ASKING FOR HELP

 This week's affirmation reads - I have a divine right to ask for help. For just as I was born of a family to strengthen my chances of survival, it has always been in my best interest to commune with others and to ask for help when I am struggling. I know that my only responsibility enlies in choosing healthy people and relationships over dysfunctional ones to help me on my life's journey.

One of the hardest things for survivors to do is to develop trust in others, especially after being hurt or suffering abuse within volatile and violent relationships, as the core belief once held that connecting with, or even exposing our vulnerabilities to others was safe, have been shattered as a result of facing exploitative and unhealthy circumstances.

The question always lurking then when asking for help is - is it safe to do so.

However, our aim of picking up the shattered and tattered vestiges of the once promising lives we've built for ourselves, now in crumbles of what was, might call for brevity to be braved in asking for help.

For just as a newborn's only defense mechanism lies in the daring sounds of their cries, so too does our salvation, in seeking help so as to repair, undo and untangle ourselves from the harm done from dealing with unhealthy people and equally unhealthy circumstances.

None of us survive in the world entirely on our own... None of us.

As such, it is always in our best interest to ask for help where necessary or when we are struggling.

Thing is, we must employ our power of prudence so as to choose those people to connect with and receive help from, that won't use our vulnerabilities to subjugate, exploit or otherwise seek to ensnare or entrap us to serve their interests in exchange for their help.

Healthy relationships don't function this way.

All involved are valued and respected for the truth of who they are, and the supports both given and received, aren't attached to the conditions of degradation, dystrophy, devaluation and abuse.

And likewise, instead of unequivocal, threatening or harmful reciprocation, each member can get their needs met without being harmed in the process.

Developing affirmative relationships, especially after leaving abusive ones, where it is safe to receive the help we might need in our survival efforts, are of the utmost importance, as we walk our life's journey.

And while it might take a bit of reprogramming to re-familiarize ourselves with what healthy behavioral qualities and attributes look like, the reward to be had enlies in developing affirmative relationships and members of our team, who mean us well and who can help us in ways that allow us to improve and strengthen our livelihoods.

For the quality of our social circle can be used as a measure of the height of our successes.

So we must be vigilant in our aim of choosing those who can meet us where we are and help us thrive in the world, as we seek to invoke our divine right to make the shift from unhealthy people, places and things toward a life of wholeness and wellness.