You can’t lift two watermelons with one hand.

Persian Proverb

I love this proverb. It sounds comical but it’s implying that there will be times in life that you need help. You should ask for help. You cannot handle life alone.

When I was living in Sacramento, my daughters’ Waldorf school was the opposite direction of my hospital. Dropping them off and heading back to work was almost an hour long ordeal. Realizing my work was only one mile from my home, you could see my angst.

The beginning of the school year, there was a parents meet and greet. People asking us where we lived. One family happened to live very close to us. The mom said: We should carpool! I had never asked for ride sharing with another family, mostly because I was not in a position to offer help in return. I apologetically told her my sob story of my husband being in residency and my overscheduled work routine. I was the medical director of my palliative care program, chief-elect of the hospital medical staff and director of quality. She looked at me and smiled: We will figure something out.

I was floored.

Figure what out? Who was doing the pick up? Who was dropping who off? Which day? What time? I was almost paralyzed with feeling of being overwhelmed. How was this going to work out? She just smiled.

I thought maybe she knew something that I didn’t.

It turned out that between her, myself, our husbands and another family, we managed to take our kids back and forth from our homes to the school. We all chipped in. In a million years, I would not have thought about asking for help. Never imagining someone else could use a little bit of my help, too.

Looking back I know. She knew how to manage her mind and I didn’t. I have always been a star student when it comes to anxiety and being overwhelmed. Are you with me? When someone asks me to help them with a party, I am all over that plan. Where to get food from, what to drink, decorations, invitations, flowers, music and how many people should be there and how to manage the emotions of those who will not be invited.

I can have a full time job worrying about details of life. Details that no one truly cares about.

Somehow, when we worry about things, we feel like we are DOING something. In the most bizarre sense it feels like worrying could replace the anxiety of planning. But guess what? It doesn’t.

I have learned this in Hawaii.

I was invited to help out with my daughters’ school’s May Day: A big celebration of Hawaiian culture and spring wrapped up in one. I signed up to be there on Mondays between 1-3 pm as a volunteer to help out. Everytime I would show up something would be off. Activity room was locked. The craft basket was missing. The basket was there but no one could place the scissors. The flowers were there but the wire to connect them together wasn’t there. Granted, it was my first year we had moved here and I had not embraced the ‘chill factor’ of living on the island. I was losing my mind. How could we be ready on time? There will be nothing ready on the day of the event. A total nightmare and embarrassment waiting to happen. I would literally lay awake in bed at night anxious that this was going to be a disaster.

Well. May Day came and it was the most glorious day. Don’t ask me how everything and everyone showed up on time and in place. It happened. My worrying did not do anything other than fill my life with anxiety and negative emotions that did not create any result for me.

In The Life Coach School, we call these feelings ‘Indulgent Emotions”. I love pointing them out to people. The list goes on. Being overwhelmed, anxiety, guilt, shame, nervousness, indecision and so much more. We wear them like a badge of honor, but they keep us from moving forward. Next time you want to say you are overwhelmed, you might as well say: I am creating a situation in my life that keeps me from moving forward. That is all it is doing.

So if you want to ruin your present moment worrying about things you have no control over, and feel guilty because you don’t want to ask for help and then feel overwhelmed because of all of that: be my guest. That is one option. I am here to tell you that you have more than one option.

Just know that there is a better way.

The way of asking for help when you need it, because we are truly all in this together.

So much love to all of you.