which was amazing cause i hardly have time to eat i get so tired!].
just this outpouring of love from my friends, many of who have children of their own, thinking of me and doing anything they could to help me feel better.

i was so incredibly grateful, i couldn’t get over how i got to be blessed with so many great friends.
and then, i started to feel so embarrassed…
when Adam came home i started crying {again} because i felt so so dumb and pathetic for complaining on my blog and crying at Relief Society and making it sound like my life was horrible.
i felt so stupid that i could barely handle one small child when my friends with children of their own could manage to take care of their own children and families PLUS have time to be able to take care of my crazy boy.
i felt so inadequate that i couldn’t handle my own life.
they didn’t need help.
they didn’t have to have people watch their kids during the day because they were going crazy.
they seemed like they had it all perfectly under control.
and i didn’t. how dumb was i?

but then after being gently reprimanded my a dear friend, i realized that it wasn’t stupid to ask for help, it was stupid to not ask for help.
i was hurting myself by comparing my situation to others when i didn’t even know everyone’s story.
maybe they didn’t have to ask for help because their husbands were actually home earlier in the day than Adam, or they had family close by that helped every so often, or quite simply their child was just easier than Elijah.

i was refusing to let others help me because of how it made me look.
i was refusing to be happy because i thought it was wrong to let others into my life.
i was refusing to be blessed because i didn’t think i was worthy of it.
and i was also not allowing others to be blessed for their service because of my own pride.

so i’ve been trying to humble myself and realize i can’t do it on my own.
and that it’s completely normal! NO ONE can do it on their own!

i’ve been trying to let people help me more.
i’ve been trying to take up people’s offers when they say they don’t mind taking Elijah for an hour {because they truly don’t mind!}
and i’ve been trying to put Elijah’s own best interests at heart as well.
wouldn’t he be most happy playing with his friends than stuck in a car or store with a grumpy, stressed out mom?
uh… yes he would.
so why would i deny all of us involved of the happiness that service brings?

this is honestly a hard lesson for me to learn.
i never thought it would be so hard to ask for help until i really needed it.
and now i see i have a lot to work on!

you are all probably a lot better at me in this regard,
but hopefully i’m not completely alone in this thought process.
so i hope that we can all encourage each other to reach out to others when we need help especially if it’s already being offered. take them up on their offers!
it’s not weak to do so!

and seriously thank you again to everyone who has helped me in some way whether it be comments or emails or phone calls or text messages or Subway sandwiches!
i couldn’t ask for better friends!
:)