Help's available, but do I deserve it?

I was checking the mail one afternoon, chatting with a neighbor, when I mentioned I had surgery coming up. She asked if she could make us a meal. Then she said something that has stayed with me: bringing meals is one way our neighborhood shows up for each other.

So I set up a meal train, and she passed it along. For over a week, dinner arrived at our door every night.

It isn’t the first time. Our neighbors supported us when I had surgery four years ago. And nearly nine years ago, shortly after we moved in, they showed up for us during a family emergency.

You’d think by now I’d know how to receive it. And yet…

The voice that gets louder when we’re depleted

Lying down for yet another nap while someone else cooked dinner for my family, I heard a familiar voice. It told me I wasn’t really recovering, I was living luxuriously. That I was taking advantage of other people’s kindness.

I learned at a young age that everyone else’s needs mattered more than mine. I’ve spent years learning to notice what I need and say it out loud. Setting up that meal train was evidence of that work.

But growth doesn’t erase old patterns. It builds our capacity to meet them. And when capacity drops (when we’re in pain, exhausted, or foggy, as I’ve been while writing this), the old wiring is right there waiting.

From a nervous system perspective, that makes sense. When we’re depleted, we reach for what’s familiar, the strategies that once kept us safe. For me, that strategy was to need less.

Maybe deserving is the wrong question

“Do I deserve this?” assumes help is something we earn, like a ledger to be balanced.

That isn’t what my neighbor described. She didn’t ask whether I’d earned dinner. She told me how our community takes care of each other.

What helped wasn’t arguing with the voice. It was acknowledging it and letting myself be present to it. Then I offered myself some compassion, because recovery is hard work. It’s also really boring. For a while I let myself have a pity party.

Alongside that, I felt grateful. Healthy meals were arriving with no effort on my part. And I’ve genuinely enjoyed the variety, trying Avgolemono and lamb skewers, delicious dishes we’d never have made ourselves.

Both were true. They still are.

Why this feels important right now

I recently got off a call with a leader I’ve worked with, and it echoed something I keep hearing: so many people are overwhelmed by their circumstances lately. Stretched thin. Running low.

That means many of us are depleted at exactly the moment our old patterns around help get loudest. It shows up at home, and it shows up at work, in the request we don’t make and the support we wave away.

Do You Accept the Challenge?

This week, get curious about your own relationship with help.

When you’re depleted, what story shows up about asking? About receiving?

Is there help available to you right now that you’re holding at arm’s length?

You don’t have to silence the voice that says you haven’t earned it. Just notice it. It may be telling you less about what you deserve and more about how depleted you are.