I am vehemently opposed to accepting help for putting my luggage into the airplane’s overhead bins. People consistently ask me if I want help, or even try to intervene without asking, reaching for my luggage as I lift it over my head, making the assumption that my short stature and female sex may preclude me from placing my bag into the space above my seat without maiming any of my fellow passengers (full transparency, I did bonk a guy on the head ONE time, but it was while taking my bag DOWN, so you know, I blame gravity for that one).
This is just one example of my long-standing, fiercely independent nature, but I don’t think it’s just me. We live in a society where independence is common and necessary. For the most part we don’t talk to our neighbors, or to anyone with whom we don’t have a pre-existing relationship. We tend not to trust others even when they offer assistance. We may think “there must be a motive behind this supposed act of kindness…” We may also avoid asking for help because we think that we are imposing on others.
When we deny ourselves the opportunity to ask for help or accept help, we are rejecting an opportunity to allow ourselves to be human, to be held, and to connect with others. We also deprive those who offer help the experience of joy and connection they feel when we allow them to help us.
In an ironic twist, stubbornly rooting ourselves in the mindset of refusing to ask for or accept help does not demonstrate how smart or capable we are, it demonstrates how little we trust others. Feeling the need to do everything ourselves, struggling through a process that could be much easier, and probably even more effective with the help or collaboration of others, is not a growth mindset, but a limiting mindset. We have become insular as a society, rejecting connection and support from our fellow humans. I truly believe this is the root cause of suffering these days–of anxiety, depression, anger, frustration, lack of empathy, lack of openness to others’ opinions or beliefs, unwillingness to engage in healthy discourse. We are rooted in this belief that we shouldn’t need help, that we should push through the tough times and demonstrate our strength and independence because that is what will ensure our survival. This mentality is isolating and counterproductive. The best ideas and outcomes happen when we lean into connecting with the people around us and when we share the best parts of each other. When times are tough, the best way to survive is with the support of others who can balance our energy such that when our tank is empty, they can use some of their fuel to keep us running and vice versa. We were never meant to do this life alone. Even the Surgeon General has identified that loneliness is the epidemic that we are now dealing with as a society, and it has real health consequences, both mental and physical. When we reject the offers of kindness from others it drives us all even further apart.
“No, I got it.” “No, I’ll take care of it myself.” “No, I can handle it.” This resistance to receiving also comes up when being given a compliment: “I like your shirt,” one may reply, “Oh this old thing?” “Oh it was on sale…” “Well it’s not as nice as yours.”
It has taken me a long time to recognize the gift in receiving help or compliments from others. A few years ago I was at a women’s leadership breakfast during a work conference. The keynote speaker was a highly accomplished retired woman who had dedicated much of her time at the company helping to pave the way for women employees to advance their careers. I introduced myself to her and told her how impressive I thought she was and that her legacy was still alive and continuing to help women succeed. She started to look down and turn her head to brush off the compliment, that kind of “aw shucks” body language, and then she reset herself, squared off to look me in the eye, took my hand in hers and said, “Thank you. I receive your compliment.” I don’t know if I am adequately capturing in words the power of that moment. I could see in her eyes the long journey and ultimate wisdom it had taken her throughout her life and career to finally believe that she was worthy of praise for her accomplishments. She was still fighting the involuntary reaction to dismiss the accolade, but she had learned enough in her time to pull herself back and receive the gift that was rightfully hers. From my perspective, as the giver of the compliment, it made me feel better knowing that my words had landed on her and that I didn’t have to convince her that my sentiment was genuine. Plus, she taught me a lesson about how to receive and own our accomplishments. When someone says, “you did a great job on that presentation today,” and we respond, “Really? You think so? I don’t know, I was really nervous…” it kind of takes the wind out of both parties’ sails. What if we could just say, “Thank you, that means a lot coming from you.” This edited version allows both people to feel an exchange of energy that roots us in connection to one another. A connection that is sorely missing in our society.
Asking for help or accepting help is another branch of this energy exchange. When we ask for or accept help from others we show a kind of humility and vulnerability that brings us closer. It is an acknowledgment that we really were never meant to travel this road of life alone. Somewhere along the way we created an expectation, of ourselves and of others, that if we can’t figure it out on our own we are not “good enough.” We have attached judgment to the idea of asking for help, or we assume that when we do ask we are burdening others or we are revealing ourselves as “failures” because we couldn’t do it on our own. What we have missed in this isolating approach is the fact that help is never selfless. Most people (I’m sure there are exceptions) feel good about being needed, particularly if the person they are helping is typically capable and independent and probably could do it on their own eventually, so it often feels like an honor to help someone like that. It means they trust us enough to let us in, and they trust themselves enough to let go of control and invite in support.
Years ago a friend of mine was going through a divorce and was moving out of his house. He was a leader in his workplace–brilliant, successful, and always helping others. In fact, over the course of decades there was a long list of mentees that had flourished as a result of his mentorship. Everyone looked up to him. He confided in me that once he was in this vulnerable position of a very difficult major life change, people started acting differently towards him. They were showing HIM compassion and support and offering to help. In one specific example a group of his students offered to help him move out of his house. He initially rejected their offers. He’d always done life on his own and had persevered through some pretty challenging events without the help of others. It was so foreign to him to consider accepting help because he’d never needed anyone’s help before. Furthermore, the thought of accepting offers from these people who were his mentees made him wildly uncomfortable. The role reversal had him all in a frenzy. My counsel to him was that these individuals wanted to help him because they loved him. They felt indebted to him for all of his guidance and the impact that he’d had on their lives; they WANT to help him, they want the opportunity to repay him for all he’s done for them, even though they know he would never ask for repayment. I reminded him that his acceptance of their offer would make them feel good, which was what always his goal, to help others feel good. If he rejected their offer he would actually make them feel bad, something he desperately wanted to avoid. They would feel less close to him, less connected, and potentially feel that he didn’t value them enough to believe they could offer anything to him. His acceptance would acknowledge that it was indeed a two-way relationship, which elevates the connection between them and puts them on a level playing field as fellow humans, each having something to offer the other. A cynical way to look at this paradigm is that no one acts out of pure altruism. Everything we do is symbiotic (this is probably an evolutionary survival trait in and of itself). Even if you sacrifice an organ to save someone’s life, I’m guessing you feel pretty good about that act. I’m told Richard Dawson’s book “Selfish Gene” describes this human phenomenon in detail, but I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Let me know if you’ve read it and have some takeaways to share. But I believe in the premise–that we like to do things for others because we inherently want to be helpful, but also we get a good feeling in return.
My journey to parenthood has taught me the most about the gift of receiving. We had a long, lonely 5-year path to conceive, and even when we finally had a positive pregnancy test we endured a lot of scary potential complications that made us question whether we would ever even meet our daughter on this side of the earth. When we were going through that dark period of doubt and waiting to see what would happen with various scary test results, we set boundaries around friends and family, letting them know we wouldn’t be sharing any updates on our pregnancy, and not celebrating any milestones until we had more information. What we were dealing with was too hard, too scary, and we didn’t want to put others in a position where they didn’t know the right thing to say. If they said the “wrong” thing, even though they were likely just trying to do their best, we knew that could lead to us getting frustrated or angry. So we mentally isolated ourselves regarding our pregnancy until we could be sure that we were in the clear and that we were confident we would actually meet our daughter one day. My husband and I are both very independent people but we are also a great team. We trust one another, so we just leaned into one another during that time period rather than rely on the support of others. It was the right choice for us at the time, but it did mean that we disconnected from people who wanted to love and support us.
What started to happen after we were in the clear was uncomfortable and yet unbelievably beautiful. A friend who had been dying to throw me a baby shower, which I previously rejected because I couldn’t bear the idea of having something bad happen after getting everyone all excited with a big party, basically said, “It’s time. People want to celebrate you and this little girl.” I gave in…and opened myself to the gift of receiving. I was overwhelmed by the people who showed up for us, not just our friends and family at the shower who finally brought a celebratory mood that I had never previously allowed into my space, but friends of friends or neighbors of family members who we’d never met heard that we were expecting and sent over handmade blankets or offered to bring us dinner after the baby was born. This kindness of strangers made the most impactful impression on us during this journey.
This continued right up to and past the arrival of our daughter. A couple of months prior to our due date we hired a doula to help guide and support us through the labor and delivery, including some sessions of mental preparation beforehand. It was one of the best decisions we made. We had been through a lot to even get to this point so fear was constantly looming in the background. We were always waiting for the other shoe to drop due to our history of bad news related to our family-building journey. It was another vulnerable moment when we realized we needed extra support to get to the final stretch. The doula made a comfortable space for us to be vulnerable about our fears around the birth process. She was by our side throughout the delivery, and though we had only known her for a few weeks prior to this, she became a trusted part of our family in this critical time. Then our delivery didn’t go as planned and we ended up in the OR, but fortunately not in an emergent way. That decision did require us to once again surrender our independence and put ourselves in the hands of others to help us meet our daughter in a safe and efficient way. I had so much gratitude for that surgical team. They took care of me, easing my anxiety by talking to me throughout the procedure and embracing the celebratory vibe we had asked for. The all-female surgical team plus an all-female power music playlist welcomed our girl into a room full of human connection and collaboration. Strangers that gave us everything they had to ensure our safety and comfort when we could not do that for ourselves.
After our daughter was born, the nurses at the hospital treated us like family for the 5 days we were under their care. I realize it is their job to care for their patients, but I have never had more respect for nurses and their ability to give unconditionally, both with acts of service and emotional support. We were exhausted and elated and completely clueless as to how to care for this new tiny human. They held us like family, seeing to our needs as well as our daughter’s, 24-7. There was no barrier of emotion either. They threw their happiness and empathy into us with abandon, soothing us when we were frustrated or scared, giving us endless encouragement when we doubted our parenting instincts, and even crying with me when I was unable to provide enough food for my daughter and there were concerns about her weight loss, and I felt like a failure as a mom. It was such a vulnerable time for us and our focus had changed immediately to ensuring that this little one’s needs got met, so we basically had to abandon any attachment to independence and we accepted all of the help and support that was offered. It was a huge shift for us to accept this kind of nurturing care, but we really were pretty helpless and that forced us to open the door to receive.
When I talked in a previous blog about putting down the sword, this was another level of taking off all the armor as well–allowing people to show up, to enter the fortress of independence, and to say YES to every offer of assistance, support, encouragement and sharing of joy and excitement. People were also willing to give their most precious gift, as well–their time. This is something I’m really uncomfortable accepting, but it’s also really freaking hard in this season of our lives, and being alone doesn’t feel good at all. Whenever I accept the offers someone gives to come over and relieve me of baby duty so I can take a shower or get outside, the joy on the faces of the giver is all I need to see to know that saying “yes” was the right decision.
After our daughter was home with us, we de-briefed with the doula about our birth experience. We talked about the immense gratitude we felt for all of the people who helped us and showed up for us, many of whom were previously strangers. The doula said, “the reason these people showed up for you in that way is because of the way you walk through the world. You invite in connection, real human connection. You allowed them into your life and you allowed them to help you. You showed them that you see them, that you trust them and that you are willing to be held by them. What an amazing gift this is for you–this journey taught you how to surrender, to receive and to be held by others.”
I still get emotional thinking about this. My hope is that those reading this blog allow themselves to be held and supported by their fellow humans. It is such an amazing feeling and I can’t imagine a better way for us to heal the fractured society we are currently in–to see one another, appreciate and trust one another, allow ourselves to ask for and/or receive help, and to continue offering support to others.
They say “it is always better to give than to receive,” but I believe there is real value in allowing ourselves to receive. It may even save our society. And I may even let someone put my bag in the overhead bin one day…