I want to share with you something I posted in the BodyIntelligence Community Facebook Group – about a month ago now – regarding something unexpected that really helped me.

I had been feeling out of sorts all day, when that evening a friend of mine called me and asked for my help! It was something simple I could do immediately for her (feed her cat!), and I was very glad to be able to help her out.

It’s so interesting how much better I felt – pretty much immediately! (Probably the cat did, too!)

I think there is an important lesson here – that you shouldn’t hesitate to ask for help when you need it. It can help the other person, too. It may help them feel needed, useful, connected to others, and so forth, and can take them out of their own worries and concerns.

Asking for help is part of self-care. What I learned through this experience is that it can also be helpful to the person you ask!

In fact, as one of the commenters on my original post pointed out, positive psychology research tells us that doing a kindness for another gives us the single biggest boost in wellbeing.

It makes me wonder why so many of us have such a hard time asking for help when it can be such a benefit to the helper. My hope is that knowing this, it will make it easier for us all to ask for help when we need it.

I have received so much help and support over the last couple of months from friends and family near and far, and I am grateful for all of it. Maybe helping me has helped my helpers, too. I very much hope so.

* I thought this blog was a great excuse to share a photo of my two cats, Puffkin and Tiger, depicted here happily eating their dinner!