The pain of asking for help

Blog by Money Healing Club co-founder, Thea Wayne

The theme of my week is asking for help, financially.

For me, before I started my money-healing journey, asking for help financially looked like asking to borrow thousands of dollars from family and friends, and not doing so in an anticipatory manner, but far past when I actually needed it to pay my rent and make ends meet for the month, and doing so with an energy of urgency, scarcity, and fear.

The stubbornness of my denial was thick. Both related to the shame of asking for help, and the complete denial anything was wrong with my money habits.

I had to ask for help this past week financially, but it felt so different energetically because it was money I had earned.

I am the project director at a small female-operated digital marketing agency and I am on with them as a close to full-time freelancer. The pay schedule recently changed to once a month, which ya'll for someone with a spending addiction is tough 😆. It takes a whole new level of self-control and budgeting to make this work, but it truly feels like the next stage of my money-healing evolution.

I was on the phone with the founder and we were talking about all of the clients coming in. We have a pretty open dialogue about money, financials, and our relationships with money which is wonderful.

I made a comment in passing about being broke and my boss paused. She said, “Well are you okay, do you need some money?” 

My default was to defend based on wanting to protect an image of I'm okay, I have my sh*t together with money now, and I'm fine on my own. So I said, “No, I'm okay I've got some things in the works.”

She pushed further and I'm so glad she did. My bank account was cruising on E and I had another two weeks until payday. 

She said, “What do you need?”

I mustered up, "I need half of my paycheck, that would be great, like, so helpful."

And just like that it was done, the money was in my account the next morning.

The thing is, people want to help. And it can be uncomfortable to be the one accepting and asking for help. 

I will say, it felt so much easier to ask and accept money that was earned than asking a family member for thousands because I had overspent. That drives so much guilt and shame.

I am not suggesting you begin borrowing or asking for advances, but what I am sharing is that people love to help, and there is nothing wrong with you asking for help when times get tough. 💖