ASKING AND TRUSTING

     I have been observing lately that people become predictably defensive and graspy when they are full of self-centered fear. I imagine that I am the same. When I feel an urge to secure something definite in my day, or my future, to guarantee some thing that I want, but I am not sure I can have, my whole body energy, my ability to communicate,  and my mental clarity are strained. I come at things sideways. I am not sure it's ok to ask straight on, so I ask around my real question. I feebly try to put off my insecurity on someone else. Instead of saying, "This is what I want. Can you help me?" I say weakly, "How do you think this is going to work out?"
     If I ask enough round about questions, the very thing I want might actually become the other person's idea. And then I can have it without responsibility, or guilt, and if it doesn't pan out for some reason, it was not my idea. But in the process of trying to get it without being direct, I am a limp and pathetic version of myself. I am scraping and small. I am looking to someone else to guess what I already know I need.
     And if s/he does not guess? Then I am a victim, and I slink away feeling unheard and unloved. It's riduculous. Why don't I think it's ok to simply say what's on my mind and in my heart? Perhaps because it feels "selfish." I am supposed to be all about other people's needs and wants. But I don't know what other people need any more than they know what I need at any given moment... though I might flatter myself that I do. Life could be so much easier if we all just had the courage and the confidence to speak up.

I will not grasp and grab today. I will clearly ask for what I need.