Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's episode, we're going to talk about asking for help.

More to come on that in a moment. First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay, so I'll start this episode by sharing a short quote poem by Morgan Harper Nichols, who you could find on Instagram. Her writing is brilliant. She says,

you have been the strong one for so long. Now is the time to recognize you are allowed to ask for help, even for the things you feel like you should be able to handle yourself.

I'll read that last line again. Now is the time to recognize you are allowed to ask for help, even for the things you feel like you should be able to handle yourself.

Notice how that one lines for you. I would even add something to the end. It's no one's place to really add to another person's poetry.

But I guess I'm going to do it anyway. What I would add is, even for the things you feel like you should be able to handle yourself, I would say it's okay to ask for help even for the things you feel like you can handle yourself.

Not necessarily that I feel like I should be able to handle. I definitely know she's going for there. And I would also add, even the things that you can handle yourself, it's still okay to ask for help.

I think a lot of us take on so much ourselves. It's almost like there's some glory in it. And this could be our business. This could be our parenting.

And this could even be our own healing. Something that feels so personal to us. Of course, this is my job to work through.

What would it be like to be humbled by your human experience and to let that expand you and to allow another person's compassion and care and love into your heart and to really be able to receive that?

I mean, that is a massive practice in itself. It's also a gift to another person to give them the space to be able to offer something to you.

Think about those moments for yourself where you've been on the side of offering, of wanting to help, of seeing someone who could really use your help and being able to give that.

What would it be like to offer that for another person or persons?

I've said it before in this podcast, but we are social creatures. We've evolved by helping each other.

That is really what makes us unique as a species. You see this with other animals. But us in particular, our capacity to cooperate is the thing that has allowed us to grow to evolve and to remain a species on this planet for better or worse.

I know it's a lot of bad things humans do. But this is built into our DNA. It's what makes us human.

The capacity to ask for help and to receive help and we feel connection through that.

The part of us that doesn't want that is the ego mind. Either the ego mind that thinks I can handle all of it, the ego mind that thinks I don't deserve any of this, the ego mind that thinks I should be able to do this all by myself.

See if you can let that go. This might be a new pattern for you. This might be something new to try and perhaps counterintuitively asking for help. Maybe one of the harder things you do.

But I hope this gives you something to think about. I'll read it one more time before we go.

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