Help Is Not a Four-Letter Word

I’m back! In the last two years, speaking at conferences all over the country, including Puerto Rico, I’ve learned that Self-Sufficiency Syndrome is an EPIDEMIC! There are many, many of us that can’t ask for help, do everything all by ourselves, can’t delegate because no one else can do it as well, help others all the time but can’t ask to have the favor returned and we’re on our way to burnout.

In the coming weeks, I’ll tell you all about the stories I’ve heard. Today, here’s a couple about Self-Sufficients (that’s what I call the person like myself who lives this extreme behavior) who have driven themselves to the emergency room. Hope you’ll comment about your own experiences.

In a large women’s audience I asked “who would admit, like me, that you have driven yourself to the emergency room?” Twenty or thirty pairs of hands went up. And……the woman close to me said, “with Clorox in one eye.” Think about it.  And most recently in Tampa, Fl a man called to me as I left the room. He wanted to tell me that he had been in pain, called his wife to meet him at the emergency room, drove himself and the minute he got inside the emergency room door, fainted from the pain. He had a kidney stone.

What are we doing to ourselves? More next week about that.

Self-Sufficiency Syndrome in the Workplace

Do you get up every morning, sit on the side of the bed and wonder how you’re going to get through the workday – you have so much to do? Perhaps you didn’t sleep well cause the lists kept rolling in your head or if you did sleep, you dreamed of being swamped by a wave?

Now awake, you head for the coffee pot, just to get that jolt that will get you going. Oh boy, have I been there. In fact, I DID burn out. I started having panic attacks.

I knew I was on overwhelm -I felt anxious most of the time, on edge, stomach problems too. But I’d always felt invincible. In fact, I looked like I had it all together, like I didn’t need anyone or anything. I looked bullet-proof and I was proud of that image. Others looked up to me for it. After all, isn’t that the American cultural icon?

When someone needed advice or resources, who did they head to – moi, of course. I prided myself on that  too, never realizing I was setting myself up for disaster just because I could not utter four little words: I need your help!

On this blog, I’ll discuss what I found after my panic attacks began and I made the decision to look at all the wreckage strewn around me and try to understand why, where and how this had come about.

I’ll tell you this – it was life changing! Come with me as I share my journey from living a self-defeating set of behaviors to feeling free.

Peggy