Updated August 29, 2014.

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

Experts refer to caregiving as a "predictable crisis" but that doesn't mean our emotional reaction to needing care is anything close to predictable. One day we might feel okay about needing a little help, the next day the same situation might feel like a huge threat to our independence. There's very little training for people giving care, and even less for those who are in a position to receive care.

So how can we get to place where we can accept what we need graciously and with a minimum of emotional upheaval? 

1. Remind yourself that needing help is part of being human. Even  if you’re the most self-sufficient person on the planet, our society is set up so that folks help one another. Did you build your own house? Your own iphone? Are you responsible for the technology that enables you to connect to the internet and read this? Unless you’re a regular modern day Grizzly Adams (combined with Bill Gates and/or your company’s IT person) probably not.

We get help every day from the people around us. We might pay for these services, or they might be part of a more informal exchange, but they help us out and we don’t even think twice about it. Remembering this can be a first step to being okay with other types of help from the people who love us.

2. Remember that needing help is part of being an adult. A friend of mine pointed out it's toddlers who say “No, I can do it myself” and might even push the help away.

We're beyond that developmental stage. 

3. If you’re still struggling with feeling like it’s okay to ask for help, think about times when you’ve helped others.  How did it make you feel? Good? Great even? Do you want to deprive someone else of that feeling?

4. Give yourself permission to feel ambivalent. Some days it might be harder than others to accept help, and that’s a normal and probably even healthy part of the process. But it helps if you communicate about that. What would happen if you said “Dag, I need some help today but I am really having a hard time with my ego!” Which brings me to the very important tip #5..

5. Ask for help directly. We don’t like to ask, especially not directly. We want our friends to figure it out. But they won’t figure it out, or even if they do, they won’t want to assume that it’s okay to reach in and help. We also don’t like to ask directly for help because once in a while we’re going to have to hear “no.” And ouch, man that hurts. But it’s actually a really good way to bring up to tip #6...

6. Be comfortable with hearing "no" because when a friend can say “no” you can trust they really mean it when they say “yes.”

7. Ask before it’s an emergency. This is another hard one. We want to wait until it’s an emergency because if we wait to ask for help until we’re literally falling over, that means we’ve tried to bootstrap it, doggone it, and now we (finally) deserve help.

While this approach might be easier on our egos, it actually sets us up for failure because not everyone can respond to an emergency. It’s much better to ask folks in advance if you think you might need help, so that they can put it in their calendar and prepare.

8. Speaking of calendars: put together a plan. It doesn’t take anything fancy to bring more folks into your care team, you can use something simple like an online google calendar or something more detailed like the LotsaHelpingHands or Carebridge websites.