GIVE AND TAKE
I’ve always found it incredibly difficult to ask for help. It’s something that took me a while to even realise about myself because I avoided it so much. I think it’s something a lot of people struggle with, and it comes from different places for everyone, but once I started examining it, I discovered why it’s been a challenge for me.
As some of you may know, I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer when I was 11, and my reaction to this traumatic event was to catapult into a people pleaser. I had always been a bit of a spitfire when I young, not really caring if what I had to say rocked the boat (that’s right, little boy from my kindergarten class, there is NO such thing as girl colours or boy colours and ANY colour can be ANYONE’s favourite

). When my dad died though, that event seemed to take a lot of that spark with it.
I started worrying so much about being good, about making things perfect, about
not rocking the boat because I didn’t want to make things worse and wanted to make things better if I could; this is where not only an avoidance of asking for help sprouted, but an actual shame around it. I started believing, at the ripe old age of 11, that I should take on responsibility for as much as I could and avoid asking for help if possible so that things would be easier for my family.
Not only is this unsustainable, but it’s completely unrealistic as well, and what ends up happening in the long run is that you burn out, compacted into a tight little ball of stress inside the façade that says “I’m fine!” through a forced smile. I have no doubt that the stress of continually putting others’ needs before my own played a role in the development of my cancer.
Humans are social beings. We are meant to live in communities, supporting one another through the sharing of the many responsibilities required to meet the needs of survival. Yet, somewhere along the way, many societies lost this part of our humanity, opting instead for a model that values the personal shouldering of too much weight.
One of the many things that cancer taught me is that it is OKAY to ask for help; in fact, it is more than okay, it is a necessity of life. I have learned that, quite contrary to my past belief, people
want to help me just as much as I want to help them, and it’s such a beautiful thing. And I also now realise that I don’t have to be ill or in desperate need of help to ask for it; I can ask for it any time at all, and usually, someone is available with the needed support. I wouldn’t have gotten through cancer nearly as well without asking for help, and it has imbued my life after cancer with more ease around the lovely flow of give and take.
So, if you are feeling any kind of guilt or shame around asking for help, just think of how much joy you are filled with when you can help someone, and then remind yourself that by asking for help, you are actually giving someone the opportunity to experience that same joy. And of course, we’re happy to lend a hand in the future if the situation is reversed. In asking for them to give something, you are able to give them something in return, and isn’t that a wonderful way to look at it?
Happy Healing
