Down at the beach last week, so much seaweed had washed up that there wasn’t a square inch of sand to be seen from the waterline to the steps. A thick carpet of fly-buzzing Sargassum covered everything. I stood on the bottom stair deliberating if I really wanted a swim, if it meant braving walking through that ickiness. Others were gathering thinking the same.

A man, up to his ankles in it, was scratching at the seaweed with a garden rake. I watched him fighting what seemed a losing battle. “That’s like taking a teaspoon to muck-out an elephant pen”, I told him. He said he wasn’t trying to clear the whole beach, just make a nice path down to the water. And with a bit of elbow grease, he soon had. Beach-goers were grateful and the foot traffic began to flow again. A few days later, I’m visiting a friend for tea and a catch-up. She’s a recently qualified coach herself, and has just launched her integrated practice, ‘Transform Bermuda’. I’d been looking forward to checking out her beautiful new space and talking shop.

But I was in an off mood. I had been for a couple of days, a low-level background drone of discontent. I found myself having a hard time keeping my internal grey cloud from creeping into our conversation.

She quickly picked up on my negative state and I noticed a familiar approach as she began asking helpful questions and listening deeply. I was getting an impromptu coaching session. And as she held that safe, non-judgmental space for me to unload, it all came tumbling out. I got the opportunity to look at what was going on inside. The relief that accompanied the outflow was intense. Hearing myself talk, I noticed that several ideas, factors, fears and concerns had been building up over the summer. That discomfort I felt was the beginning of overwhelm. This, mixed with shifting gears for the return to school, had somehow created a bottleneck of things I was trying to process. I was stuck, feeling bogged down under a wet blanket of seaweed.

Dumping it all out was cathartic. Then we began exploring some of the key issues to find simple strategies and ways forward that would make the biggest difference. I walked away feeling so much clearer about what I’ve got going on and with concrete steps to make progress. Did we clear the whole beach? No. But just that bit of coaching opened a pathway that allowed more positive and creative thinking to flow through for working on solutions. And even minor shifts in approach or mindset can massively impact our results.

Am I surprised by this? No. This is why I do what I do. The effectiveness of the coaching method is what drew me into making it my profession. What did surprise me was that I had overlooked that I was getting a little clogged personally, and so hadn’t sought help with that sooner.

The contract with my last coach, someone overseas, ran out in May. I had been taking my time renewing, perhaps not fully appreciating just how useful those monthly maintenance sessions are for keeping momentum going on all my life’s little projects. My first action-step now is signing up for regular coaching again, because I know that works for me (this time with Pamela). I’m lucky that the help I needed found me. Often we have to ask for help if we want it.

A friend recounted a slightly scary tale last week. She’d gone to watch her children at their first sports meet of the year. She’d been out running herself that morning, followed by a full day at work. In her busyness, she probably hadn’t eaten as well as she could have, or rehydrated enough for the heat. When the kids were done she stood up to leave. Suddenly it was like all her blood had drained to her feet. She was experiencing a massive blood pressure drop. Her world started spinning. She quickly told the kids to wait in the car, not wanting them to see it if she fainted. Then she slumped over the railing with barely enough energy to raise her head, trying to catch someone’s eye. “Everyone just walked on by,” she said, “or looked and looked away.” Looking back she admits she must have looked drunk there, knees swaying, trying to hold herself up, desperately hoping someone would help. Nobody wanting to get involved. At last someone recognised she needed a hand. They got her to sit down, telephoned her husband, gave her a drink of water and waited as she recovered.

We’re not really used to asking for help. It can seem embarrassing or a bit melodramatic. We’re grown ups, right? Aren’t we supposed to be able to handle things? What will people think of us if we can’t? Asking for help feels like we’re admitting we have a problem. Why can’t other people just see we need help and offer it?

But even those closest to us aren’t mind readers. The perception that others have of us, can be vastly different to what we may be internally experiencing. What’s worse is that offering help can feel almost as embarrassing as asking for it. Nobody wants to offend or overstep some line of unspoken etiquette, or embarrass the person we are asking. So it can seem like the safest option to just avoid the situation all together.

But from time to time, we all need a little help. It is easy to get so wrapped up in focusing on others or other things, looking after them and seeing to their needs, that we forget or forgo our own. The irony is, if we don’t maintain our own well-being, we can end up being no good for anything or anyone. If we’re not making time to check in with ourselves, we can’t always see problems building up. It often doesn’t take much to make a shift. A small clear path and we can be back on our way. Sometimes it means being brave and asking for the help we need, other times, being brave and offering it to someone else. How can we learn to better listen to our minds and bodies so we can know how best to support them? Can we practice asking for help when we need it? Can we also be that person willing to offer a hand and pick up a rake?

Julia Pitt is a trained Success Coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on (441) 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.