“Why do you never ask for help?” asked a friend recently. I honestly don’t know. I’m an eldest daughter, inherently responsible; broad-shouldered.

Pile it on, I can cope, might be my unspoken motto. And, you know, everyone is just so busy. Parents caring for grandchildren, siblings either pregnant, forever abroad or deep in the newborn fog, and my oldest friends scattered around the country like marbles thrust from a child’s carefree fist. I write lists. I tick off lists. I make many phone calls and organise quotations and add alerts to my phone so that I never forget to pay a bill or take my children to the dentist. I manage, pretty well, pretty much of the time. Except for the times when I don’t manage at all, and cancel absolutely everything in my diary and let everybody down, all at once. It’s a sort of existential rebellion… now you see me, now you don’t. But, when you’re a mother, a manager, a director, a provider, can you ever really disappear?

Last year, in a bid to create more space in my own mind, I signed up for women’s empowerment coach Nicky Clinch’s immersive eight-week coaching program, Homecoming. It’s an expansive, generous program that includes live calls, 50 videos, a supportive online community and lots of deeply nourishing ’homework’. In an ideal world, I would have cleared the ground around me for eight entire weeks; in the real world, last minute deadlines, children waking up at odd hours and internet issues, all played their part. One evening, particularly upset when the call I’d been looking forward to threatened to be derailed by my eldest’s wakefulness, I fell into full-blown victim mode. Why, when I try to do anything for myself, is it so damn hard?

“What is it that you really need?” Nicky asked. I sat, for thirty minutes, working through my knee-jerk responses to a place where the real truth sat, alone and silent. I started to understand. She asked question after question, and I sat, every time, and felt into them. I cooked Nicky’s recipes, listened to her meditations, enjoyed every bit of her homework – from dancing and singing (alone!) to journalling with a purpose, which has become an important tool for me now. I learned that it’s not enough to ask for help. You actually have to accept it when it is offered. When I reframe my story, I can see a sea of good people around me who regularly offer to help – and my steadfast, loving, worker-bee husband, growing, tending, cooking, and supporting us all, his shoulders as broad as mine, carrying our equal, if different, loads. Before leaving for an evening walk, he’d offered to stay to keep an eye on the kids, and give me the time I needed for an uninterrupted call. I’d ushered him out of the door with an “it’ll all be fine. I can manage.” 

Why, why, why, do I repeat the same old lie? I can see a woman who looks to blame others rather than claim her own shadows. A woman who, for whatever reason, feels deeply ashamed whenever she has to ask for help. A woman who prides herself in being strong, capable, successful; but who also knows that her load is untenable and that she will stumble again, before long. Another good friend reminded me: “When someone sincerely offers you their help, they see helping you as their blessing. When you refuse their help, you also refuse them your blessing.” And that we only see the help at hand when we open ours too: to receive it.