"Walk through an airport bookstore, scroll the podcast charts, or listen to a leadership keynote, and you'll likely find lessons on boundaries and burnout. Celebrities talk about therapy with a casualness that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Coaches tell C-suite executives to " lead with vulnerability." And bestselling books like The Gifts of Imperfection, You Should Talk to Someone, and The Body Keeps the Score have given the world a common vocabulary for talking about anxiety, shame, and trauma."
"To say, "I'm struggling," takes honesty. To ask, "Can you help me?" is to request time, attention, and follow-through. It risks inconvenience. It risks rejection. It can even feel like a status shift: the helper stays competent while the helped becomes "needy." Psychologists have been describing versions of this for decades. Asking for help can threaten self-esteem because it can imply inferiority or loss of control. Many people feel a quiet fear that they'll be judged as less capable or more dependent."
Cultural shifts have made vulnerability and therapy more visible and socially acceptable. Despite greater openness, asking for help remains difficult because requests require time, attention, and follow-through and risk inconvenience, rejection, or a perceived status shift. Asking can threaten self-esteem by implying inferiority or loss of control in a society that values autonomy. People commonly underestimate how willing others are to help and overestimate the personal cost of asking. When care is treated as transactional rather than reciprocal over time, belonging erodes and social isolation deepens.
Read at Psychology Today
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