132: How Do You Know If You Need Help?
Welcome to today’s episode, How do you know if you need help? Before we dive in, I want to remind you that I’m offering a $100 amazon gift card to someone who leaves a review. All you have to do is send me a screenshot of that review to hello@meganhillukka.com, and you can get entered into the giveaway. Every 50 reviews I will draw a winner! So go leave a review right now, especially if you listen to this podcast and you have found it helpful.
Ok- so I think this question is a tricky one. Maybe, you are going along in your life, and you feel like you are doing okay, managing okay, things are kind of humming along, and you are like, well, my baby died, my child died, I feel kinda okay, do I need help?
First, maybe you aren’t getting the help because you think it’s weak, or it says something bad about you, or that you are less of a person, and that’s a whole different topic- of course it’s not weak to get help. Your child or baby dying is the most difficult thing you will ever walk through, it actually is a beautiful thing when you let yourself be helped and get help.
So- when you are just like, I don’t know. Do I need help? Am I doing okay, or could it be better?
Here of some signs to get help and a few disclaimers as well
-If things are amazing, and you feel good, and your relationships are good. You do not need to go searching for something to heal or process. Imagine your life and your body as an onion and as the layers are ready to be processed and worked through, they will present themselves. If nothing is coming up for you, or you aren’t struggling with something, you do not need to create it just to find something to work on. Sometimes you can just enjoy being and living your life just as you.
I am a big believer in self- development, or working to better yourself and many areas of your life. I put all of this through the lens of grief, so I just want to remind you as I go through these, that we are all constant works in progress. We are not all going to be perfect in one area all of the time. But if grief is what is affecting all or some of these things in your life, focusing on the grief and all the emotions that come with it, can really help all of these areas that are suffering from it.
If something keeps coming up over and over again, maybe it’s worth exploring. Maybe if you took out the root cause/thought/ or belief of whatever keeps coming up, maybe it could change your whole perspective.
I notice in my life, that sometimes my marriage needs more attention, and then it’s my relationship with my kids, and then it’s my business, and then it’s my health, like I can’t focus on all of the things at the same time, and neither can you. So I hope to not overwhelm you with this, but to help you decide, do you need a little extra guidance? Or are you humming along just fine as you are?
Also here’s the thing I want to try to bring to the surface. Maybe you are just fine. Maybe you know you have anxiety, but you can function with it, you can live with it, you still manage your life just fine.
But who would you be without that anxiety? What would happen if you didn’t fight it every day? Seriously. Sometimes when you live with a certain level of chaos, anxiety, and apathy inside of you, you don’t even realize that life could be so much more beautiful and better than what you are experiencing right now.
I recently heard on another podcast about the concept of if I were to ask you to rate your life on a 1 through 10. Where would you put yourself on the scale? With grief, maybe it feels like a negative 100. But- for the sake of this episode, where you feel like you are doing okay, and feel like everythings fine, notice what your number would be. When I listened to it, I thought for myself, hmm, maybe an 8. I feel really lucky, blessed, and that I’m in a very good place in my life. But- she said, what if where you are at now, is actually a 2. What if where you are right now is good, but it can be so much more amazing, and there is so much more available to you? It opens up the possibilities of feeling better, and feeling more.
Ok- so here’s what I wanted to try to paint a picture for you in different areas of life, that you can be like hmm..yes I do want to work on that. Or no- it’s actually good how it is. Remember, this is not to make your life awful right now, but for you to have the opportunity to make it better and fuller if you choose to.
Relationships: If your relationships in your life are stressed, full of conflict, or even no conflict- thus no deep discussions. Maybe you feel like you are just humming along, you don’t really fight, but you don’t really connect either. What if it could be so much better than what it is? And if your relationship is stressed, you fight a lot, you are angry at others in your life a lot, you feel like nobody understands you, you feel like other people are always the problem, you try to set boundaries and it seems like nobody listens to them. Whatever it is for you, how are your relationships doing? How is the connection level?
Your emotional state: take a few days and notice what 3 emotions you are feeling every day. You might be surprised at what emotions you feel! And- also notice if you feel mostly numb, and are not letting yourself feel any emotions both positive and negative emotions. Just take this in as an inventory, and see if you want to feel more emotions, and want to learn how but have no idea where to start- well, it might be time to dive into deeper support if you do want to learn. Along with that, do you live with anxiety or fear, and have a hard time trusting?
Your perspective of yourself or other people: Do you look at other people and get jealous of them, feeling like they have it so much better than you. Do you have pity parties for yourself often? Do you beat yourself up often over and over for everything that happens in your life? Do you feel like things just are not possible for you
How do you talk? Do you complain often? Do you look for the good in others or the bad? How do you talk about yourself? Your kids? Your husband? Are they uplifting and supportive, or derogatory and negative.
Another thing to notice, is do you tell yourself everything is going to go well, and you don’t want to rock the boat. This is a big thing to notice. Because yes when you start diving into things and emotions it can get “worse” before it gets better. So if things feel pretty okay and you know there’s things there you want to process but you don’t want to rock the boat, that’s actually something to think about.
If there is a can of worms somewhere inside, keeping it in there and pretending it isn’t there, doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s still there, just hanging out. Taking out the can of worms and opening up is scary. It might bring up a lot of emotions. It might bring up a lot of fears and challenge some beliefs you have about yourself or others. And so it feels easier to just keep it shoved in there, but with this, you get to decide if you want to keep it there, or if you want to take it out and actually get rid of it instead of it festering there inside of you.
Here’s a little exercise you can do if you feel like you are doing just fine but kinda wondering if you need help or not: Imagine your life as it is right now. Exactly how it is, everything from your relationships, to your mental state, to your health, to your emotional health and awareness. Notice all of these things, and then imagine it staying mostly the same in the next 10 years. See yourself in 10 years, where you are right now.
If you do nothing to help yourself or work on different areas of your life, you might be exactly where you are at, or even deteriorated. And for those of you who do your own work and are a self learner, that’s okay too. The whole goal of this podcast episode is to help you get out of the do I need help or am I fine conundrum, and just make a decision already and do something or let go of the wondering.
That’s all for today, you got this my friend. I have so many resources available for you if you are ready to dive deeper and begin to open up the can of worms. If you want support going through the chaos and the boat rocking, I got you. You don’t need to do this alone. Take care my friends, see you next week.
Make sure you check out my free weekly workshops I’m hosting over on www.meganhillukka.com. Check out this weeks topic, which can include anything from anxiety and grief, how to get through grief, navigating difficult emotions of grief and so on. See you there!
If you like this podcast, and found it helpful, I want to invite you come check out Grieving Moms Haven, my monthly community for Grieving moms, where you can learn positive coping mechanisms, find a safe space with others who understand, and learn life long skills that support you as you learn how to carry this weight of grief in your life.
There are group coaching calls where we do guided meditations, tapping meditations, breathwork, and just talk, knowing that everyone in the group is also walking the path of child loss
You can come check out Grieving Moms Haven at www.grievingmomshaven.com
