I love to help others. Asking for it for me? Impossible.
What we gain when we ask for help, and what we give to others in making the ask.
This summer, people I love have been going through some objectively big things: moves, new jobs, surgeries, difficult moments in relationships, grief, feelings of being lost in life.
As they’ve moved through these changes and big moments, I’ve been struck by how little they ask for help - from me or most others in their lives. Of course, I’m not surprised by this: we (especially in America) live in a swamp of society’s messaging that tells us individualism is the only answer to any effort, we worship at the altar of the individual heroic journey, and we view needing help as a moral failing. Coupled with any of our very natural human stories that plague our inner monologues about how burdensome we are, or how no one really cares, or wants us, or any other version of the story in our heads that tells us we’re in the world alone for reasons, and well, of course too many of those I love are trying to go it alone.
I see this with my clients, too. A good portion of the challenges they’re moving through is ultimately, about a fear of asking for help. They worry asking colleagues for help they desperately need will be the thing that finally means everyone notices they’re not really capable or qualified. They worry that delegating work across their team means they’ll be seen as an autocratic manager. They worry that no one will want to, or can, help them. They agonize over asking others for support when everyone else is already doing so much. So, they go it alone, exhausting themselves in the process and often not seeing the negative impact that choice is also having on the relationships in their lives.
The interesting thing, though, is that while we are convinced we can’t ask others for help, we long to help those we love; hell, we even love helping strangers (if we didn’t, non-profits, Go-Fund-Me and the like would not be parts of a whole helping industry). Helping others is one of the things (and research bears this out) that settles our nervous systems into its “rest and digest” mode and it brings us into closer, stronger relationships with one another when we do.
When we don’t ask for help, we’re not just continually choosing the stress, overwork, feelings of isolation, and the like, but we’re also robbing those close to us of the transformative energy of helping and getting closer to us. We’re playing a role, whether we want to admit it or not, in continuing the toxic individualism that is poisoning our land, acidifying our oceans, and keeping us locked in “power over” dynamics in our relationships.
Of course, it’s easy to say “I want my friends to ask me for help!” and choose not to look at the ways I, too, am not asking for help and why that is. Since I started writing this about a week ago, I’ve invited myself to ask for help on one big thing I’m stuck on at the moment and also to notice - and delight in - the ways that even when I don’t ask for it, help arrives.
This morning, I asked for help from three lovely humans on a thing I’ve been struggling with: my fear that I’m doing this whole business of coaching all wrong and I won’t have any clients to work with if I don’t do something different. All summer, I have been plagued by feelings of shame and failure precisely because I’ve been keeping it to myself and I allowed myself to get stuck in inaction. I’ve been more committed to the drama of my fears than the possibilities of new views and new actions that arise when opening up and inviting others in to help me.
It was hard. I came to the table with them by asking for advice on the two easiest parts of the “problem”, hoping that we wouldn’t get further into me, why I was feeling as I was feeling, or that we wouldn’t touch into the deep inner work I know I’ve been avoiding and is the true source of the issue. I was hoping that I could sit and listen to their advice, take some notes, feel good about “asking for help” and then get the hell out of there.
It didn’t go as planned. Thank god.
Instead, I framed my questions, opened it up to them to respond, and pretty quickly, the conversation evolved from them sharing their advice to them asking me searing - though also kind, caring, courageous, difficult - questions about why I was up against this particular dilemma. They listened to me ramble and get lost in my sharing answers. They offered back to me what they heard, which was full of both really confronting shit that I need to have a look at for integrating and really incredible gifts that were exactly what I needed to move forward.
I thought coming into the conversation I was going to get some loving advice and different perspectives on how they handle particular parts of their work, and I did get that. But because I asked for help and because they love me, they offered me the coaching and guidance that I really needed - and craved, if I’m honest.
It didn’t always feel great in the conversation. As we moved through it, I noticed my belly muscles contract and my shoulders hunch, my breathing get shorter, my note-taking become more of a crutch to get through the difficulty of what I was hearing (instead of only supporting me to capture the wisdom they were offering), and part of my brain finding ways to disagree with them or to demonstrate that it already knew what they were saying or to imagine I could solve this on my own anyway. Thankfully, I’ve spent quite a lot of time learning to breathe through these defense mechanisms of my ego - because that’s exactly what they are - and to relax into the curiosity and generosity that’s in my heart, always.
So I breathed. Deeply into my belly. I connected with my gratitude for the contributions they were offering me, and the courage it takes to offer someone a truth they don’t necessarily want to hear. I allowed myself to keep taking notes - I know I want them! - without allowing myself to escape only into notetaking and then exiting the conversation as soon as humanly possible, which I would have done in a previous part of my life.
When I left the call, I felt loved. Cared for. That people were rooting for me, not waiting to pile on reasons I was destined to fail, as I feared. I also left with a page full of notes that form a map of sorts for me to find my way to the kind of coaching I want to do, the programs I want to offer, the language that will resonate with others to draw them in, and the stuff I need to deal with along the way to become the kind of coach that does all that. What a fucking gift these three incredible people gave me this morning, on a holiday.
When I set down to write this initially, more than a week ago, there was a loose outline of something about individualism, capitalism, how the internet and the ability to google search our way through life robs us of getting in relationship with other real people and how that also robs us of being able to contribute help to others, and I thought maybe there’d be some sort of inspiration for us all to go forth and ask for help all over the place. I still do think all those things are part of the issue and challenge our capacity to be in relationships, and that better, stronger, healthier relationships are really the only way to a better, stronger, healthier world. I also still hope there’s some inspiration available for all of us to go ask for help. But it’s apparently not what I’m exactly offering this time.
Instead, I’ll leave you with two things: a story that came to me via one of the lovely human beings from my morning call about Brené Brown, and another ask for help.
Apparently, after one of her blockbuster best-sellers, Brené found herself (as she does) with more to offer. She tried to write her next book several times, but found the task difficult: the concepts hard to synthesize; the stories elusive. She found herself avoiding the task of writing the book, but also weighed down by the need to write the book and offer its ideas to her readers. So, she asked herself, “If I could do this thing that would be helpful (i.e. write this book), in a way that was fun and enjoyable, what would that look like?” Her answer to herself was that she’d be on a beach with some of her closest friends talking about the ideas, having them reflect back to her what they heard in what she was saying, and her dictating portions of the writing back to them. She thought, initially, none of her friends would be up for this. But, being her, she asked them anyway, and every one of them said yes. They went to the beach. They talked, they laughed, they had fun, and she wrote the book in a weekend. I’m not personally sure what book it was, but I’m not sure it matters, I probably own it. And I know I’m incredibly thankful she was brave enough to ask for the help she needed, both so I could benefit from reading about what she’s learning in her research and because it sounds like she had a pretty unforgettable weekend with friends, and I think we all need more of those.
May we all ask for the help we need, be filled with love upon receiving it, find the joy in offering help to others, and find ourselves in stronger communities because we acknowledge we can’t do life alone - it’s simply not how it works.