The Help You Give by Asking

Stress Therapy Episode 9The Help You Give by Asking3/20/25In this heartfelt and deeply personal episode, Cheri Flake explores the often-overlooked power of asking for help. Through her own life experiences—especially during her husband's cancer battle—she reveals how seeking support not only uplifts the person in need but also benefits the helper. Blending psychology, spirituality, and humor, she breaks down the stigma around asking for help and encourages listeners to embrace their human need for connection and support.


Asking for Help is Healing
It's not a weakness—it’s an act of strength that allows others to feel useful and connected, while giving you the support you need.

Help Can Be Spiritual or Practical
Whether calling on a neighbor or St. Anthony, Cheri emphasizes that your help doesn't have to be human. It can be divine, energetic, or community-based.

Giving is a Stress Buster
Helping others is scientifically shown to reduce stress—so when you ask for help, you're actually doing someone else a favor, too.

~Meditation Music byhttp://sonicyogi.com

https://open.spotify.com/track/7lpLx4vtoQusvoqidRY6vN?si=0db8efd9082c40ebhttps://open.spotify.com/track/0Qotx90teY3iZ00PgUCwty?si=44a1c18c52e24e1f
Listen to Sonic Yogi on: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xJT8mRbrqa7rTY6d4y5Fq?si=q2YYpPSzQOmu4R8-W4jkpw https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sonic-yogi/722350162https://amazon.com/music/player/artists/B00FQMVVIC/sonic-yogi?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Y5q68A8LSQQGzl01PQC7Uaw6chttps://amazon.com/music/player/artists/B00FQMVVIC/sonic-yogi?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_Y5q68A8LSQQGzl01PQC7Uaw6chttps://youtu.be/p2jtMEkdh6g?si=rVq-Q8o85mI75S4_
INTERESTING MENTIONS:
Esther Hicks & Abraham – For woo-curious listeners, Cheri discusses their “placemat exercise” for co-creating with the universe.

Saint Shoutouts – St. Anthony (lost things), St. Christopher (travel), St. Joseph (home-selling), and Mother Mary all get love as go-to helpers.

Mother Teresa’s Take – Asking for help should be enough reason to offer support—no justifications needed.

Anne Lamott’s Book – Help, Thanks, Wow is quoted as a spiritual trifecta for approaching the divine.

The Love Tuner – A calming whistle that helps induce meditation; Cheri offers a promo code for it (just “Cheri” for 5% off).

Funny Business Fail – Cheri once tried rebranding for moms (complete with “yourearockstarmom.com”) and learned the hard way that moms don’t always want to admit they need help.

Cheri’s Aura – It’s golden yellow! (Not pink as she hoped.)

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A word from your host, Cheri Flake, LCSW: Feeling good after our Stress Therapy session? Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, The Stress Therapist on social media or go tohttp://www.ilovetherapy.com/ to find out about meditation classes & meditation and yoga retreats.TRANSCRIPT:The Stress Therapist: Hey, beautiful people, what's up? Today we're going to talk about asking for help. Who do you ask? Why would you ask? When do you ask? Are you ever asking? Because asking for help actually hel

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, beautiful people, what's up today?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're going to talk about asking for help?

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Who do you ask? Why would you ask? When do
you ask? Are you ever asking?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Because asking for help actually helps the person that you're
asking for help, and it doesn't have to be a person.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
What okay, let's do.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This, Hey beautiful people, It's time for some stress therapy,
a podcast about how to meditate and get better at
stress for people.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Living in the real world.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Finally a place to park by twenty five plus years
of experience of working as a psychotherapist in the mental
health field and now.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Your host me the stress therapist, Sherry Flake. Hey beautiful people,
what's up? Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
So me myself, I have been in some situations where
I've had.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
To ask for help, like really ask for help.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
And I think, you know, we all know that it's
really kind of difficult to ask for help for most people.
And that's weird because it's one love, right, We're here
for each other, We're here to lift each other up,
and I think we don't want to come across as
a burden.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think it's especially.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hard for moms who are kind of in charge of
doing all kinds of things in a while back.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I made this change with my business. It was a
terrible idea.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
My business coach told me not to do it, and
I just thought I knew better than her.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
And I was wrong and she was right.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
And I had this idea that I wanted to help moms,
which is a great idea, right, but I would kind
of changed my business a little little bit and geared
it towards mom. So I was the stressed therapist for moms, right,
And I had like, you know, you're a rockstar mom
dot com or whatever, and I had, you know, a
picture of me with the guitar and the kids hanging
off me crying or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Is really funny.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Unbeknown it's to me was I was targeting moms that
would actually need to be able to ask for help, okay,
because you know of momdom. So it's one thing to say, hey,
are you stressed out? Right, People can admit to that, yes,
I'm stressed out. But she said, asking moms to admit
they're stressed out because their moms is going to be

(02:37):
difficult for them to admit to that problem. And you
have to admit to the problem in order to seek
out right, So she said it's kind of like having
like an a rectile dysfunction group. It's going to be difficult.
You know, you have to be in the very right
circles in order to get people to raise their hand
in a public place and admit to that problem, because

(02:59):
there's a stigma against that.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's why there's Mommy loves Vodka, and you know all
these you know, coping or scary mommy or whatever. Like,
there's all these these entities that talk about how hard
it is to be a mom, and it's just now
getting to be you know, sort of an open conversation.
So I think moms in general aren't supposed to ask
for help. Women aren't supposed to ask for help. We're

(03:22):
supposed to do all these things. I think in general feel,
you know, like it might be hard to ask for help.
And I remember a long time ago I heard I
think it was mother Teresa. I'm not sure, but I
think someone had asked her about people asking for money
on the side of the street or you know, people

(03:44):
that were panhandling, and she said something like, you know,
asking for help should be enough reason to help them,
just simply asking for it, right, Like that in and
of itself is such a big deal that when someone
does ask for help, you know, that should be enough.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
They shouldn't have to give all.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
These reasons why what they're gonna do with the money
they're why they have signs or whatever. The simple fact
that they're out there struggling and asking for help is
all that you need in order to help them. And
that really resonated with me. And I've had a couple
of instances here lately in my life in the past
five years where I have had to ask for a
lot of help and it was uncomfortable, and I learned

(04:25):
so much from just asking for help that I want
to share with you so you can kind of get
some ideas on when to ask for help, who to
ask for help. It doesn't even need to be a person.
And we'll get into that. But a long time ago,
when my husband was diagnosed with UH cancer, he had

(04:47):
to undergo this massive surgery with a really long recovery.
And I've talked about it before in previous podcasts, but
you know, he's man, you know, had a feeding tube
and only liquid diet and then sold and it just
lots of wound sign and just a lot to deal
with and a long, complicated recovery, and then the whole
time you're hoping that, of course the cancer.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Is gone and that is new.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
You know, he had it on his mouth that his
new you know, million dollar mouth would be working wonderfully. Right.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
There were a lot of concerns.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
And during that time I had a few friends put
together like a meal train, and even more than that,
Like I remember one time me and my husband were
standing outside and looking out into the yard and we
were like, who is that mowing our lawn?

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Like one of our neighbors came over to moll the lawn.
People came over to walk the dogs. It was incredible.
I was like, I don't need these things. I don't
need this help.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And it turned out, once I got in the thick
of it, that I absolutely did need that help, and
that my kids would have had, you know, pizza for
dinner for a month straight had I not gotten that
kind of help. And I mean, I'm so grateful for
that help.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
It meant the whole world to me. And now I
know that it's my time to pay it forward. And
I also know that by allowing people to help you,
by asking them to help you, they feel better because
they feel like there's something they can do. You know.
People say to you, oh, just call me if you
need anything, call me if anything. I always say, I'm

(06:19):
a therapist. So I'm like, you know, don't say that
because they're probably not going to call you, because asking
for help is hard and difficult and specific help is
I don't know, it's hard.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Instead, just show up for them, you know.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
And when people get to do that, when people get
to show up for you or get to help you,
they feel better. This is why I always have my
clients who are depressed. When I did see people that
were depressed, I always would bring up the idea of
going to a shelter or like going to the you know,
little cat cafe or something, and you know, somehow helping

(06:58):
out some help being that needs your help, you know,
rather than having the focus inward and how you need help,
When you provide help, you feel better one hundred percent
of the time. So I grew up Catholic. And one
of the cool things about Catholicism. I know a lot
of people have been hurt by the church, and I'm

(07:20):
not promoting one religion or another, but one of the
cool things about Catholicism I thought was that there were
all of these religious icons and you know, beautiful deities
that you could call on for help depending on what
your problem is. Right, You didn't always have to go
to the big guy, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
It was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know, you're like, oh, I lost something. Saint Anthony's
your man at my house. St Anthony, Saint Anthony, please
come around. Something's been lost and it must be found.
We do that prayer all the time. We usually do
it three times, and I'm just saying, what if it works,
it works for us. If you're traveling, you can call
on Saint Christopher, you know, if you're trying to sell
your house, you can call on Saint Joseph. There's so
many different deities that are there to provide you with

(08:03):
whatever help you need. And so I grew up with
that my parents definitely my parents' parents, but my parents
were pretty devout and that was how I was brought up.
You know, you have to call on Mother Mary sometimes
if that's.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
What you need.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
And so I think that was that kind of helps
in a way if you have you know, God or
Buddha or allor Susie or Patsy or Jesus or you know,
the Mother Earth, whatever it is that you call it,
or Saint Christopher to help you. It kind of relieves
the pressure for you to come up with the answers

(08:38):
for your day to day problems, for your big problems,
your small problems, can't find your keys, whatever it is.
And I think it's really comforting to bring those things
in your life. And if you've ever heard of Esther
Hicks and her husband, they are interpreting this divine into
d Abraham and they're answering questions about the universe and

(08:59):
they're super cool.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
You want to look into it. It's a lot of WU.
You gotta be able to handle some WU.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
And one of the cool practices they had, they had
a lot of cool practical ways to manifest things, to
get help to, you know, make your dreams come true.
And one of the coolest things that I learned from them,
and I give this assignment to my clients all the time,
is the place Matt exercise, where you take a place,
you know, like a piece of paper, and turn it

(09:24):
like a place Matt cut it in half and on
one side you say you know what you want and
on the other side and what you're going to The
steps you're going to take in order to get there.
And on the other side, what part of that thing
that you want is the universe going to handle for you? Right,
And so you kind of relinquish that control and kind

(09:44):
of say, like, I'm going to research this on the
internet in order to write this book or do this
thing or become this get this job or whatever. And
on the other side it might say something like the
universe is going to help me meet the right people
or be at the right place the right time or whatever.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
And it was really kind.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Of cool that they're like releasing all this pressure that
you have to come up with every single thing, because
when do we come up with every single thing? When
when are we totally in control of everything? Never right
and just acknowledging that that you never do anything alone.
You've never done anything alone except maybe birth and death, right, Like,

(10:24):
I mean, someone is there to support you, someone is
there to help you along. There is the relationship that
you need or the place that you need to be,
or the whatever, the help that you give someone else.
We never do anything alone. So we need to get
better at asking for help. We need to allow asking
for help to be a little bit more normalized. And

(10:46):
wonderful and providing help right, rather than having all this
guilt association with it.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
And now I told you I grew up Catholic, so
I understand guilt.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, I get it, but like there's so much guilt
associated with helping or not helping. Like when someone asked
me to do something or volunteer at one of my
kids school and I can't.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Do it, I feel guilty about that. That's weird. Why why?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
I mean, I'm helping in another way. I'm you know,
taking the pictures at the tennis match. But there's got
to be some way that you can help that's easy,
and it's in alignment with who you are. You know,
when people came to help me, they did things that
they found joyful, walked my dogs, cooked me a meal.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Some people didn't want to do that.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
A lot of people gave us food gift cards, which
was incredibly helpful.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
On nights.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
I didn't want to have to prepare one thing. I
was just overwhelmed and overworked and tired and all that,
and that ended up being like such a wonderful gift.
And I know now that when I know someone who's
going through something similar, that that is a wonderful way
to help out right that I'm going to be on
the helping end the next time around, right, so you

(11:53):
might have something readily available. I do follow in a
path with a guru, and I often often ask him
for his help. And you might be feel comfortable praying
to God or the universe or whatever you call it.
But where does your help lie? Where do you need
help in your life? Where can you ask for it?

(12:15):
Where do you feel uncomfortable asking for help?

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Where in your life? So, like, we need to rethink
the way we think about help. What is it? It's reciprocal.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
It helps us remember our sameness, you know, rather than differences.
And I'm happy to celebrate differences in diversity, but I
think we're getting a little caught up and how much
different we are than one another. And when we remember
our sameness, we are kinder to each other, we understand
each other better, and.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
We help each other.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
And so I think we just need to kind of
think about this a little bit different. So let's meditate
together right now. Okay, So before we start meditating, I'm
going to acknowledge that there is some glding drilling sound
going on around.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
That you may or may not be able to hear.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
But let this be a lesson that when you go
to meditate, it might not always be the best of circumstances.
I used to have this client that was like, oh
my gosh, there's so much construction going on next to
my house. I can't, you know, start meditation practice until
until it's over. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no,
no no no. I mean that means that you're judging

(13:27):
it right, I'm saying this is a bad thing. I
just asked this guy howlong is going to be doing it,
and he said an hour, So we're going to meditate anyway.
And my point is we could wait until he's done,
or we can acknowledge that we hear it, that it's
a part of our environment that you know, we could
name it. You know, this is a drilling sound or
something like that, and then you know, we often say

(13:51):
whether it's good or bad or whatever. You know, we're
constantly judging everything in our lives, and it's possible that
it's just a noise. It's just a sound, it's just
what's happening right now, and even if it's an unpleasant sound,
it is a reminder of what is going on right now.

(14:15):
I mean, can you hear it?

Speaker 1 (14:22):
If you can hear it, I can't.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
That's what's happening right now right And it's possible that
it's not good, that it's not bad, it's just what's
happening right now. So it's kind of a reminder of
the moment that we're in the present, moment, that we're
grappling with what's happening right now, and so it can
actually lure you back into the moment. And so what
I want you to do is whether you can hear

(14:51):
this sound or not. I'm sure in your environment right
now you can hear something a fan, a clock, even
your breath, traffic, nature, birds, whatever, what is happening right now.

(15:14):
I can hear the buzz from this little mini fridge
I have in here. And just close your eyes for
a moment and acknowledge every sound you can hear because
your eyes are closed, traffic, voices, a fan, electricity, maybe

(15:41):
music coming from a different room, and just allow yourself
to hear it all. And now abandon all those sounds
and come in word and see if for a moment

(16:07):
you can hear anything that you yourself are creating. Breath,
your stomach, growling, blood, movement, energy, prana, whatever, What can

(16:29):
you hear on the inside, And if something pulls you
back onto the outside, gently come back inward, focusing on
that sound. There's a beautiful book by Anne LaMotte. It's

(17:02):
called Help, Thanks Wow, and she says that we often
pray with the idea of one of these themes.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
On our mind.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Help, thanks Wow, that when we call on the divine
it has one of these themes, requests, exclamations, And I
want you to pick one now, help, thanks.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
If it's help, where do you need help?

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Now?

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Decide on a word or an image that represents help,
same with thanks or wow. Just pick one while the sunset,
help me find the job I want. Thank you for

(18:24):
this beautiful day. Thank you for this annoying sound that
teaches us that no sounds are annoying. Only our judgment
of it being annoying does it become such right? Help,
Thanks Wow. Pick one theme, one word or image to

(18:48):
go with it, and bring laser focus there for a
few minutes and I'll be back to guide you out.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Look resuming.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Paul, Help, Thanks Wow.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose. Let
it all go out. Of your mouth, and again another long, slow,
deep breath in your nose, letting it.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
All go out of your mouth. One last breath in.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Your nose, letting it all go out of your mouth,
and when you're ready, you can open your beautiful eyes.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Help.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Call on your angels, call on your saints, Call on
your God, your universe, your friend, your neighbor, call on
your They're over using this word quite a bit these days,
but tribe, call on your people, call on everyone and
everyone and everything to come and assist you, to help you,

(26:32):
because we're here to lift each other up.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
That is the number one stressbuster in the world. I mean,
they've done.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
All these studies about how you know, stress affects this
in a nightive way, and stress that affects that in
a negative way. But if you're a caregiver, if you're
helping people, it knocks out stress. You are going to
be less stressed by helping someone else, Which means if
you need help, ask for it because you're doing someone
else a favor. Right, A totally different way to think

(27:04):
about asking for help. I was taking this harmonium class
a while ago with Sonatam Carr. Who is I mean
lovely and amazing and wonderful and awesome. And I can't
remember this guy's name. He was so sweet. He was
I think he was Scottish. I think anyway, he was
doing these angel cards and he told me my aura

(27:24):
was gold and yellow, which was kind of disappointing because
I really thought it was gonna be pink.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
But it's not. It's gold and yellow. He says. It
means that I'm sunny and bright. So I could I
could dig it.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
But he was a wonderful person and his whole I mean,
there were so many famous people in this class. I
was like such a nobody. I was like, Hi, my
name is Sherry. I lived in Atlanta, and there were
all these like super famous authors and musicians and stuff
like that, and it was one of them. He'd written
tons of books on angels and calling on your archangel.
And you know what I mean, I mean, what if
it works, y'all, what if it works? What if it works?

(27:58):
Because I will tell you you something. My husband had
to have the exact same surgery again five years later,
and it was I mean, it was lovely to have
all that help again.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
It was amazing.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
And then we met someone else was having that surgery
and we were able to help them out, and I
don't know, it's just it's all the feels, all the
way around. It's good for you, it's good for them,
it's good for all of us because we are one love.
Before we close, I want to say, if you need
help with your meditation, contact me the stress Therapist dot com,

(28:32):
Instagram at stress therapy, or just send me an email.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Sherry C.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
H e er I at distress Therapist dot com. I
will help you learn how to meditate. I will help
you and if you want to come and retreat with me,
I mean, that's probably the best gift you could give
yourself of all. Let me help you make meditation a
part of your everyday listening. There's nothing that will wipe
out stress better than that. And add the love tuner

(28:59):
to your boir. I just had this guy on a
podcast and he was amazing and wonderful and super hot.
Side note, and he invented this little love tuner, this
little love whistle, and you blow it and it brings
you all of this piece, all of this calm. You

(29:19):
can drop into meditation. Figure out how you need help,
ask for it, go to it, and if you do
get a love tuner. If you put in just sherry,
you'll get an extra five percent off. Okay, I love
you until next time. Have a lovely, lovely day. How
y'all feeling after that stress therapy session?

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Good?

Speaker 4 (29:38):
Awesome?

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Check out the show notes to connect with me the
Stress Therapist on social media, at the stress Therapist on
Instagram and at stress Therapy on Twitter. You can always
go to I loovethapy dot com to find out about
meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there.
If you live in Georgia and you're ready to be
one of my clients, go to my website to find

(29:59):
out how you can sign up for a free face
to face consultation with me at the very least jump
by my mailer so you don't stress or miss one
thing until next time. Have a lovely, lovely day.