Before you help others, you need to help yourself.

Take the oxygen mask for yourself before you give it to others.

A friend is in need. They’re asking for your help. Can you help them?

Although not impossible, it’s difficult to help others when you are not in a position to offer help yourself.

It makes more sense for both of you for you to be “on a higher plane” when helping someone. In fact, just being on that higher plane will already help because you are above or greater or bigger.

In physics terms, a larger object has more (gravitational) pull than a smaller object. If you are larger, you will more naturally and easily pull your friend towards you. Say you are also higher, you will then pull your friend up to a higher, more positive plane than where they are.

Keep in mind that it is also in defiance of the laws of physics if the smaller object doesn’t want to move or grow. If the smaller object has enough momentum going the other way, it’s going to take a possibly greater effort than even the largest of objects to pull them in a direction that you want them to go. In other words, they also need to want to be helped, they need to want to ascend to a higher plane and they also need to be open to the idea of help–and you helping them.

Do you see how hard it would be if you were the smaller force trying to help a larger force? As much as you tried, if they are larger and/or have more momentum, it’s going to be a challenge to even budge them–not to mention not a whole lot of fun for either party.

When things get easier.

Let’s line things up properly now. If you are a larger object and your friend is a smaller object and she is open to the concept of your help and has some energy to head in a new direction, this is when the fun begins.

They want to go in a new direction and you want to help them. You help them dislodge from their stuck place and especially with the first movements away from the force of the gravitational pull they’re stuck in. Once they’re out of that, their momentum can project them out of the orbit they’ve been circling in and they can break free.

Once they are out of their former orbit, they are open to a new orbit. This is where you can help to a great extent because they are not yet fixed in any orbit and are open to change.

They trust you now as you helped them out of their former stuck position and now, with minimal effort, you can help guide them beyond only what you (or they) know or want, but to places beyond where they thought they were even heading.