Somewhere along the way, you forgot.

Now you sit down, and before your body has even settled, the guilt arrives.

You find yourself asking, honestly, ‘why do I always feel guilty the moment I stop?’

Let me tell you a story and what I whispered to an empty room…

Seven weeks ago I injured my knee.

An MRI found floating cartilage, catching and causing pain.

I slowed down, it was healing.

And then, out of nowhere, it wasn't.

I lay in bed in excruciating pain. I couldn't move. I couldn't get comfortable.

And I said to the empty room, to nobody at all,

"I'll be alright."

I've spent years supporting people to slow down and ask for help.

I've said those words hundreds of times, in hundreds of sessions, with my whole heart behind them.

And still, my very first instinct was to manage it on my own.

I wasn't alright. I needed help. 

As I lay there with nowhere to go and nothing to do but feel the pain I discovered...

Guilt lives in the needing.

Beneath what you've been told about being capable.

Beneath the stories you've played on repeat about being the strong one.

Beneath the habits that stopped serving you a long time ago.

There's a belief and it usually sounds something like… 

‘I should be able to manage this.’

It feels heavy just writing this.

And it’s learned, which means it can be gently unlearned too.

I whispered into the empty room…

‘Trace you need help’

That's the sentence that bubbled up.

The belief tumbled out instantly after…

‘I’ll be ok’

And again…

‘Trace you need to ask for help’

So I called out.

And Andy didn't hear me.

That gap.

Those few seconds between calling and being heard.

That's where most of us give up. 

That's where the old story gets loud again.

Don’t make a fuss… you’ll be ok… you’re being dramatic…

I took a breath and I called again.

‘Hun, I need your help’

He came into the room.

I whispered through clenched teeth, "I need your help."

He asked me what I needed.

I didn't know. I was in too much pain to know.

I think this part is really important and something we all need to remember…

We don't need a tidy request ready before we’re allowed to ask.

We don't need a list.

You don't need to have worked it out first.

"I need help and I don't know what that looks like" is a whole and complete sentence.

Andy helped me get comfortable, slowly.

I cried.

Properly cried, the kind you can't manage or tidy up or explain away.

I had to say stop.

Slow down.

Do this, not that.

I had to be helped and held and adjusted like someone who couldn't do it on her own.

Because I couldn't.

And here's the part that undid me.

Andy was happy to help. He was gentle and compassionate.

Not burdened. Not resentful. Loving.

He wanted to be in that room, doing something useful for the person he loves.

My gratitude for him grew enormously in that moment.

And something else grew too. Something I'm still sitting with.

Deeper compassion. For myself.

The remembering that it's okay to need people.

That when you let someone help you, you're handing them something.

People want to feel needed.

They want to be able to give.

Every time we say "I'm fine," we close a door that someone who loves us is standing right outside of.

The crying mattered as much as the asking.

We get so skilled at managing pain.

We name it.

We understand it.

We explain exactly where it came from.

And then we carry on, with all that awareness, and the pain sits precisely where it always was.

Feeling it is a different thing altogether.

Feeling it happens in the body.

And pain comes in so many forms.

Physical, like a knee that gives way without warning.

Mental, like the loop of thoughts at 3am that won't settle.

Emotional, like the grief or the resentment you've been too busy to look at.

Spiritual, like the sense that something's missing and you can't name it.

They all want the same thing from you.

To be felt…

That's the move from understanding to embodying.

Your body softening, finally, into what your mind has known for some time.

If you take one thing from me today, let it be this…

Your guilt isn't evidence that you're failing.

Your exhaustion isn't either.

It doesn’t mean you’re not worthy.

Or that you should get up and do more and not ask for and accept support.

They're evidence that you've been holding it on your own for a very long time, and that somewhere along the way the holding became who you thought you had to be.

You're allowed to put it down.

You're allowed to call out.

And to call out again, when nobody hears you the first time.

You're allowed to say "I need help" without knowing what help looks like.

You're allowed to cry in front of the people who love you, and let them stay in the room.

You’re allowed to cry in front of people you don’t know too.

And when you do, something beautiful happens.

The people around you get to feel needed.

Your relationships get more honest.

Your whānau (family) get to see what real looks like.

And all that compassion you give away so freely, all day, to everyone else?

It finally comes home to you.

There is no one on this entire planet who carries what you carry, in the way that you carry it.

Your care is a gift.

Your presence is a gift.

The way you make people feel is a gift.

So let yourself be given to, as generously as you give to others.

If you do one thing today, let it be this. 

Ask for the help and then let someone give it to you.

This is the heart of my book Hononga, a guide to a more connected, satisfying and authentic life. Connection with yourself, with the people you love, and with the wisdom you're already holding. 

Are you ready to let go of guilt and allow yourself to be supported?

Arohanui, 

Trace x