I rarely get sick, but this time, it hit me hard. I couldn’t get out of bed, I felt really weak, and doing even simple things was tough. Lots of my friends reached out to offer their help but I said no. Other than accepting my partner Santosh’s care, I couldn’t bring myself to say yes to their support.

I’ve now reflected on some of the reasons why I turned them down when, in truth, I really could have used their TLC! It made me think about how many of us — particularly women — struggle with accepting help when it’s offered, let alone when we could be asking for it outright.

Why do we struggle to ask for help?

Growing up as a feminist, I absorbed the idea that to be a strong, independent woman I should handle everything on my own, and that being vulnerable and asking for help is a sign of weakness. Instead, I was socialized to believe that I should focus on offering my help to others.

I know now this messaging is both misguided and misogynistic, and that internalizing gender bias hurts me personally and professionally. We all need love and support from others. In fact, it’s essential for navigating this difficult journey called life. When we deny others’ love and care, it directly impacts our well-being and can hold us back from thriving.

But I want to go even deeper here and vulnerably share another reason I’m uncomfortable with asking for and receiving help. While growing up, I came to believe that I’m not worthy of others’ care. I know I’m not alone with this. Many of us hold this hurtful belief because of the conditional love that came our way both in our childhood and adulthood. Feeling unlovable can make it really hard to accept others’ care.

How can we get more comfortable asking for and accepting help?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since being sick, and I’ve also been working on changing how I respond when someone offers their help. And there are three things I’ve been doing that I want to share with you:

1. Understand your reasons for saying no

We need to know what’s getting in our way so that we can address the barriers that are preventing us from thriving. To figure out what’s at the root of your tendency to turn down others’ help, try engaging in deep self-reflection work. Here are a few tools to make this happen.

2. When you’re about to say no, say yes

So many of us are wired to automatically say “no thanks” when someone asks if they can help us. When you notice that you’re about to say these words, take a pause, engage in self-coaching, and say yes instead.

3. Identify what you need and then ask for it

I recently had some of my friends over for a big dinner. Many of them asked if there was anything they could do to help. And while the old Ritu would’ve said no, this time I said yes. I asked them all to bring either an appetizer or a dessert. The result was not only less work for me but also some kick-ass appetizers and delish desserts. It was a powerful affirmation of why doing our work to live better matters.

And while I’m talking about living better, I want to underscore that the most powerful healing work we can do to open up our hearts to others’ care is to engage in self-love. When we feel lovable, it unlocks our sense of worthiness. And when we feel worthy, we openly receive others’ love and support.

So the next time you feel yourself shying away from asking for or receiving help, tell yourself: I am worthy of love. And then ask yourself: what simple gesture of help could I allow into my life as a first step?

The post Do You Struggle to Ask for Help? You’re Not Alone appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

I remember an experience I had many years ago when I first started dating my partner. In the middle of a discussion, he said something that instantly caused me to feel really insecure. I felt my chest tighten, my heart start to race, and my stomach swirl — the familiar sensations that I experience when I’m feeling rejected and that are connected to emotions from my past relationships and my experiences with racist childhood bullying. 

He instantly knew from my energy that I was upset and asked me what was wrong. It was a scary moment of deciding between three options:

1. Do I pretend that it’s nothing? (i.e. run away from my discomfort)
   
2. Do I get mad at him about something else instead because the truth is too hard to share? (i.e. deflect my discomfort onto him/push him away)
   
3. Do I tell him the truth, that I’m feeling rejected by what he said? (i.e. authentically share my feelings)

In that vulnerable moment, I knew I needed to tell him the truth and share the real reason I was upset. Even though I’d been living in accordance with what I call the “I Don’t Give an F Plan” —  meaning I’d committed to being authentic without worrying about how I might be judged or perceived — this was different. Because I care deeply about his thoughts and reactions, I owed it to him to share my feelings.

How Sharing Connects Us as Humans

You’ll have heard me mention before that sharing connects us as humans and opens the door to receiving the love, support, and guidance we need to heal and thrive. Sharing your feelings helps to nurture the authenticity, trust, and open communication that are so important for healthy relationships.

Sharing our true feelings is often frightening because we fear how we’ll be perceived and how others might respond to our vulnerability. The fear of being judged can cause tremendous stress in our bodies. It dysregulates our nervous system and results in the manifestation of unpleasant physical symptoms — think of those uncomfortable situations that cause your muscles to tense, your heart to race, your jaw to lock, your glands to sweat, and more. (Sound familiar?) These physiologically induced reactions occur when our body senses danger, activating our fight, flight, or freeze responses.

And while in one of these states, our brain can stop us from fully communicating everything we need or want to say.

But leaving a situation without openly sharing our feelings and speaking our truth — giving in to the “flight” part of fight, flight, freeze — doesn’t serve us. In fact, it can create additional emotional, mental, and physical stress, while potentially causing tension in a relationship that matters to you.

So what did I do in the situation from before with my partner?

I repeated a few mantras in my head — “I can do this!” and “I am safe!” — to help calm the sick feeling that was flowing through my body, and I told him that his words made me feel rejected. As I started to share my feelings and express my truth, the empathy I saw on his face melted away all the tension and negativity I had been holding. I could physically feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. 

My partner was so kind and loving in that moment because he knew I was speaking from a place of hurt. His response allowed me to calm the agitation in my body, but it also filled me with the reassurance I needed. It was a powerful learning moment for me about why it’s so important to share your feelings, especially when you’re feeling vulnerable.

Making the Choice to Share Vulnerably

I know it may feel scary as hell to share vulnerably, especially if you’re dealing with a toxic relationship, but the next time you feel tempted to bury your emotions, pause for a moment. Take a deep breath and ask yourself these questions:

What am I truly feeling in this moment?

• If you could speak your mind without consequences, what would you share about how you’re feeling? What would you say that would truly reflect your authentic self?

What is holding me back from sharing?

• What are you afraid of? What is holding you back from sharing what you’re feeling?

What is the worst thing that would happen if I shared?

• Will sharing hurt you? How long will those feelings last? (I note that if you’re afraid for your physical or psychological safety, then you may want to behave as your Adapted Self here.)

What would be the benefit of sharing how I truly feel?

• How will sharing serve you? How freeing will it feel?

Once you’ve had time to think about your answers, you’ll know whether it’s safe to share. Then all you have to do is find the strength to speak.

The beautiful thing here is that it will get easier and easier the more you do it. Leaning into our vulnerable moments and sharing our true, authentic feelings does not weaken us — it makes us stronger.

The post How to Share Your Feelings appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

In reality, I felt horribly disconnected and lost in my life. My day-to-day life — the work I was doing, my romantic relationships, some of my friendships, my pastimes, how I dressed, how I spoke, what I talked about, how I behaved — no longer felt like it belonged to me. So much felt off.

Looking back, I can see that I was immersed in what I call performing — that is, changing my behavior because I lived in fear of the negative consequences of being my authentic self.

As a Brown woman born in Canada to Punjabi immigrant parents, I’d received confusing messages my whole life about how I needed to show up in order to fit in, succeed, and get ahead — whether it was from my family, my Canadian peers, or from society on a whole. As a result, I had started living as someone I simply wasn’t. Living like this had helped me become outwardly successful, but inside I was exhausted and spiritually vacant.

In my early 30s, I started waking up to the fact that I needed to change my life, but I didn’t know where to begin or what my life could look like. I began an intense period of soul-searching. One of the first major steps I took was to temporarily remove myself from the corporate world by taking a 3-month sabbatical. With the goal of deepening my yoga and mindfulness practice (and, frankly, spending a truckload of time alone!), I headed to my motherland, India, to complete a 2-month yoga teacher training program.

Arriving at the yoga ashram in Kerala, India by myself, the contrast to my life back home was stark — I was immediately stripped of everything that had defined my identity. We were all given the same uniform to wear every day, and what we shared about ourselves after that was up to us. There were no labels or titles. Unlike the corporate world I came from, nobody asked me about where I had gone to school or what I did for a living; they just wanted to know which country I was from. With my outward markers of status packed away (no fancy clothes, no bling!), I was just one of hundreds in the room, wearing the same yellow t-shirt and white pants as everyone else.

For the first time in my life, nobody knew who I was, and nobody had any expectations about how I was going to behave — I was free to be anybody. Faced with this situation I asked myself: who am I going to be? I was so used to carefully and meticulously curating my image that doing so had become my default setting. The question of who to be was complicated for me, and felt really scary, because in truth, I simply didn’t know who I was.

At the ashram, I spent nearly 8 hours a day meditating alongside my fellow yogis, engaged in a range of mindfulness experiences. Forced into an environment of deep self-reflection and vulnerability, I decided to go with it — to be the version of me that was the most raw, open-hearted, loving, kind, and present.

When people asked me about myself, I deliberately talked about my values instead of my education or work background. When people asked me how I was feeling, I openly shared that I was feeling really vulnerable in this experience, rather than automatically pumping out an, “I’m doing amazing!” paired with a performing smile. Most importantly, I emoted freely. This showed up as a combination of sobbing like a baby because of joy, sadness, or fear, laughing my head off, ranting to express my rage, and expressing anything else that I felt.

As someone who had worked very hard to overcome my experiences with childhood bullying and social alienation, I was struck when at the ashram I started making friends quickly — and the people I attracted were genuinely good-hearted and kind people who wanted to connect with the real me. The fact that good people wanted to befriend me in my most raw and vulnerable state validated that I was worthy of love and attention even without the markers of success that I’d relied on for my self-worth.

The warmth, love, and self-acceptance I felt not only helped to draw out core attributes of my Authentic Self, but also affirmed things about me that I now hold to be my self-truths: that I’m a wonderful person at my core, that I’m caring and compassionate, that I’m both fun and funny, and that I can develop loving relationships with a wide range of people. In short, my ashram experience helped to kick-start my journey towards self-love and embracing my Authentic Self.

Arriving back home after this experience, everything around me was the same. I sat at the same desk at the same job, I spent time with the same friends, and the same clothes hung in my closet. But I was different. I now knew that it was going to be ok to change my life — and that I no longer needed the things I’d held onto so tightly out of fear. I could let go.

Of course, things didn’t change overnight. But this glimpse of my true, authentic self, and how it felt to live it out, set the wheels in motion for a sea change in my life. I learned from this experience that sometimes you need to take a big, bold step or take yourself out of your current situation in order to identify the change you need.

I also learned that when you awaken to your authentic self, you won’t want to go back.

The post How Losing My Identity Helped Me Find My Truth appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

The Performing Self I created was all about appearing flawless — strong, confident, positive, and successful. In my attempt to be perceived as perfect, I changed how I dressed, how I spoke, how I behaved, who I associated with, the content I shared, the activities I engaged in, and more, conforming to an idea about perfection that wasn’t at all true to me. My conformity was exacerbated by my work life — I worked in an elite legal environment, where the bar was set high in every area and the criteria for “fitting in” was both narrow and fixed.

During these years, I did a mix of things to mask what I perceived to be my “imperfections”. I fixated on dressing impeccably to signal class privilege, attractiveness, and that I had my shit together. When getting to know people, I often hid behind a mask that covered up my insecurities about my abilities, my cultural background, and my socioeconomic roots. I also conformed in how I spoke so that I’d fit in with certain social groups (taking on a more formal tenor, dropping the pitch of my voice, and using fancier words — essentially, speaking the Queen’s English).

I didn’t want anyone to see my imperfections or my vulnerabilities. I desperately wanted to fit in, and I wanted to protect myself from the pain of being negatively judged by others. All the while, I felt deeply flawed, damaged, and effed up on the inside.

And let me tell you — it was exhausting.

Protecting My Wounds From Childhood

When I think about why I was so dedicated to upholding this image of perfection, I know it’s connected to the feelings of social alienation, rejection, and inferiority that I felt because of the childhood bullying I experienced and the parenting I received. A lot of research has been done about the numerous long-term impacts of childhood bullying. Bullying can have a profound adverse impact on mental health and other areas for those who experience it.

Being bullied because of who I was (Brown, smart, not as wealthy as the other kids), coupled with messages from my parents that I needed to be quieter, less outspoken, and less expressive (basically someone other than who I was), caused me to carry feelings of woundedness and worthlessness into adulthood.

It’s no wonder I wanted to protect myself from feeling more of this pain. But the truth is that, instead of protecting me, striving for perfection was actually causing more damage, because I wasn’t living my truth.

Nobody’s Perfect

I’ve come a long way in embracing my imperfections and allowing them to show by being my Authentic Self, but from time to time I’ll catch myself saying some version of, “I’m so fucked up,” and berating myself for my flaws. My boyfriend will often catch me when I’m self-flogging and remind me that I’m “amazing” just the way I am and that everyone is imperfect — and that it’s possible to be both imperfect and amazing.

A lot of us do this to ourselves. We believe we should be perfect, and we measure ourselves against an impossible standard. While believing this, we also worry that if we show others that we don’t live up to this standard, we’ll experience rejection and alienation. But every single one of us is imperfect — perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect. The greatest gift we can give ourselves is the acceptance of this fact.

Transformative Things Happen When We Accept Our Imperfections

When we accept our imperfections, our lives can transform in amazing ways. Firstly, we can practice self-compassion: that is, show ourselves the compassion we would show others, which has numerous mental, physical, and spiritual benefits. In her book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, Dr. Kristin Neff teaches that self-compassion flows from both being kind to ourselves and recognizing our common humanity — that each of us is imperfect and experiences suffering.

Secondly, when we accept our imperfections, we’re better able to practice authenticity. When we’re committed to living as our whole, true, authentic selves (the good, bad, and ugly), we’re free of the exhausting dance that is performing. And when we’re tuned in to our authenticity, we know how to behave at any given moment because we’re anchored to our values. We no longer have to pour our energy into being, doing, and saying what we think others want us to. We’re free to be imperfect.

So what can you do to take a step towards living as your authentic, imperfect self? Start by tuning into the areas of your life where you might be performing (the Seven Behavioral Dimensions, as I call them) and start making small changes. Embrace the things that make you unique and different! Be smart or outspoken or wear bright colors if that’s what feels right for you.

There’s no right way to live. Nobody’s perfect!

The post How I Let Go of the Pressure to Be Perfect appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.

In that moment, I had a choice — I could have used one of many stock answers that many just automatically fire, like “Not much, everything’s good!” or the classic, “I’m so busy these days!” (Sound familiar?)

In the end, I chose not to do that. I reflected for a moment, and then I decided to be honest. I opened up to her about how hard the last while has been: how work has been utterly overwhelming, watching my mom’s journey with Alzheimer’s has been so hard, and how I was navigating my romantic relationship, despite trust issues from being cheated on in the past.

I chose to be 100% real with her, despite not having seen her in over a year. And something remarkable happened: when I was finished, she gave me a big reassuring hug, took a deep breath, and candidly shared her own struggles with me.

In giving me her life news, she told me that she hadn’t been able to share some of it with anyone else. So why could she share it with me? Because I was my Authentic Self with her, and in sharing my ups and downs with her very vulnerably, I created space for her to do the same. And the experience was freeing for both of us.

This is what the authenticity principle is all about.

The authenticity principle, the teaching at the core of my book, is rooted in the concept that when we consistently choose to know, embrace, and be who we are — especially what makes us different — as often as possible, we feel better about ourselves, we bring this spirit to our actions, and we invite others to do the same.

In really knowing, understanding, and embracing my own truth, especially the things that make me “imperfect,” I had the ability to answer my friend’s question honestly, and I wasn’t afraid to do so. And, most powerfully, in sharing with my friend, I allowed her to bring her own truth and her differences into the light.

It may sound cheesy, but choosing to be authentic actually has the power to shift our individual lives and our collective culture.

I can tell you based on my own experiences, and my years of work as a leadership coach, that breaking through the barriers that hold us back from being ourselves is immeasurably freeing. Once we do so, we can be more creative, innovative, connected, empowered, and inclusive of others. And most importantly, we can build stronger, more meaningful relationships with other people — at work, in our families, and with our friends.

So take a moment to reflect on someone you know who is fiercely authentic — whether that’s a sibling, co-worker, best friend, or spouse. How do you feel when you’re around this person? How do you behave?

I encourage you to start using the authenticity principle now. It will change your life.

The post The Simple, Powerful Truth About Authenticity appeared first on Ritu Bhasin.