Asking for help...

Today's blog is all about "Asking for help", why we find it difficult, and how to overcome the mental block of reaching out.

Since the previous audio blog went down so well, I've decided to keep creating recordings for you, so if you fancy listening rather than reading, just click the image below. Also now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Podcasts.

How are you doing? Firstly, I’m going to congratulate you on surviving another 75-year-long January! It’s such a dreary old month, isn’t it? And it seems to go on forever.

Listen to the full audio blog here.

For so many people, the first month of the year is a struggle, and in fact, recent data has confirmed that in the UK, January has the highest rate of suicides than any other month of the year.  Wow!

When I read this, it made me sad.  To think that people are taking their own lives due to the added financial strain of the Christmas period, and the emotional and psychological challenges of returning to an everyday life after the festive break. Not to mention the isolation that some experience after the annual get-togethers.

And this made me think about how, as a nation, we really do need to learn to reach out for help.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, asking for help is not my forte, but it is a behaviour I am conscious of and one I am doing my best to let go of and something that I am currently working through with my therapist.

Today, I want to share my experiences of loneliness, how I am learning to conquer my fear of asking for help, and why so many of us experience something similar.

For me, it's all about understanding what trust can look and feel like.

If you have grown up in an environment where your caregivers were not equipped to provide you with the loving support that you needed as a child, that type of upbringing can have an impact on your ability to trust as an adult.

With this type of early childhood experience, you may become the type of person who is super independent, incredibly self-sufficient, someone who finds it difficult to accept advice and an individual who, on the outside, has it all in hand.

But no one can do life alone.  You cannot do life alone.

Of course, we can have faith, a religion or a belief system that holds us in times of trouble or upset, but we also need a physical presence.  A person with eyes and ears, a nose and a mouth, who we can sit with, who will listen to us, and whom we can trust when we are in a fragile state.

In the past, I have suffered from depression, and I have considered taking my own life on three separate occasions.  Once in my late twenties, once in my early forties, and the final time was last year on the 2nd of August 2025.

All of these episodes were triggered by loss. The first two were due to the breakdown of romantic relationships, and last year, it happened when I was dealing with the fallout of my mum’s passing and having to take care of my dad’s dementia needs.

Throughout these moments, the most powerful feeling I experienced was a deep loneliness. A sense that I was entirely separate from the world and everyone in it.  That no one could understand how I felt, and so reaching out seemed like a useless endeavour.  But I also couldn’t vocalise this feeling of total hopelessness, and I remember being really ashamed of my inability to cope.

Thankfully, things have changed for me since last August, because now I have experienced the potential end of my life.

As I was mentally planning my departure from this existence on the 2nd August 2025, my heart stopped, and I believe I had a minor heart attack.  As I stood in the tunnel between death and life, held in the infinite space between realities, a voice spoke to me.  You can call this voice God, divine energy or the Creator; it doesn’t matter. But what matters is that I now KNOW I am never alone, and this has changed me.

Ideally, I would love for every human being on this Earth to have an experience like this, perhaps without the plan to drive to Beachy Head and jump off, but to understand that loneliness is the key to so many of our dark moments.

So how can we all learn to reach out and ask for help?

What stops us, and how can we break this cycle?

For me, it has been about trying different methods and finding an individual or network where I can feel safe enough to be vulnerable.  To access a place in which I can air my concerns without being judged and speak freely about how I am really feeling without having to worry about burdening someone with my low vibe moods.

Of course, this process can take time, and locating the right person may not happen immediately.  I hear a lot from my clients about how they have struggled to find someone to listen to them in a welcoming, safe space. But while we are searching for this, we can also take baby steps toward learning to ask for help.

A really great example of this is giving yourself the challenge each day to ask just one person for help. This individual can be your partner, husband or wife, or someone working in your local shop, your neighbour, or a friend.  And it doesn’t need to be a big ask; it can be something small, like asking for help to access a tin of baked beans from the top shelf in the supermarket, or requesting a small favour from a friend, like the loan of a book or the traditional bag of sugar from a neighbour.

Each time you ask for help, it gets easier to trust.

Consider your ability to trust as a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it becomes, and you will gain more confidence through these experiences.  It’s not weak to ask for help; it is, in fact, a strength to show your vulnerability and express a need for assistance from others.  Most human beings love to lend a hand because it feels good to be kind, and therefore it’s positive for all involved.

If, however, you have a negative experience asking for help and the person on the other end of your request cannot offer you what you need, try not to let that deter you. Keep going with your challenge to reach out, and remember that everyone has things going on in their lives, and not everyone can give all of the time.

It’s also important to understand that not everyone has learnt the skill of listening, which is predominantly what you are seeking when you reach out for help, and that’s OK. Eventually, through your bravery and courage, you will begin to feel into who your person is and who is not.  Some partners, friends, and neighbours are great at staying quiet and not just waiting for their turn to speak, and some are not.  This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them and how they choose to conduct themselves.

Try to remember that through this exercise, you are actually reprogramming your mindset. You are healing a wound from childhood, which may have been part of your reality for a very long time.  But you are no longer that young child with limited resources and limited life experience.  You are now a powerful adult who has a voice and the natural ability to make adult choices.

Each time you reach out for help, you are, in fact, overriding an outdated way of being. A historic behaviour which has led to loneliness, disconnection and in some cases a closed-down heart in constant fear of being hurt.

But if this suggestion of asking for help currently feels like a step too far, perhaps you can share your resistance with someone whom you trust and ask them to offer you their help on occasion.  My husband has been kind enough to do this for me, and accepting his generous offers has been easier for me than asking.  And again, it doesn’t have to be some great big over-indigent expression.  This week, he offered to wrap my dad’s Birthday presents for me, as I hate wrapping, and he knows that.  It filled my heart that he went out of his way to do this, and it has made it so much easier for me to keep the exchange of giving and receiving going.   

We all grow via relationships. The relationship that we have with ourselves and the relationship that we have with others.  But if we can be brave enough to take the time to invest in positive relationships and let the more challenging relationships softly move into the background, trust will become a natural part of our lives.

In my next blog dropping on the 15th February, I’m going to discuss your daily habits, or what I prefer to call “Rituals,” whether you are getting enough from them, and perhaps how to create new strategies to take care of your mind, body, and soul.

I’m always here if you fancy delving deeper into the subject of “Learning to reach out and ask for help” in a non-judgmental, real-life, authentic way via my Intuitive 1:1 Talk Therapy Sessions, which can be carried out face-to-face in my beautiful Brighton studio or via Zoom.

There is also a lot of similar information to what I am sharing in these blogs available in my books, which you can purchase online via the button below.

Buy my books here

Until next time, I’m sending you all my love as always.

Georgina xxxx