I get by with a little help from...
Pondering help and helping.
I'm not good at asking for help. If you need help, though? Abso-fucking-lutely. Sign me up. It's a deeply programmed belief in me to get on with it. A prided part of my identity to be a helper, strong, the go-to for advice. I can read a room and I can hold space. But, allow others to do this for me? Whole different story. This past month has been one of the most turbulent of my life and last week it hit a crescendo where I needed to ask for help. And my goodness how my community, and the community of my community, showed up for me, my partner, and my dog. A lot of you are here, reading this, as a love in action act. And I am so grateful for it. I was, and continue to be, profoundly moved by the way people have shown up for me and my loves. Strangers, friends, colleagues all offering love, support, money and gifts - my heart is so abundantly grateful and moved.
Here's what I've been pondering about help these last few weeks:
1. People really want to help. Let them.
2. People can't meet your needs if they don't know what they are. Tell them. This takes courage, though. Integrity. A self knowing and an articulation of how you're feeling and then sharing it. It also takes deep belief in your enoughness and your worth to believe you are worthy of these things. This 'I am enough' piece is one we all need to keep working on, isn't it? It’s so deeply ingrained in us by our wiring, and by culture, to compare and invalidate our own self worth. But here’s the lesson I have been learning over and over again since I was nineteen…you are already enough. Exactly as you are. And our enoughness is unconditional, it’s not determined by any other factor than the breath in our lungs.
3. When people are in need, sometimes they don't have the emotional capacity to do the above. I have absolutely said, "Let me know if you need anything," in the past and I know it is the most well-meaning, soaked in loving-intent phrase, but I'm going to stop doing this from now on. The emotional labour required in times of chaos to articulate your needs is often too much. That energy needs to be spent on getting well, or getting through the day, and not the administrative labour of help curation. So, what I'm going to do from now on is be honest, tell people I want to help, give them options, and I'm going to take on all of the work of making that shit happen. I'm going to ponder their specific care needs, the basics, and think about how I can ease the load. For example:
“I’m here. I love you. I want to help. Here are some options. Pick one and I will facilitate. Do you need:
a. Money
b. Food
c. Life admin done like cleaning or errands done
d. Me to leave you alone and check-in in a week.
e. A feel-good distraction.
f. Me to be the information administrator to all the people who love you.
And then I’m going to do whatever the ask for. I’ve also realised that sometimes the best time to help isn’t in the moment, it’s in the aftermath.
4. I'm also going to stop asking questions like "How are you?" “Or what did the doctors say?” or “What’s happening?” because, again this is more administrative energetic labour. Instead I'm going to send memes and high-fives and love letters and dumb videos of dogs, just as a reminder about their value, and that their network is activated. Navigating chaos while life moves on around you is really isolating and lonely. Moments of gold from the “outside world” are glimmers of normalcy. I've had two beautiful people in my life lose their dads in pretty fucked circumstances and all I could think to do amidst their grief was give them a seconds reprieve from the grief. A smile a day. So, I created a care package of individually wrapped things to give them a micro escape for a moment each day for a month; a mixtape, their favorite treats, memories and personal jokes written down, stupid shit you know will make them smile like a plastic goldfish pencil topper, or the exact peanut based snack their ex husband (who you hate) can’t eat because he was allergic. How can we lighten the load just a touch?
5. Help the helpers. Or as one of my past students wrote in a beautiful letter to me this week, “The most thoughtful need to be thought of.”
I'm thinking about the bold compassion of long-term carers, of people in the thick of complicated diagnoses, or enduring persistent hard life shit. The suffocation. How dark shit can feel. How little light gets in some days. And I'm thinking about how we show up for our communities at these times. I'm thinking about community - and how the isolated ways we exist in the world aren’t conducive to mutual aid and community care anymore, and that's how we're meant to operate. That's what we need.
We need each other. I needed you this week, and you were there. You'll probably need me at some point and I will be there.
6. I'm learning about allowing. Saying yes. Being grateful. I'm thinking about the strong ones, the ones who seem on top of their shit, the ones who solve shit for everyone else, who take control and I'm thinking about how we encourage more vulnerability, more authenticity, and celebrate the messiness more. This is fucking hard and messy for everyone. That’s a fact. We don’t arrive at some peaceful verge where the hard shit no longer happens, there’s always going to be hard shit. So, I’m thinking about how we best equip ourselves to navigate it. And part of that is allowing. Allowing compliments, allowing good things to flow in, allowing help. I'm thinking how much I've potentially not allowed in my life, how much magic, or connection, or opportunity I've missed by not allowing, by not saying simple phrases like: thank you, I’d love your help, that would be awesome, yes please.
And here’s the other part we don’t talk about, helping other people makes you feel good. People feel good when they help. Let them feel good. Because everyone feeling good, or at least a little bit better has got to beneficial for us all.
This is what's swirling, my loves.
Integrity. Openness. Allowing. Gratitude.
Arms up on the rollercoaster instead of death gripping the handle bars.
I see you. Especially if it's hard right now. Think about what you need, think about who can facilitate that for you and ask. Be brave and ask. You are worthy of it.
I'm so glad I let them, let you, because you have lightened my load and helped me feel seen and heard. You've shone some light in the dark room and reminded me one day soon the windows will open and it'll be sunny again.
Love Claire.