Permission to ask for help.

Last week I shared something that hit home for many of the women in my community. But I realized I pushed send before I'd finished it properly.

Here it is, complete.

Lying in a hospital bed, with a drip in my arm, the doctor told me in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t discharge me until I rang somebody for help.

It was a life lesson that felt so vulnerable I wished for the ground to open up and swallow me.

To admit I wasn’t ok, that I needed help, was tantamount to holding a megaphone to my mouth and announcing to the world that I was a failure.

This was 2008, and just a few weeks following the sudden and devastating departure of my first husband. In the aftermath, our four small children and I all got tonsillitis. It was hell. Nursing them for days on end, I didn’t manage to stay on top of my own needs and eventually got so sick I couldn’t even swallow my own saliva. So, in the middle of the night, when the pain was more than I could bear without losing my mind, I piled everyone into the car and drove to the hospital.

If I could tell that version of me one thing, it would be this;

To ask for help when you need it is a sign of strength, not weakness.

It is a miserable, lonely world that has handed down the belief that struggling is shameful. To put your hand up and ask for help when you’re struggling is taking responsibility for what you need. It is not about wanting someone to save you. We are not helpless princesses stuck in a tower. We are women who know we are stronger when we work together.

If you see yourself in my story, then you also get to see the solution.

I know you can soldier on. I know you can keep surviving. You’ve already proven that more times than you can likely name.

But if surviving is no longer enough. If somewhere underneath all of it there is a yearning to feel truly alive again... in love with your life, with who you are becoming, with what’s possible...

then asking for help is not a weakness, it is responsible.

It is your call to adventure.

It is the moment the heroine in your story decides to choose courage.

There is no shame in being lost. There is no shame in being at your wits end. There is only courage in saying... not this, not anymore.

I have walked this road. I know the way through.

If you have a yearning in your gut for something more but can’t yet name what that more is, you, my friend, are in the in-between — where the life you’ve lived no longer fits, and the life you want feels miles away.

I work with women 1:1 for 12 months. We build a clear vision for what you want, and then I walk with you until you’ve brought it to life. Investment: $22,222.

To book a 30-minute conversation with me, click this link: Edwina’s Calendar

p.s. Every time I think the words - ‘If I need help, I will ask for it’, I can hear the voice of Judi Dench in her role as Armande in the movie Chocolat… a wise woman’s words powerfully said. If you’ve never seen it, do! It is my all-time favourite film. x