Ann-Marie, George mentioned in last week's post as the master of requests, guide dog Georgie and Wilma.
Writing about making requests has proven hard and really shows me I am severely lacking in this skill.
Last week’s post took me several attempts and this one has taken a long time too.
To be honest, I wish I had kept my mouth shut about making requests. All they do is confuse me and just writing about them makes me cranky.
I know that solving this request issue is valuable as I do see that I need this skill if I want to spread my wings and yet my aversion to tackle this issue is huge.
Requests for me are big scary beasts.
After all my aborted attempts to write sensibly about this topic, I have now decided to let all my emotional stuff around requests simmer for a while to see if I can unravel this issue one small step at the time. So this time I am going for a semantic approach.
Mulling over making a request? Just do it!
Who’s Jumping?
This week Wilma & I had a lengthy chat about living life differently, about making sustainable change to have our lives completely work for us.
And once again we came back to and talked about the chasm that exists between knowing what to do and actually taking the steps to do it, to get it done.
During our conversation we spoke about the comments that you guys are leaving on the blog.
The openness, the depth of knowledge, the courage and most of all the expressions of love and support for each other are extraordinary.
One thing’s for sure, we are never ever alone in our concerns and fears about life.
A clear request.
This little baby bird in its nest beside our front door is totally dependant on others for her survival and she knows it. There is no doubt about that when you see this beak and its clear request for food!
She goes for it, no hesitation.
When MY survival is at stake, I am no different from that baby bird.
When I really need to, I can make those requests too.
Thank goodness I have not been in many desperate situations; however in the few times that I have had my back up against the wall, I was very capable of making requests.
When push came to shove, believe you me I asked. I asked for things I never imagined I could ever ask for.
BUT … and this is the killer, as soon as the crisis was over I would immediately forgo my ability to make requests. I’d return as quickly as I could to my independence and I’d try to forget the instance as fast as I possibly could.
In my judgment, having to ask is horrible, horrible, horrible.
I HATE it!
I cringe when I think back on those times when I was dependant on others, I cringe about how helpless and powerless I felt.
And I vouch never to go there again, not if I can help it.
Thus requests have had an unjustifiably negative reputation in my book.
And it could have been so different.
Instead I could have looked back on those times that I needed to make requests, with gratitude and joy. I could have looked at the fact that my requests were indeed granted and that there were people who granted them so lovingly.
I never realized that requests are a superb safety net and are a tremendous way of accessing resources that could make my life amazing beyond belief.
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