I’ve talked about change in the past but today I’m focusing on our the fallacy related to our flexibility in the world. I don’t mean being able to bend our bodies into contortionist poses, I’m talking about being open to a shift in perspective. Cheri Huber has a book, “How you do anything is how you do everything”. This is an important concept because we would like to believe that we behave one way in certain environments and we change how we act in others. Let me tell you from personal experience, that’s not true.
An example would be how we deal with conflict. If you’re the type who keeps things bottled up at home, I can assure you that you do the same thing at work and at the PTA meeting. If you are a people pleaser at work the odds are good that you follow that pattern whenever you interact with others. So I guess changing one thing is the idea, but the reality is when you truly change that one thing, other things will change as well.
If asking for help is difficult before your diagnosis, are there times when you have to step outside of your box and ask for help out of necessity? This means that you’re able to ask for help. I make that point because knowing it’s not about ability means that it has to be about willingness. Start small, include others because people will help you if you give them the opportunity.
Where do we go from here? If you begin asking for help, born out of necessity, with managing your illness then you may be able to increase the level of comfort it takes to ask for help at work. It may mean that when you’ve volunteered to help with your kids soccer team fundraiser that you can ask for help so you’re not the Lone Ranger. Changing one thing is infectious. It spreads to the other areas of your life and the result is experiencing a sense of ease. That ease will improve your health. Why wait…start today!
Pilgrim Pathway/Surviving Strong 