The Strength of Asking for Help (Episode 70)

Brent and Janis look at why we have a hard time being vulnerable and transparent and asking for help. They go on to share why it is so important and healthy to open up to others.

Transcript:

Welcome to Life and Love Nuggets, where licensed therapist Brent and Janice Sharpe share how you can thrive in your life, your love, and your relationships.

Hello, welcome back to Life and Love Nuggets. We're really glad that you're with us today. Today we're going to look at why is it so hard to ask for help, to reach out, and to open our lives up to others. And at the same time, the fact that that is so important and healthy, for us to ask for help. So we have these two opposites that are kind of in conflict with each other. So why don't we ask for help?

I mean, I think part of it is, as I saw a cartoon, I tried to find, I couldn't find it, but there was a cartoon of a British man who was drowning, and it said something like, pardon me, if it wouldn't be an inconvenience, could you possibly reach and get me the life preserver? But not if you don't have time, I totally understand. So instead of saying help, you know, we don't want to bother people. We don't want to be an inconvenience to people around us. And so oftentimes we don't ask for help because we think we're going to bother them. Sometimes I think we don't ask for help because we say, well, what I'm going through is not that bad. You know, I often will have someone that comes to my office that will say, this probably isn't a big deal.

And I just, you know, I want to talk to you about it, but I know you see people with problems way worse than mine. And it's like, if it's a problem to you, then it's something that needs to be dealt with. And it's okay to get help, whether it's a little thing or whether it's a big thing. I think another one is we have this idea, I can and I should deal with it myself. I can do this. I can somehow pull up the strength and I can deal with this. Well, with counseling, sometimes we say that's kind of like doing surgery on yourself.

Not probably the smartest thing to do, but we oftentimes do that. We just need to let somebody else help because we're not aware enough of what's going on to always see what the areas that we do need help in. And of course, you know, we all have Google now. So really Dr. Google can tell us any of our mental health issues, especially our spouse's mental health issues, spiritual issues that we have or spiritual, whatever we have. And because we have Google, we now can tell whether this is like, we have indigestion or we have cancer. And so we just go to Google.

Who needs to talk to people when we have Google? And now there's AI, so we're gonna get all kinds of answers. So why might it be important to open our lives up to others? So we've talked about this idea that the way we believe that the human life works is that each of us have been made in the image of God. We've been kind of stamped and imprinted with his nature, a sense of value that, and the whole purpose of that is that we could reflect God's loving nature to the world, that we could reach out to our family, to our neighbors, to our world, and present him well, that this is the idea so that we can be a blessing to others. Yet we've all have dealt with and experienced some wounds, some hurts, some struggles that we've dealt with, difficult circumstances that we've faced, whether it's unhealthy parenting where we've been manipulated by an unhealthy parent and we weren't even old enough to realize it and how that affected us, or maybe a stoic or emotionally distant or disconnected parent, or a parent dies or a close loved one dies or go through divorce or there's abuse or on and on and on and on, all of these different things that can happen. And we tend out of those wounds to develop what we call a coping self or a false self, which is I need to present my life and be a certain way that's acceptable to others. We adapt.

It's a survival mechanism. As little people, we have to. We aren't in charge of the world or our worlds. We aren't the teacher or the principal or the whatever. And so we try to fit in properly. Again, we get this from parents, teachers, coaches, pastors, on and on and on, you name it. God's desire is for us because once we become adults, all of us are gonna find that some of those coping strategies, that false self that we've been trying to present to the world, in some ways it's not working for us.

Now, we had to do that back there because we weren't in charge to just fit in. But now we're realizing that, okay, we've developed some ways of living, ways of thinking and being. Oh my gosh, this is not helping us. And God's desire is to help us through what we would call transformation. It doesn't just put a little coat of paint on us, but really resurrects us, brings new life, new beginnings to old things, back into our original design so that we can be the best reflection of Him and be a blessing to the world. I tell clients, don't feel shame that you have some of those adaptive things. Really, it is your life raft that got you here to where you can become an adult.

But sometimes I'll just gently remind them, you can put the life raft down now. It's okay to realize you're on dry ground and make some adjustments. And realizing that life raft, that coping self is getting in the way now of us being able to thrive. So, He wants to bring healing, restoration, and new life. And we believe that the key to that is through openness. I mentioned previously on a previous podcast that I had developed a certain pattern of living where I didn't want to make any mistakes and I needed to make, be in control of my world and try to make it all just right. If I could get those around me, if I could get my house and my yard and my dog and my kids and my everything perfect and never make a mistake, then I could live at peace. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Surprise, surprise.

How'd that work for you, bud? Yeah, that formula didn't work out very well. I just became a worker bee perfectionist, okay? And since you've been married to me 46 years, you were quite on the front row of that one. It was only when I was able to be self-aware of that to realize that, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Even though I thought this was the right way to live, okay, I thought everybody ought to live this way. That this isn't so good.

That I was able to begin to open up, seek insight and help through others' lives, the writings of others who've gone through similar circumstances. Was I finally able to find a new, healthier, more fulfilling life? As well as not drive every single one around me crazy. Which I'm just, once again, for the 937,000th time, I am so sorry. We all have our stuff. As you mentioned, there seems to be a message in our culture that asking for help is a weakness. Particularly in my world, if you're not supposed to make a mistake and you're supposed to do everything right, well, actually acknowledging that you're making mistakes is just counterintuitive to that.

And we should be able to handle this ourselves. We don't need anybody. That's how good and strong people do it. Right, that good people thing will get you every time. Yeah. Yet in my personal and professional life, I've found just the opposite to be the truth. As a pastor and counselor, over four decades now I see that those are closed off and unable to show any personal limitations or any weakness, tend to stay in those.

They tend to stay in this limiting, unhealthy pattern, oftentimes over their whole lifetime. And they don't ever change. So self-awareness and then opening ourselves up to others. And again, we're not saying, I mean, we're therapists. We think it's a great idea to get counseling. We're not saying this has to be with a professional counselor necessarily, but that our life needs to be moving towards openness, towards self-awareness, towards recognition of okay, these are my coping strategies and I wanna acknowledge those and open those up to others. I believe that actually that puts us in a position to have the highest level experience of life that I think there is, which is to be fully known and fully loved, that I can lay out my real stuff, honest, open stuff to another and to feel loved.

This is the truth about God, even though we wonder about that sometimes. Does he really, really love us or does he think we need to go get our act together and send us to our room? And then once we get our act together, then we're presentable again, okay? It's not the way he is. We are deeply loved by him and he knows everything.

Even stuff we aren't even self-aware of yet. He knows. He knows.

Those lying to us. And he fully loves us. And yet this self-awareness takes effort.

I mean, this is hard. This is not the easiest thing to do. I give transparency because we don't know what people are gonna think.

Are they gonna love us? Are they gonna accept us? And so it takes a lot of effort and work, but it is the only way to heal and have a full life the way God designed us to have that. So we believe that our greatest strength is being aware of our greatest weakness, that when I can recognize my weakness and expose that, bring that to God, that actually is our greatest strength. And we can present that to God for his power, strength, and wisdom. What to do with that. It seems quite upside down, which the kingdom of God oftentimes is.

The last will be first. Sounds upside down. The meek will inherit the earth. Sounds upside down. I've really been impacted by Apostle Paul's story. So here's a guy, one of the greatest leaders of all time, God uses him to write a third of the New Testaments, launched the church throughout the world at the time, and yet came face-to-face with some limitations he had. And there's all kinds of stories about what people think about what these thorns in the flesh are, where they came from.

And his understanding, even at the time, was that it was Satan that sent these to him to limit him so he wouldn't be so cocky. He's so smart. Whatever the understanding is there. Of course, he asked God to let go, that when I started realizing how OCD-ish my life was being lived and how crazy I was making everybody, I just, like, God, can you just please take this away? Can't we just decide, is that me here? Quickly. Quickly, fast.

So I can be perfect again? Yes, exactly. And so Paul asked God, says three times, take them away. Please take these away. And God's response was, no, my grace is sufficient for you. Which is just amazing statements. And Paul's response to that, and just read a little section of 2 Corinthians, it says, therefore, in order to keep me from being conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in me.

Grace is sufficient. So Paul, if we took these away, then you would think, you don't need me. We've been created to be dependent creatures, we don't like that. We wanna be in charge of our world. My grace is sufficient, power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, Paul goes on to say, which is just like crazy talk to me, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. So he's boasting in his weaknesses, like he's standing on the rooftop, yelling at the village, these are my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in my weaknesses. Again, just crazy stuff. When I am weak, then I am strong. So we found that this is how we find strength, this is how we find recovery, this is how we find transformation, is by simply being self-aware, presenting that to God, and allowing him to love us in that. That's our greatest strength, is realize I need God, I can't do this myself. And I have things that need to be dealt with. So how do we become more self-aware?

I mean, the quick answer is we examine ourselves. But what does that mean? I mean, it's self-awareness, as evident or obvious as it seems, means we become more aware of our own emotions, our thoughts, our wants, our strengths, our weaknesses, past situations that have impacted us in different ways. And it really is a lifetime process. I encourage people, don't try to dig everything out right at one setting. That's where we trust that the Holy Spirit leads us into, okay, this is something that I need to work on now. This is what I need to deal with.

You have the rest of your life to work on this. But we have to know that we're on the journey all along of becoming more and more aware of what is that false self that we have and who is it that God created us to be. So mindfulness, as we talked about in our last episode, there's mindfulness journals that are out there and they give you journal prompts. So for those of you that are like, I look at the page and I don't know what to put on there, they give you prompts so you can answer those. So there's things like, I am my most authentic when this happens. There's all kinds of things. And you could just Google it and find a number of them online.

A feelings wheel, we've talked on several podcasts before about a lot of people just don't know their feelings. They weren't taught to have feelings. And so carrying a feelings wheel helps you go, I thought I was okay today, but you know what? I realized I was really anxious or I was frustrated or I was overwhelmed. So it helps you become more aware of your feelings. And have a safe person that I could actually share that with, right? Yes. Still is my process.

Okay, first of all, I would have been clueless about what my feelings were early in my life. Something like a feelings wheel, even though that's not exactly what I had early in my life. But I found a list of feelings that I could look and point out a feeling where I couldn't pull it off the top of my head. But then I was feeling these feelings and then I was feeling, okay, well that's, but you don't wanna share that with anybody. That's gonna make you look weak or not strong enough or not in charge enough or not spiritual enough or not whatever enough. So it was taking that risk to just say, I just been really feeling anxious today. Now we've talked about safe people before, and so it's gotta be the right kind of person to be able to do that with.

We don't wanna say that and then somebody like shoot a Bible bullet ass, well, you just didn't think this, and then you won't be anxious anymore. But somebody can just sit us and go, really, don't talk about that. What's going on with, where's that coming from? What are you fearful about or whatever? That was my move and that still is my challenge to say it. I might be able to recognize it now, but actually to say it is that moving those muscles, working those muscles of self-awareness and transparency. Yeah, yeah, and I think you and probably everybody that's ever listened knows that I'm a big fan of free journaling.

I tell everybody all the time, have a spiral notebook journal and have a really pretty journal. And the spiral notebook journal is you just write and write and write and write. And you can start with, I have no idea why I'm writing. This is absolutely stupid, but somehow I'm trying to become more self-aware, so I hope I can find something in this.

But keep writing. I mean, some people suggest you have to write three pages before you really get into some of the depth, but just do that. And then the good journal is for when you get a word from the Lord or when you have a scripture that you want to go over or when you get some kind of self-revelation that you don't mind your children and grandchildren reading 20 years from now. The spiral notebook, so you can tear it out and shred it so nobody sees all the garbage that went through your brain. But we're looking for getting to the depth of some of the things that are going on within us and in our life. So I might, as I'm journaling, I might consider things like what things are working well in my life? What are bad habits or things that are taking too much of my time and energy?

Who do I want to be as a person, not as a success or not as a career thing, but who as a person? What do I need to do to change? What needs to change? Who can be a good support and a good encouragement? I mean, we're created to live in community. And so there are people around us that can be a support without us telling them everything, but we do need some safe people that we can tell things to. But who can be a support and encouragement?

And along with the safe people that we've talked about in the past, who accepts me for who I am and where I'm at right now and will allow me to grow, but they won't box me in. We've talked about this some before, but one of the principles that we believe is that vulnerability is the beginning or the pathway to deep connection. And we all do really crave deep connections in our life, whether that's with God, spouse, children, even if we're not aware of it so much, even if we don't think we need deep connections. I didn't think early in my life, I didn't think I really needed it. But after I started experiencing some, it was like, oh my gosh, that's like water that I didn't know tasted that good. And I think it was healing. I think it was restorative.

We've talked about who's a safe person, who, you know, this is not going to be 20 people in our life. We're all blessed to have two or three of them. You know, I have a couple of people that I can, every time I have lunch or coffee or whatever, I just look forward to, I just go in and peacefully, you know, I can just talk about what's going on with me and they're not going to try to fix me. They're not going to shoot bottle bolts at me. They're going to feel accepted and they're just with me. So I'm not alone anymore. But every time I do that, there's something that, there's a deeper connection that happens there that's life giving.

And so now some of the ways of self-awareness, you know, there's been personality profiles that have been out forever and everything from Myers-Briggs to the disc to String Finders to all kinds of stuff. You know, one that's taken a resurgence that we find very helpful is the Enneagram. And some people are, they don't know much about it or a little, again, like freaked out about it because they don't understand it quite so much. But we've talked about it. It's a profile that has kind of nine different types. So you're a number from one to nine. And the thing I like so much about it, it's just a good self-awareness tool.

It kind of puts your life under a microscope a bit pretty quickly. And it's, I think it's just a great tool of self-awareness. It also helps us to see our shadow, what we call shadow, which is our strength to its extreme, which is not so good, you know. And our shadow may just be 10% of who we are, but it's kind of eating our lunch. And so my need, my shadow was perfectionism, that I had to have everything perfect to find peace. Well, that was kind of the poison in my personality. A lot of that was, you know, I'm kind of a reformer and as a pastor and a counselor, it fit.

I try to help people get better and grow in their life. And so a lot of that was good, but when it's to its extreme, it can be harmful. And this tool just helps you kind of identify what those strengths to their extreme are. And so the, again, whether opening up and asking for help looks like reaching out to a friend and just being really honest for once or reaching out to a counselor, it all takes risk. But all healing in life requires risk. You know, if we have a physical issue going on and need surgery, well, it's risky to have surgery. Some people cutting on you, that's risky, but it can require, or it can allow new life to happen and healing to happen.

I have a lot of people right now, because counseling is just becoming more acceptable. I have a lot of people coming right now and they're just kind of coming regularly, just, you know, once a month even, or once every, you know, just, I just want to make sure that I'm staying grounded and staying healthy and making sure that I'm self-aware and looking at myself and have somebody that I can trust and bounce stuff off of and for their own spiritual and mental and emotional health. It can be very life-giving. So we just encourage people, take risks. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, which it does require. There's no way around this without that. We can't go in with all of our walls and masks and expect that any change is going to happen.

It's a waste of time. It's a waste of time. And so it does take some vulnerability. Check around, oftentimes you can check around with friends or colleagues or pastors or clergy that may have done a recommendation in your area, somebody that they've seen good results and is supposed to be a really safe person. We just believe God will meet you there. He will not make us open up. He will not make us, He will not force us to do this.

He'll let us live our life all closed, but He's just like, ready, but I can help you. And I think He presents opportunities that sometimes we ignore. That's like, nope, not getting close to that person. And there may be people in your church that are wise and safe people, but you are like, uh, no, not going to do that. Or He just, He allows us to stub our toe. You know, pain is the greatest motivator for change in our life. And so maybe it's a pain that you're going through that has caused you to think about needing some help, whatever it is, just know that I tell people, lean into the pain, don't trust that it can actually be good for you.

And so if it can lead you to vulnerability and openness, He will meet you there. Absolutely. And He's with you in it all. Yeah. And He, and it can change your life. So for today, once again, go in peace, bless you as you go. The Life in Love Nuggets podcast is a 501c3 nonprofit and is supported by gifts from people like you.

To donate, go to lifeinlovenuggets.com slash donate. This podcast is produced by Clayton Creative in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The content should not be considered or used for counseling, but for educational purposes only.