This is the story of how I was nearly defeated by plastic bags, and how I need to ask for help.
I’d be lying if I pretended to be a spiritual flower throughout every moment of my waking existence, or even for 1/3 of the day. My mind is a much moodier place than I’d ever care to admit, and sometimes I seem to immediately race toward the very worst perspective.
With things piling up at work, constant interruptions, computer malfunctions, mounting tasks to check off at home, AND Mercury in retrograde, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with my appliances falling apart when I walked through the door today. But when I finally walked through the door at 7:00, I was pretty certain that the universe just took a giant dump all over me.
My dishwasher quit working, and I lost it. And here’s the internal dialogue that ensued:
Why does it always feel like the universe is against me? I’m trying so hard to manage my life, health, home, work, blah, blah, blah…. But things keep breaking, or I get interrupted, or I forget, etc. Why am I always struggling? I just want my damn dishwasher to work, and for my toilet to stay fixed, and to have time to clean my house, to pot my plants, write in my journal, call the insurance company, deal with my cell phone company, and for life to be easy…
Very typical things to be dealing with. It just seemed so unfair that as I’m trying desperately to implement balance in my life, things keep popping up that make it impossible. One thought is that this is all helping me to prioritize my worries and actions, which is a necessary part of practicing balance. Or, maybe it’s a call to maintain perspective? I’m sure they’re both the case, but the issue that I find resonates with this most is allowing myself to ask for help. It’s a pretty frequent theme that’s been revealing itself to me in every reading and in various ways lately. Not only figuring out how to ask for help, but getting over the shame I associate with asking for help, and letting go of the idea that I must do everything myself. The minute I caved to the idea of calling a repair man, the situation changed.
Update: It was the damn power switch.
I was just about to dismantle my dishwasher when I thought to look under the sink. Buried behind a mountain of plastic bags, I discovered this cute little switch that was mysteriously flipped to “off”. Are you kidding me?! In the same moment, I felt rage and relieved enough to start laughing like a crazy woman.
After throwing my hands in the air, asking the universe what it wanted from me, and pleading for it to be on my side, I decided to call a repair man. And that’s when I got the random idea to look behind the plastic bags under the sink. You got me this time universe.
Seriously, now that I need to ask for help, how do I do it? What advice could you give?
