I have always been rather hard on myself especially when it comes to what I think I ought to manage on my own. Many a times I have put up a brave face saying I’ll manage, don’t bother about me and then silently cried when on my own or panicked thinking someday they will discover what a great big fraud I am. A natural result of this is that I am not very good at asking for help either and this isn’t just work related but also when it comes to my private life. The difference is that when it comes to work I really think that I ought to manage on my own however impossible the task is but when it comes to married life its more in terms of me thinking my husband ought to know I need help (or a hug, or encouragement, or..) without me having to ask for it……you know, like if he doubled as a mind reader or something.
To not become the south of Sweden’s biggest martyr is something I have to fight everyday. I don’t want to be the kind of woman who turns all silent and cold answering her husband’s question of “what’s wrong ” with a “nothing” in a 20 degrees below zero voice and a rigid body language really saying “everything is wrong” you insensitive so and so. It’s not the kind of roll model I want to be to my daughters either.
Today I read in a book that the help and kindness you receive isn’t worth less because you asked for it yourself. Reading it was one of them mind revealing “Ah, I can see the light” moments, an eye-opener because it really was so true. Of course it isn’t worth less, it’s the act of kindness in it self that is worth something not what brought it about.
I suppose that deep down it all has something to do with self esteem or self confidence, a feeling deep in side that you yourself are worth something. Being worth something makes your doings not as important as your “beings” and asking for help doesn’t signal failure.
I made the wet felt with embrodery on the picture above a few weeks back with something else in mind but the message I wrote goes quite well with todays revelation as well.
Hard lessons learnt
about being
and not doing
Brings hope for the future
Being human
A human being
not a human doing
Take care
Jeanette
6 comments:
OMG we are spiritual twin sisters indeed! My mother always told me (yes I was like this as long as I can remember) that I'd rather destroy my work than ask her how to do it. I had to do it myself. Nowadays I still am a giver not an asker. I have to say that though I think that not asking really can go too far, as you pointed out quite clear, asking too much is simply annoying to me and I cannot stand those people in blogland who are asking and asking and asking...
When I worked I called it: 'the fear of falling through the basket syndrome'. We use the prase falling through the basket meaning: it comes clear that you cannot do what people expected you to do, based on what you said before, your diploms whatever. I think you are so right that the non-asker is insecure at heart. I have to say that in my family I am quite open. My husband and I have a deal about that, seeing all those divorces around us. It is something I have to credit my husband for: he calls this something like the 'give and take duty'. Of course everybody knows that it is a lot of giving in a relationship. But sometimes you have to ask what it is that you want the other person to give, that asking for something specific, or saying that the other is walking down the wrong road is a duty too. Don't think that your partner is a mind reader, as you discovered yourself. Have a great day, what is left of it or an even better tomorrow!
Love the quote, love the poem.
tack :-)
How clever you are. And that sentence really did it for me too... Miss you. Life's a bitch right now. See you next week?
Gillar den där bilden!
Ibland är det väldigt svårt att vara människa. Orka och veta vad som är rätt och hur man ska orka.
Men oftast kommer andra dagar sedan, då det känns lättare igen.
the help and kindness you receive isn’t worth less because you asked for it yourself.
words of wisdom indeed.......
hope you're doing okay and getting the help and support you need.
xo
Hi Jeanette - sorry to see you aren't blogging for a little while - hope things will soon be looking up for you. Didn't you know that us women come from Venus and those men come from Mars! They can't help it cos of where they come from .....! Never go all cold and mean - just turn, look him straight in the eye, smile and say 'please can I have a HUG'. xxxx
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