Healthy Life Tip: When help is offered and you could use a hand, be willing to accept.

Have you ever struggled to accept help, even when you really needed it? We all face this situation, and sometimes have to overcome our own pride to accept acts of generosity. It’s not greedy to accept help. The truth is, nothing happens by one person alone. We all rely on the assistance of many others to accomplish our own life’s work. Right now, more than ever, we get to experience the importance of each other’s help. Putting ego aside, we find that great things come from accepting what is offered. Here, blessings can abound!

Only in accepting can we give, and thus the natural flow of giving and receiving continues to thrive. In the natural cycle, the plants release oxygen and need carbon dioxide to live; on the other side, animals breathe out carbon dioxide and breathe in the oxygen that the plants produce. A miraculous life flow happens in this dance of giving and receiving. We exist in a beautifully interdependent universe, where nothing operates isolated from another.

We still need discernment in navigating offers of help. Pay attention to any internal warning signs that are telling you that a gift may be dangerous or come with ill intention. Anything that risks our physical, mental, or emotional well being is not actually “help” – it’s harm. When we are true to ourselves, we don’t betray ourselves. When we are centered, we more easily see when to accept and when to graciously decline an offer.

We can also move beyond any fears of not being deserving, or not being able to repay. We can consider accepting a hand reached out in assistance, just as naturally as we may offer help spontaneously with a loving heart. In walking our path in a pure-hearted way, honoring all that is sentient and insentient, we mindfully take our place in the great, interactive flow, which the trees and animal kingdom naturally move to in their own way.

If giving is a blessing, we might well be magnifying any blessing offered to us tenfold, just by our willingness to receive.