Accepting Help is Hard to Do
It’s hard to know where to even begin on the topic of help, frankly. I’ve started this blog over and over, with endless perspectives in my mind about what it means to be willing to ask for help, and to receive it.
This is a big theme in my life, as like so many midwives I’m a helper by trade and personality. A great deal of my career has been spent encouraging mothers to ask for and receive support, and teaching them that it also gifts the giver. But recently the theme was up close and personal; I needed quite a lot of physical help while I healed from a ruptured disc in my back, right at the time I thought I’d be celebrating a new season of independence by stepping back from being on call after 40 years.
It was really uncomfortable! From needing my son to drive me around and hold me up through pain grimaces, to needing encouragement even when I didn’t feel like carrying on a decent conversation, the challenge to find grace and gratitude was ever present. Months later, I still needed helping hands even though it was no longer obvious, while my back mended slowly and carefully.
Over time I got more comfortable about welcoming help, and developed a gentler relationship with asking for help that has revolutionized my self-image, patience, and judgement. I didn’t realize that I could let go of whether the garbage cans made it to the curb on time, or wait a few days to have the lightbulbs replaced in the closet. For the woman who’s lived most of her life in four-season Michigan, it definitely rattled my personal ‘strong and capable’ identity to not go camping all year, or shovel snow for a whole winter!
“All healthy, life-giving relationships grow with a balance of give-and-take.”
My eyes and heart were deeply opened when I then needed to travel for a week, the car loaded with a large amount of heavy and varied luggage; but for the first time in my life, I did not lift a thing! It worked out spontaneously when I finally remembered yet again that I would protect my recovery by asking for assistance; one son came back from his apartment early morning to load the entire car, and my cousin unloaded it at the other end. A client’s husband unloaded another round, and my elderly uncle hoofed all of it back to the car at the end. Another son showed up to unload at home in the dark snowy night…. And it was done. I wrestled with guilt, apology, and unease at every turn; yet without exception they were baffled by my concerns and laughingly brushed them off. To be able to help is a gift in both directions, a concept easy to teach and sometime difficult to remember!
I know my postpartum ladies have run the gamut of this kind of challenge with HELP, with all the feelings of ‘having to ask’, being vulnerable, and in some cases, the family dues that may come also. Additional big feelings of grief, loss, worry, or surrender may come up when labor needs some help, or baby needs some help, or when relatives are aging and need different sorts of help too. What if these are not circumstances of “helping debt” between us, but a healthy flow of gifting and love? I know that it seems trite and obvious written this way, like a Hallmark card! But I assure you, my own discomfort mirrors the 100s upon 100s of postpartum mothers who’ve consistently shared their concerns about needing and accepting more than just a wee bit of passing help.
I have found greater peace when asking for help and allowing help’s mutual gifts by settling into the idea that I may never be able to pay the individual back directly, but that there will be paying it forward. Not a racking up some burdensome debt, but that I’ll know the moments when I too can effortlessly and kindly pay it forward. Our tools may vary – when I was young, I liked to help push folks out of the snowy ditch, as my strong sons eagerly do now. I’ve found over the years that I’m not often the one who can show up with a home cooked meal. But I may be that one to wash the dishes later, or consult with your worried relative when they are spotting late at night. How do you love to pay things forward? It changes as we age, doesn’t it?
A friend recently shared this wisdom, “Spring borrows from winter, and gives to summer….”. As we navigate the seasons of our lives, let’s work together on being patient with our own needs, having patience with our evolving contributions, and honoring the buoyant joy of sharing ourselves. I know I feel uplifted when I help others, don’t you? So I am working to be at peace with myself including my sometimes needy selves, and to not deny that uplift to others.
It’s a healing journey to explore the flow of give and take, and living the balance of inhale and exhale. Let’s model for our kids and community this healthy, and seasonal, balance.