Asking for help, and taking action, over and over
The latest installment in my series on living the intuitive, aligned life
Welcome! This is the Sunday Soother, a weekly newsletter about compassionate personal growth and authentic living, written by me, Catherine Andrews, a life coach, teacher, and writer. Did somebody forward this to you? You can subscribe to the Sunday Soother here.
Happy Sunday, Soothers. We're well into this journey we're taking together on creating and allowing to unfold an intuitive and aligned life, huh? If you're new, welcome — the past four weeks I've been writing essays for a series on how to live a more intuitive, aligned and surrendered life. You can read past issues here at these links:
Part I: Beginning to live a surrendered, intuitive life
Part II: How you can begin to claim your desires
Part III: Listening to and seeing signs all around us
Part IV: Creating more space in your life for alignment
And today we dive into Part V of something I think is critical to living the intuitive and surrendered life, and that is the potent combo of asking for help, opening yourself to invitations, and also taking inspired and messy action.
I think there can be a misconception that when we aim to live a surrendered life, it becomes a passive one. "Take the wheel, universe!" we cry as we're delivered to perfection on the floating canoe down the intuitive river. We are absolved of responsibility, after all, right, when we surrender? Our fate and destiny are in the hands of whatever forces larger than us are in charge. Lean back and take the ride!
Nuh uh. Not so. An absolutely important part of living a surrendered and aligned life, is, perhaps counterintuitively, being willing to 1. Ask for help, out loud 2. Being open and receptive to invitations and signs on your path that ask you to step up and meet their opportunity, that answer your plea for help and 3. Then take inspired, messy action towards desires that you are discovering, that are unfolding on your heart, and continue to meet the openings and invitations that come towards you with courage and resolve.
Take the story of a mentor and teacher of mine, Amanda Gibby Peters, who has been studying and teaching Feng Shui for nearly 20 years. At the beginning of this particular journey, in her late 20s, she and her husband and their two toddler twins had just moved into a new house. Though they'd had a very happy marriage and were enjoying raising their girls, soon after they moved into that home they started bitterly fighting, and having money issues. They even raised divorce as a possibility. (As a side note, this is related to an issue in Feng Shui called predecessor chi, where the energy of the previous inhabitants of a home can affect you — yup, the previous owners had gotten divorced and always fought bitterly, according to neighbors.) It got so bad, as Peters often tells it, that one day she flung herself onto the couch, said, out loud, "I need help. Whatever I find next in this book will be the answer" and picked a random book, opened to it a page, and her eyes dropped on a sentence including "Feng Shui."
Peters at that time was not a spiritual person and highly skeptical of this particular approach, but after 1. asking for help she 2. opened herself to the invitation that appeared in that book. She said, okay, and started studying and deploying elements of Feng Shui in her home. Little by little, she followed the breadcrumb of the work, eventually getting certified by multiple schools and starting a thriving business. She continued to 3. follow her intuition, take inspired action, step up to other opportunities and is now a well-respected Feng Shui consultant and teacher. Oh, and her marriage worked itself out happily, too.
Let's take a look at these three steps and how you can do them a bit closer.
Ask for help: I'm being quite literal when I offer this step. Ask, out loud, for help with what you need help with. That's the whole tip. You can also ask for help in your journal or by speaking it to the heavens. You don't need to know who you're asking, or from whom the support will come. But you do have to ask, and — this is important — it can't just be asking in your head. I've found the help then often appears in the most synchronistic ways. I love the story of entrepreneur Kate Northrup, who, when she moved cities, found herself unable to find daycare for her young kids. After weeks of searching and flailing and finding nothing, she just decided she was going to, as she put it, "delegate this one to the universe." She wrote down what she needed and then let it go. A week later, she got a call from a friend of a friend who told her about an opening in their daycare.
So in asking for help, name the ask. Say it out loud, either in voice or in writing. Then, release it. You don't know where the help may come from, or exactly how it will look, but trust that in some form, it's on its way.
Step up to the invitation or the opportunity of aid that is offered, even if it doesn't look like exactly what you thought it would: After asking for help, I find that the help always comes. It just doesn't look like what you might think it should, it may come from seemingly random sources or people, it may come faster or later than you want it to, or you may face resistance to the invitation the help is offering. This is where having signs and synchronicities can help tune you into if the offer of help is the one meant for you. The other thing is often when the help or invitation comes: we're scared. About 8-10 years ago I decided I was ready to start doing some freelance lifestyle writing. I wrote this in my journal. No joke, three days later a friend who worked at the time at a major online news outlet put me in touch with a lifestyle editor at the site who wanted to run a piece of mine. I almost hid from the opportunity and turned it down, because, it turns out, it can be scary to get what you want! But I drummed up my courage, wrote my little heart out, and got a big byline. You can do it. So have courage, have resolve, and when the invitation is offered, step up to the plate.
Continue to take inspired action, even if it's messy and you're not sure what you're doing, but also listening to your intuition along the way: And this is where we step up to the plate to meet our surrendered lives half way. Sometimes the river does carry us most gently down a lovely stretch of water, and we can lean back. Sometimes, the river presents us with a fork, and we and we alone must choose. And sometimes the river asks us to paddle for our lives. So as you tune in and are stepping up to invitations and opportunities, keep taking messy action. The ideas for this inspired action may seem utterly illogical. A whisper in your mind may tell you, "You should go for dinner at that takeout Indian place you love," but it's halfway across town, and doesn't seem "logical" for you to spend all that time going there. But when you go to pick up your food you run into that colleague from a job five years ago who has an exciting opportunity. Sometimes taking the messy, inspired action is more, well, demanding. It means since you believe in a project you're building, you email 30 people about it, even though that feels scary to you. It might mean starting that newsletter you've been craving to do but have been putting off for three years out of fear. It might mean asking somebody out, attending a public gathering solo, asking for a raise or any other number of things. And you may not "know" it's the "right" thing to do. And yet, that's the point, of messy, inspired action. When we start to churn up energy and action by taking these steps, the universe sees that we are moving, that we are ready for more, and it begins to send us more invitations and opportunities.
We're winding down on this series; next week we'll tackle why it's important to regulate and ground yourself and your nervous system as you live into the surrendered life, as well as one or two other points.
But for now, here's your invitation:
What do you need help with?
Ask it, state it in the comments.
Simply by saying it, admitting it, honoring it out loud, you have set into motion this process.
And you deserve support, guidance, a helping hand, all that you need.
Just begin to claim it first.
212: The 6 strengths, and the 6 weaknesses, of the Highly Sensitive Person in leadership
It's probably pretty obvious that I'm super biased, but I think highly sensitive people are incredible, generally, and also, perhaps contrary to general belief, also make incredible leaders. HSPs are empathetic, intuitive, have an incredible ability to process information and make good decisions, and are authentic and kind. Today, as I gear up to launch the Highly Sensitive Person Leadership Academy, I detail what I think are the six superpowers of the HSP leaders. And, just to keep it real — there are plenty of things we struggle with in leadership too, so I also detail six leadership weaknesses that we can work on and address. Tune on in to see how you embrace and step into your leadership potential.
Listen to all of my Sunday Soother podcast archives wherever you listen to your podcasts. I have over 200 episodes to binge!
Reads & Recs
Where I share articles, books, recipes, podcasts, beauty products and more that I'm enjoying! (A few links may be affiliate links off of which I'll make a small commission; I only endorse stuff I've tried and loved).
🎉 I made a fun thing and that fun thing is a quiz about your highly sensitive person leadership style! It takes about 3 minutes and sorts you into one of 5 leadership styles that I see in HSPs. When you get your results, you get your top 3 strengths, your 3 possible challenges, and advice for how to work through the challenges, too. I hope you enjoy it and check out the Highly Sensitive Person Leadership Academy program info, which will launch in September!
💯 As I research more leadership and management, and why it can sometimes be difficult for HSPs to thrive inside of the 9-5, I came across this interesting article/podcast (I read the transcript) with a lot of perspective: "Why Management History Needs to Reckon with Slavery." [HBR]
🕰️ From Amanda in the Sunday Soother Slack, loved this piece: Off the Clock "In the wake of the pandemic, people are rethinking their relationship not just to work but to time." [NYT gift link]
👉 How does trauma spill from one generation to the next? "Intergenerational trauma has become a hot topic as people seek to explain the poor state of mental health among younger generations." [Washington Post]
📺 Properly binged the final season of Never Have I Ever last week and cried happy sad tears at the perfect ending and that this sweet, perfect show was over. It's on Netflix, and if you haven't watched it yet I highly, highly recommend it. I love Devi and her wonderful complicatedness and warmth and teenage confusion and anger and joy so much.
💡 Have you heard of the concept of Opposite Action Skill? I love this approach, examples at the link: "All emotions activate us to respond and the type of activation is biologically wired. The Opposite Action Skill allows us to choose to respond opposite from what our biological response would activate us to do. They get us ready to act."
🫶 We Should Be Ambitious About Our Friendships "Ambition doesn’t just have to be about work. We can be ambitious for each other too." [Elle.com]
🥹 I just love Marlee Grace's sweet, creative and vulnerable newsletter so much. They write this week about bursting into tears filming a Skillshare class. "I cried because I wanted to be having a joyful and confident time and instead I was crying. I cried because I don’t want to live thinking I don’t deserve money or success. I cried because the resistance to my growth hurts so much more than growing. I cried because I wish the people I loved had the same growth that I’ve experienced, and so - this is why I tell them how I did it."
✅ From Kelly in the Sunday Soother Slack: We need to talk about Black women's struggle with PMDD [Refinery29]
🥤 And a summery rec from Dani in the Sunday Soother Slack: "A summer drink rec for everyone like me who will do anything to avoid drinking regular, plain water but are very much 3-drink people (iykyk): lately I’ve been freezing berries, using them as ice cubes, adding plain sparkling water, and then topping it off with kombucha, tea, juice, etc. It’s not too sugary, very refreshing, and helps me stay hydrated, plus it’s super summery."
That's it for this week, all my love,
xo
Catherine
i have ~2mos left until I leave my job in California for school in NYC. I need help with this final stretch: finding the right apartment and hiring movers/getting myself there.
I just got started rock climbing and took a great intro course. I want to go rock climbing outside, and I need help finding solid climbing partners who will go with me and continue to help me learn.