[C] Photo credits: Dominika Montonen Koivisto
Hrvatska verzija dolje ↓
Most of my clients when they see me for the first time, have a need to almost apologize for being there. They start explaining why they called me to help them with whatever it is. I can see the guilt in them. I can see they are feeling like losers deep inside of them for even daring to ask a stranger for help. They believe they should have done it all by themselves. They think they are less for asking others to assist them. They feel they are not strong enough, smart enough or successful enough if they do not do it by themselves.
I associate so much with this feeling. I was always a person like that to whom the hardest thing was asking for help. I don’t know if it is because I grew up as a single child, so I never developed this sense of sharing anything, responsibility included. I don’t know if it is because my parents pushed very hard the responsibility on me, so I got used to do things without anyone’s help very early on. Or was it because achieving anything by myself assured that I will reap the rewards by myself as well (parents love and approval)?
Whatever our reasons may be, one thing we all have in common – a value that someone has engraved in us that doing things individually is the highest value, and asking others to help us shows weakness.
Most of us grew up in the western societies where individualism is a highly valued way of being. We are living isolated one from another without developing this strong bond between each other. The more west you go, to the more ‘developed’ societies you will find that people live so isolated to the point that they don’t even know their first door neighbours. In our cultures it is ‘normal’ for a very long time already to live this way – to do everything by ourselves.
What our societies didn’t seem to figure out yet is how damaging such way of life is to humans. We seem to constantly forget that we are human, energetic beings. The society we live in seems to try to turn us into robots – beings who behave all in a certain way, without our own thoughts, feelings and identity. This will never be possible. As long as we breathe, as long as we vibrate energetically the way we do we will never be able to isolate ourselves from our nature.
If we were meant to live as separate beings, we would not have been put all together on one planet is such proximity to one another. If it were natural for us not to live together, we would not be born all in the same place. If it were natural for us to live alone, we would each have our own planet. If isolation were natural, nature would take care of providing it for us.
Not only that isolation is not natural, but it is extremely detrimental to human beings. If we live in isolation for a prolonged periods of time our brain function starts to deteriorate. People who do not have enough social contact and support have higher risk of heart diseases, stroke, diabetes and sleeping disorders. Sleeping disorders cause our overall malfunctioning. If suffered for a prolonged periods of time, sleeping disorders can have deadly consequences. Research shows that people who have social support until late in life live longer and healthier lives, their brains are preserved better so they have lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Loneliness is a primary cause of depression and suicide. People who have survived suicide attempts when asked for reasons of their actions they all report feeling like ‘Nobody cared’. Loneliness is the deadliest disease on the planet.
All the research points to one and the same conclusion – we need each other to survive and thrive. If you think for a minute, you will understand that nothing in your life was actually ever achieved alone. There are always other people around who directly or indirectly made your success possible. From simple things like learning how to walk to building a billion dollar empire, no one ever achieved anything alone. Those who have achieved a lot, they know very well that they would never have been able to do it in isolation. They would have never been able to achieve such results if they did not open up to other people and worked together.
Our potential as human beings is infinite, and don’t be mistaken – we can achieve so many things by ourselves, but not in isolation, not without support from others, whatever that might be. Together we build achievement faster, we get greater results, and we feel more joy both while doing it and when rewards are reaped. What is preventing us from asking other people to help us is the belief that we will be seen as weak when in fact we are weak only when we don’t ask for help. When we don’t ask for support, we have shut ourselves in the leg from the start. We have from the start decided that we will work in half capacity, with half resources and half strength. We have set ourselves for failure before we have even commenced.
I can tell you on my own example how much better my life became once I have opened up to other people. In the world where I did not share myself with others, I did not receive much from others either. I did not ask for help, so I wasn’t getting any. I struggled to get all things done alone, and it was exhausting. Even when I would succeed, the victory did not feel good. It didn’t seem that I had many people to share it with. In those moments when you have noone to call who will be happy for you, no matter how big your success is, it seems worthless.
Once I started sharing my true self with other people, and started asking for their opinions, their help and support, contrary to my belief, I was not perceived as weak but brave! I started having more friends, more people who wanted to do business with me, and more of those who wanted me to show them how it is done. My dreams started to come true, but not while I believed I don’t need anyone. My dreams started to come true only when I gave up on the idea that I needed to do everything by myself.
Zašto se sramimo tražiti pomoć?
Većina mojih klijenata kad me vide prvi put, imaju potrebu da se gotovo ispričaju zbog svog dolaska. Počnu objašnjavati zašto su me zvali da im pomognem. Vidim krivnju u njima. Vidim da se duboko u sebi osjećaju kao gubitnici što su se uopće usudili zatražiti pomoć od strankinje. Vjeruju da su trebali to sve sami učiniti. Vjeruju da su manje vrijedni jer su nekoga pitali za pomoć. Vjeruju da nisu dovoljno jaki, dovoljno pametni ili dovoljno uspješni ako sve ne uline sami.
Mogu se jako dobro poistovjetiti s tim osjećajem. Uvijek sam bila osoba kojoj je najteže bilo pitati za pomoć. Ne znam je li to jer sam odrasla kao jedinica pa nikad nisam rafinirala smisao za dijeljenje, uključujući dijeljenje odgovornosti. Ne znam je li to zato jer su moji roditelji bili nemilosrdni kad se radilo o preuzimanju odgovornosti, pa sam vrlo rano naučila raditi stvari bez ičije pomoći. Ili je to zato jer je čineći nešto sama osiguravalo da ću sama i skupljati nagrade (roditeljsku ljubav i odobravanje)?
Koji god bili naši razlozi, jednu stvar svi imamo zajedničku – vrijednost koju je netko u nas usadio da je raditi stvari samostalno jedna od najviših vrijednosti, a pitati druge za pomoć pokazuje slabost.
Većina nas živi u zapadnjačkim društvima gdje je individualizam visoko cijenjen način življenja. Živimo izolirani jedni od drugih bez razvijanja jakih međusobnih veza. Što odemo zapadnije, u ‘razvijenija’ društva, to nalazimo da su ljudi toliko izolirani da ne poznaju ni svoje prve susjede. U našim je kulturama već dugo vremena ‘normalno’ živjeti na taj način – da sve radimo sami.
Što naše društvo još čini se nije dokučilo jest koliko je za ljude štetan taj način života. Redovito zaboravljamo da smo ljudska, energetska bića. Društvo u kojem živimo pokušava nas pretvoriti u robote – bića koja se sva ponašaju na jednak način, bez naših vlastitih misli, osjećaja i identiteta. To nikada neće biti moguće. Dok god dišemo, dok god energetski vibriramo kao što vibriramo neće bit moguće izolirati nas od naše prirode.
Da nam je namjenjeno da živimo kao posebna bića, ne bismo bili stavljeni zajedno na istu planetu i na takvu blizinu jedni od drugih. Da nam nije prirodno živjeti zajedno, ne bismo bili rođeni na istom mjestu. Kad bi bilo prirodno da živimo sami, imali bismo svatko svoju planetu. Da je izolacija prirodna, priroida bi se pobrinula da je za nas osigura.
Ne samo da izolacija nije prirodna, već je izrazito pogubna. Ako živimo u izolaciji duže vremena funkcija našeg mozga počinje opadati. Ljudi koji nemaju dovoljno društvenog kontakta i podrške imaju povećani rizik od srčanih bolesti, moždanog udara, dabetesa i poremećaja spavanja. Poremećaji spavanja uzrokuju opadanje cijelog našeg sistema. Ako od njih patimo duže vremena, mogu uzrokovati smrtne posljedice. Istraživanja pokazuju da ljudi koji imaju društvenu podršku do kasnijih godina žive dužim i zdravijim životom, te je njihova moždana funkcija bolje sačuvana što smanjuje rizik od demencije i Alzheimerove bolesti. Usamljenost je primarni uzrok depresije i suicida. LJudi koji su preživjeli pokušaje suicida kad su pitani o razlozima redovito navode kako su se osjećali ‘kao da nikoga nije bilo briga’. Usamljenost je najsmrtonosnija bolest na planeti.
Sva istraživanja dovode do jednakog zaključka – trebamo jedni druge kako bismo preživjeli i prosperirali. Ako se zamisliš na trenutak, shvatiti ćeš da ništa u tvom životu nikada zapravo nisi učinio sam. Tu su uvijek bili ljudi oko tebe koji su direktno ili indirektno omogućili tvoj uspjeh. Od jednostavnih stvari kao što je bilo učiti kako hodati do izgradnje bilijunskog carstva, nitko nikada ništa nije učinio sam. Oni koji su učinili mnogo jako dobro znaju da to nikada nebi bili sposobni učiniti u izolaciji. Nikada nebi bili sposobni postiči takve rezultate da se nisu otvorili drugim ljudima i radili zajedno.
Naš potencijal kao ljudskih bića je neograničen. Nemojte se zavaravati – mi možemo postići toliko toga samostalno, ali nikada u izolaciji, ne bez podrške drugih, što god ta podrška bila. Zajedno gradimo uspjeh brže, postižemo bolje rezultate i osjećamo više radosti i tokom procesa i kada se skupljaju nagrade. Ono što nas prevenira da zatražimo pomoć je vjerovanje da ćemo biti percipirani kao slabi dok smo zapravi slabi samo dok ne tražimo pomoć. Kad ne tražimo pomoć, u startu smo se upucali u nogu. U startu smo odlučili da ćemo raditi sa pola kapaciteta, pola resursa i pola snage. Odaslali smo se na put neuspjeha prije nego li smo uopće krenuli.
Mogu vam reći svoj vlastiti primjer o tome koliko je moj život postao bolji jednom kad sam odlučila otvoriti se drugim ljudima. U svijetu gdje nisam dijelila s drugima, nisam puno ni dobivala od njih. Nisam tražila pomoć i nisam je dobivala. Borila sam se da sama sve postignem i bilo je iscrpljujuće. Čak i kad sam uspjela, pobjeda nije imala tako dobar okus. Nije se činilo da imam mnogo ljudi da je s njima podjelim. U tim trenucima kad nemaš nikoga koga bi mogao nazvati, a da znaš da će biti sretan za tebe, bez obzira koliko velik bio tvoj uspjeh – čini se bezvrijednim.
Kad sam počela dijeliti onu pravu sebe s drugima i počela pitati za njihova mišljenja, njihovu pomoć i podršku, suprotno mom vjerovanju, nisam bila percipirana slabom već hrabrom! Počela sam imati puno više prijatelja, vipe ljudi koji su htjeli krenuti u biznis sa mnom i više onih koji su željeli da im pokažem kako i oni mogu uspjeti. Moji su se snovi počeli ostvarivati, ali ne dok sam vjerovala da ne trebam nikoga. Moji su se snovi počeli ostvarivati tek onda kad sam odustala od ideje da sve trebam učiniti sama.