H-E-L-P is My Favorite 4 - Letter Word! Why Asking for Help is a Superpower & How You Can Get Better at It

 Asking for help is NOT a weakness. It's a superpower. And "can't"? It's my least favorite word — because most of the time, it's just fear wearing a disguise. 💜

This week on Why Am I Yelling, we're going ALL IN on the four-letter word that changed my life: HELP.

I'm sharing the wedding anniversary breakdown story that cracked everything open, why so many of us were conditioned to do it all alone, and what actually happens when we finally let people in.

⏱️ WHAT WE COVER:
why this episode exists
The anniversary breakdown (my origin story)
4 reasons we refuse to ask for help
Why "can't" is my least favorite word (and what to say instead)
5 reasons asking for help is actually everything
How to actually do it: practical steps that work
Your homework

💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Asking for help builds real intimacy — you're giving someone the gift of being needed
• "Can't" is usually "won't" or "scared to" — and that distinction changes everything
• Doing it all alone is a health risk, not a virtue (especially in perimenopause 🫠)
• Modeling help-seeking might be the most important thing you teach your kids

🎙️ Why Am I Yelling? is the podcast for middle-aged, menopausal moms who are done pretending they have it all together. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one.

 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello, yellers. Welcome back to Why Am I Yelling? Musings from a Middle-aged menopausal mom. I'm your host, Krista Rizzo, the mom who is trying to hold it all together while occasionally succeeding. And today we're going all in on my favorite four-letter word. Help. I'll bet you didn't have that one earmarked as my favorite four-letter word. But it is. And we're going to talk about why asking for help is not a weakness. Actually, it's a superpower, is what I like to call it. And also, we are going to talk about my least favorite four-letter word, which is can't. So let's get started, shall we? Okay, H-E-L-P. Four little letters, one syllable, and somehow one of the hardest things I have ever tried to say out loud. And I'm sure some of you, if not all of you, can relate to this. So let's let me tell you it's story time. Let me tell you a story about how I learned the hard way to ask for help. For those of you who have been with me for a while, you might already know this story because I have shared it before in various places on the interwebs. But for those of you who are new here, um I'm gonna rewind back to my 13th wedding anniversary. So far long ago because I'm coming up on year 25 in a few weeks. So um it was, I think it was a Tuesday. Uh it was Tuesday evening. Uh it was my 13th wedding anniversary. I had worked all day, had two little ones at home, two boys, and my husband had worked all day, and I got home and still had laundry to put away, and the kids were rolling around on the kitchen floor. And I remember saying to them, now there's a six-year age gap between my boys, so I think they were eight and two at the time. Uh, and I remember saying to them, someone's gonna end up getting hurt and crying. And lo and behold, not 20 seconds later, somebody ended up, you know, crying, and they both ended up crying because one didn't want to upset the other one, and it was just a whole thing. But me, you know, here I am, it's an hour after I'd gotten home from work and picked up the boys from daycare and school and all the things, and I was tired. I worked a very um stressful job at the time, uh, a lot of responsibility and stuff, and was going through some things there that I had not uh said out loud to anybody. So I had a lot of stress sitting on my shoulders, and it was probably about seven o'clock at night, and still wearing my suit from work, and I'm putting laundry away, and I'm in our bedroom, and the kids are now crying on the floor, and I was just, you know, shaking my head, putting this laundry away, and my husband walked in from work, and you know, he assessed the situation in the kitchen, he was like, Why is everybody crying? and all the things, and you know, walked into the bedroom and you know, kissed me hello, said happy anniversary, and then said, Your flowers are on the table. And for some reason, that triggered me, and I lost it. And it wasn't the fact that he had just said, your flowers are on the table, and it wasn't like a grand gesture that he presented these flowers to me. It was a culmination of so many things that just showed up in that moment, and I ended up, you know, sitting on the bed and I was crying, I was on the floor, and uh, you know, he was mortified and didn't really know what was going on and said, What is happening? And so I, you know, said, I'm fine, you know, I'm fine. And he was like, actually, you're not fine. And so let's talk about what is not fine about it. And so then I kind of unloaded on him about some of the things that were going on at work. It was some inappropriate things happening, and it was very stressful for me. And uh, you know, I remember him saying to me, uh, how can I help you? I what can I do to help you? And you know, you're not in this alone, which I think a lot of women, you know, we we sit with this idea that we, you know, have to be a certain thing to everyone. We have to be everything to everyone all the time. Uh and a lot of times it's all the time, it's really hard to be everything for everyone and also be something for ourselves, right? And I was an absolute mess in 2014. That's when it was. And you know, if it wasn't for my husband saying to me, if you're not fine, none of us are fine. And I want to be very clear on that. Um, so we're gonna do everything we need to do to make sure that you're getting what you need to get, and we are working together to help you, but you have to be able to ask for help because also, moms, ladies who are listening to this, and men, um, men are not mind readers the way that women are. And we literally can be mind readers because we're so good at multitasking and organizing and keeping schedules and kind of you know, running this ongoing dialogue in our brain about what's here and there and all the things. Men most of the time don't operate that way, and they need to be told what to do, kind of, or how to help, or asked how to help, or kind of it's we have to be able to express that to them. And it that's something that that we can't just assume they're going to know, right? And I think a lot of us just assume that because we we just do it, right? So instead of you know, me saying I'm fine, which I did, and him, you know, not agreeing with me or believing me, um we worked together to create a very different situation than what was happening in our house up until that point, right? It became how can we work together to do this? But again, we are trained, have been, I think, in our lives by by our predecessors, our ancestors, like however it is that you, you know, have been have learned this to believe that we can carry all the load. And then we wonder why we fall down and and melt down in the bedroom, or we are yelling, or any of those things, right? Knowing that something has to change, which is being comfortable or okay with asking for help. And it sounds easy, right? This is an easier said-than-done kind of thing, right? Because it's not easy, it is one of the most complicated, ego-involving vulnerability requiring identity-shifting things that I and most women has ever had to do. Because, you know, along the way, that message lived on from however we learned it, that asking for help was a weakness. And it seemed like you were you were being weak for asking. That asking for help means you have failed, and that a woman who can do it all doesn't need anyone to help her. And that message had been passed on for generations and generations and generations. My grandmother moved in with my parents after my grandfather died, and she was still ironing my dad's underwear literally two days before she died, at the age of 80 something. Like she, it was expected that the women always did all the things for everybody, and they never had the time to pour into themselves or give themselves two minutes to do anything, right? That message that was sent to us through, you know, learned traits. Let me tell you something about that message. It's complete bullshit, right? It's utter garbage. It is a lie that we have been told, and a lot of us have been paying for it with our health, with our relationships, with our sanity, and with our sleep, which we already know we're losing to the night sweats and the menopause, and we really can't afford to lose any more of it. So let's kind of dig into this. Why is asking for help so hard? Because if we're if it were easy, right, we would we would all be doing it all the time, and I wouldn't have an episode to talk about it, right? But there are forces at work here, right? First off, we think we mean it that we failed. We think it means that we have we're failures in motherhood, in life, in our relationships, and all the things. We have this, you know, deeply ingrained idea, uh, especially for those of us who are raised to be strong, quote unquote, or we watched our mothers and our grandmothers do everything without complaining, even though we kind of knew that something just wasn't right. Uh we were taught that asking for help was admitting defeat, right? It was waving that white flag around, it was saying, I can't handle this. And God forbid you can't handle it. Because we handle everything all the time. We are handlers, we are the tables. We talked about that in a couple of episodes ago. But let's reframe this. Let's reframe it from the we think we failed. Because asking for help doesn't mean you failed. What if it means that you're smart enough to know what you need? What if it means you understand your own capacity? That's not failure, that's wisdom, my friends. It is self-awareness, and those are things we actually want. We are afraid of being a burden, is another one, right? This one kind of hits me deep, I think, right? How many times have you stopped yourself from asking for something because you didn't want to bother anyone? Because you didn't want to be too much, because you assumed everyone else was too busy, too tired, and they had their own problems. Here's the refrain. When somebody you love comes to you for help, when your best friend calls or your kid calls saying they're overwhelmed or they're struggling, when a coworker asks for your advice, do you think of them as a burden? No, you don't. You feel honored, you feel trusted, you feel connected to them. So why do you assume that people would feel differently about you? We have to kind of sit with that, right? Next, we think we have to earn help. This is one that kind of sneaks up on you, right? We think that we have to try, you know, hard first. We have to struggle significantly. We have to be inconvenienced enough before we're allowed to ask for support. Like, there's some invisible threshold we have to hit. And when we hit it, that's when we can deserve the help. Like, is that the bedroom floor? I don't know. No. You don't have to earn it. You're allowed to ask for help just because you need it. Before the crisis, before the breakdown, before the bedroom floor. Right? You're allowed to say, I need some support just because life is a lot and you are a human being. And then here's a sneaky one. We don't actually know how to do it. We don't actually know how to ask for help. Nobody really teaches us how to ask for help. We teach our kids to say please and thank you. We teach sharing, but we don't teach people how to say out loud, I'm struggling and I could use some support. We don't model that because we're the adults and we're supposed to have it all together, right? So now as we reach adulthood and now we're in midlife, and here we are, and we have this massive gap in our toolkit. We can do everything else. We can manage and organize and problem solve and multitask, but ask for help. It makes basically makes us feel like we're toddlers trying to figure out how the square goes in the hole. Which is impossible. So that brings me to my least favorite word. Situation. Because this is important. We're asking for help, but then I have my least favorite word, which is connected to this, right? My least favorite word is not a colorful one. It's not a curse word. It's not one of the one of the words that a lot of us probably use more often than our favorite four-letter words, and our least favorite four-letter words. But my favorite four-letter, my least favorite four-letter word is can't. C-A-N apostrophe T. Can't. I don't like it because in most, not all, but most of the situations where we use it, what we actually mean is something very different. When we say I can't ask for help, what we actually mean is I won't, or I'm afraid to, or I don't know how. And we think it's, you know, why? Why do we think that? Maybe we are not being honest with ourselves about things we can do. Maybe it is acknowledging our limitations in some area or aspect or something we were afraid to try. But it's really just often fear wearing a disguise, quite frankly. Think about it this way. Have you ever said, I can't talk to my doctor about how I'm really feeling? Or I can't ask my spouse to take some things off my plate, or I can't tell my boss that I'm drowning. Yes, you can. What you mean is it's scary, it's uncomfortable. There might be consequences, but I don't know how it will go. And those yellers are very real and very valid feelings. But I'm scared to is a very different sentence from I can't. Because I'm scared to has a door in it. It acknowledges that the thing is possible and that you have an emotion about it. And once you can see that door, you can decide what to do with it. You can walk toward it, you can ask for help opening it. And that is irony. But I can't, I can't just has hit a wall. It's a wall. I can't. Nope. And then you just walk away from the wall, and the thing never happens, and nothing changes, and you're still in your bathrobe at 6 a.m. doing everything yourself, talking to yourself and muttering about how you really could use this help. Now, I want to be very clear here because I understand that nuance matters. There are genuine can't, for sure. There are real limitations and real disabilities and real circumstances where something is truly not possible. I am not dismissing those. I am talking about the habitual reflexive cant that we use as a shield against discomfort. That is the one that I would like for us to examine. So here's my challenge to you. And I say this as someone who is still actively working on this for one week. Every time you catch yourself saying or thinking I can't, just pause. And ask yourself, is this actually can't, or is this won't? Or is this scared to? Or is this I haven't tried? Just notice. That's all. Just notice. Because awareness is the first step. And awareness is something that you can do. All right. Now that I've put that into your brain, let's ask, talk about why asking for help is actually everything. Right? This is good stuff. Help, my favorite four-letter word, is actually one of the most important things any of us can practice. Number one, it builds real relationships, real intimacy, not the hallmark movie kind. The actual gritty, meaningful kind. It's built in moments of vulnerability, right? When you let someone help you, you are saying, I trust you, I see you. You matter to me enough that I am willing to be seen not having it all together. And the other person, the one you're asking the help from, they get to feel needed. They get to feel useful. They get to show up for you. We all want to do that for people we love. Asking for help isn't taking, it's actually giving. You're giving someone the gift of being needed. Second, it teaches your kids something priceless. This one hits right in the heart. Because if you're a parent listening to this, I want you to really hear this and take it in. When you model asking for help, you are teaching your children that needing support is normal. That asking is brave. And that no one, not even the capable, competent adult who runs your household has to do everything alone. And that lesson, that might be the most important lesson you ever teach them. Because they're gonna face hard things, they're gonna need help. And if they have watched you, their person ask for it without shame, they will know that they can do the same. Number three, it actually gets things done better. Hear me out on this one, right? Because I was like, hmm, when I was writing this out, when I was thinking about the points that I wanted to make, I was like, hmm, this one kind of came up for me. When we try to do everything ourselves, we often do it worse. I know. If you're like me, because I am a type A self-proclaimed control freak and I like things done a certain way, all the things. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. But when we try to do everything ourselves, we often do it worse because we're tired, we're spread too thin, we're not bringing our best self to any of it because we're bringing 50% instead of 100%. Right? When you ask for help, you are acknowledging that someone else might actually be better at something than you are. I know that is impossible. To fathom in some ways, for sure. But that is the truth, and it's not humiliation, it's a fact. Other people are better at things. That's why we have accountants and plumbers and therapists and friends who are really good at pep talks. You don't have to be the expert at everything. You just have to be the person who knows when to ask. Fourth, it protects your health. That's right. And speaking as someone who is navigating the absolute hormonal roller coaster that is menopause, this matters, mamas. Chronic stress kills us. Slowly, quietly, it raises our cortisol, it disrupts our sleep, it tanks our immune system, affects our heart, and makes the menopause symptoms roughly a thousand times worse. Stress. Carrying everything is not noble. It's a health risk. I can't do this because it's a health risk. I need help because it's a health risk if you don't help me. Every time you ask for help, you are, and I am not exaggerating, this is not a joke. You are protecting your body. You are choosing your well-being over your ego. And that is an act of profound self-love. And fifth, this is the big one because it opens you up to learning. When you ask for help, you learn things. You learn about yourself, what you actually need, what's being drained of you, what you've been carrying that was never really yours to carry. You learn about the people around you who show up, who how they show up, what they're capable of when they are given a chance to help you. And you learn new ways of doing things, new perspectives, new approaches you never would have found on your own. Every time I have had the courage to say, I need help with this, to a doctor, to my husband, to a friend, to a stranger in the grocery store, I've told those stories in the past too. Something has shifted. Something has opened up. I have never once regretted asking. I have regretted waiting so long to ask. But the ask itself, not so much. Okay, so I know some of you are sitting there going, this all sounds great and it's lovely, and you know, asking for help is important, and I got it, but how? Like practically, how do I do this when I have spent 40 or 50 something years not doing it? And that, my friend, is a valid question. So we're gonna talk about it. Start small. You don't have to start with a big thing, it doesn't have to be momentos, momentus, right? You don't have to open the conversation with your deepest struggle. You just have to practice the muscle. Ask someone to grab you a glass of water, ask a coworker to take a look at something you're working on, ask your teenager to start the laundry or make dinner or start it, right? Small asks build the muscle, and the muscle needs to be built. Be specific. One of the reasons help doesn't always feel helpful is that we are vague about what we need. I just need some support. It's hard to answer. But I'm having a rough week. Could you take the kids on Saturday morning so I can sleep? That somebody can do for you. So be specific. It makes it easier for people to say yes when they know what they're saying yes to and how they can actually be useful to you. Number three, let people help their way. This one has been one of the hardest ones for me. Because again, type A control freak, we often have our own way of doing things. How things should look, where things go, how we like things to do. But when someone shows up and does it differently, sometimes we get frustrated because, and then, and then you know how many times have you ever said, Oh, I'll just do this myself? Like it would just be easier for me to do myself. I have said it about eight gazillion million thousand times. So learn this. Let it go. I was gonna sing the Elsa song, but I'm not gonna. But you have to stop, you gotta let it go, right? If your husband folds the laundry differently than you do, it means the laundry is still folded. If your kid only pulls up the sheet or the blanket to make his make their bed and it's not tucked in and the pillows aren't fluffed, the bed is still made. Letting people help their way is part of the practice of appreciating the help. And then it gets easier to kind of deal with, right? Number four, deal with the guilt. Because there will be guilt, because we're mothers, and there's always some level of stupid guilt. The nagging feeling that you should be handling this yourself, that you are inconveniencing someone, that this makes you less than. When the guilt shows up, and it will, just acknowledge it. Hello, guilt, I see you, and you are not in charge today, and then turn your back on it and do the thing anyway. Guilt looks harmless, but it will keep you stuck if you let it run the show. And step five, say thank you and receive it. When someone helps you, let yourself receive it. Don't immediately minimize it as, oh, it was nothing. You didn't have to, I'm sorry to bother you. None of that. Just say thank you. Mean it. And let the help land. Let it fill up some of the empty. That is what it is there for. Okay. We're almost out of time. I'm at 28.31 minutes. And I want to leave you with this. You are not supposed to do this alone. Not the motherhood, not the career, not the marriage, or the relationship, or the friendships, not the menopause or the perimenopause. Definitely not that. Because, you know, please find your people and talk about it constantly. We are all suffering together, together. And that is actually a beautiful thing. Connection happens there, right? You are not supposed to do any of this alone. We are built for community. We are built to lean on each other. The most extraordinary things that have ever happened in human history have happened because people have asked for help, accepted help, gave help, and built something together. Help is my favorite four-letter word because it has changed my life. Not in one big dramatic moment. Though that bedroom breakdown was pretty dramatic, I'm not gonna lie. But slowly over time, learning to ask, learning to receive, learning that I was not less for needing others, that has given me back pieces of myself I didn't even know that I had lost. And can't can't take a seat. Because most of the time, most of the time, you can. You just might need some help doing it. So here is your homework. If you choose to accept it for this week. Ask for help just once. Just once from anyone about anything. And notice what happens. Notice how it feels before you ask. Notice how it feels after you ask. And if you want to tell me about it, slide into my DMs on Instagram at why am I yelling pod. Thank you for spending time with me today, yellers. Seriously, thank you. It is not lost on me that you could be doing literally anything else right now. And you're here, and that means the world. So until next time, ask for the help. Say the thing, and for the love of all that is holy, get some sleep. Oh! And happy Mother's Day on Sunday. Let them help you. Don't do a thing. I love you. We'll see you next week.