I'm a list person. I make lists of what I have to do, what I want to do and even what I've already done (you know, so I can cross stuff off and feel accomplished). This morning I made a mega list for my Daisy troop. It runs March through September and includes meetings and/or events every month as well as a sub-list of sign-up and permission forms needed. I did this with my two troop co-leaders, and while we created this master list, I asked them for another kind of help. (Please note: You do not need to be a list person to benefit from this post.)
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I am up for organizing just about anything. I have organized everything from one-day retreats to faculty luncheons to internationally attended conferences. There is no stone I leave unturned in the process. I am ON IT. Boss level, folx. But here's the thing: when it comes to 5 & 6 year olds, everything I know goes out the window. Their sweet little faces and noisy little selves drive me to the brink of insanity, and I'm actually not saying that lightly.
I have a very low tolerance for chaos. Nine 5 & 6 year olds who are super jazzed to be Girl Scouts together is the epitome of chaos. My eyes can't track them. My ears can't sort them. My heart races. In short, if I am in the room with multiple littles, I need to stim. And, unfortunately, I can't stim and lead at the same time. This means I've been overriding my neurological self-care impulses to manage troop leadership. I can't do that anymore. So I told my co-leaders.
I asked for help.
Fortunately, one of these leaders is extremely gifted with keeping the attention of littles. She stepped in and has the troop learning and having fun. The other troop leader is gifted with crafts, numbers and the scheduling of events (i.e. phone calls and reading websites/filling out forms); more stuff that makes my brain do an unhappy dance. And I am gifted at planning, emailing parents and creating permission slips. So we have split up the ginormous role of troop leadership into three pieces. I could not feel more relieved.
Here's where I want to do my thing and talk about asking for help. Come on. You knew that's where I was going. Asking for help is a form of self-care that we are almost all brought up being told to do but expected not to do. We have to overcome that. We need to ask for help so that we can be our best selves which means we can do our best which means we can provide at our best. This is essential for parents, caregivers, teachers, and all other humans.
But asking for help is hard. It is, in many cultures, imbued with shame. We feel guilty for not being enough when, truth be told, we are enough. We just have limits. And admitting we aren't able to or should not do a thing all by our lonesome is acknowledging our limits. It is setting personal boundaries. And that is self-care.
Self-care is more than good, it's necessary.
Which is why I'm proud of myself right now. I'm choosing to let go of embarrassment that dyslexia and autism and PTSD mean I don't relate well to chaos. I accept that my gifts in leadership and teaching lie with adults. I accept that I can be a Daisy troop leader, but that I shouldn't for my own health, and also for the sake of the girls in the troop who deserve a much better experience than what they will receive if I cling to that position.
Again, it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to have limits. It's okay to what we can instead of doing it all.
Now, all I have left to do for the troop is bring the occasional crafting materials (I already know which materials and which dates), bring a snack (I already know which snack and which dates), and use my permission slip template to create slips for all meetings and events. That last will take me about an hour and I don't need to do it until next week. No problem. I've got this.
How are you taking care of yourself today?
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Good post
Thank you.
I love how you organized everyone to perform in their genius zones. Your genius zone is clearly organization. And look at how you grew in personal wellbeing by asking for help. Thanks for the inspiration.
I love this comment. I've never heard the term "genius zone" but it's fantastic. Thank you for reading and for this support.
You're welcome!
Haha, that part about the lists.. That's me :D I write lists of things I already did just to check them off as well..
This is a perfect example of the imperfection that humans are. Everyone has their fears and things they're simply not good at, but, like you, there are also things that come to them naturally (organizing, teaching adults, writing awesome posts ;). Asking for help is okay! There's no need to be afraid of it because everyone needs help with one issue kr another :)
Aww. Thanks! I agree--we do all need help, which makes asking for it all the sweeter. It means someone else may be empowered to ask when they need it as well.
I am a chaos person hahaha: P
Oh dear. Just . . . stay back. LOL. Kidding. Come near me and I will organize your chaos. You won't know what happened. ;)
hahaha I have to overcome this mania to leave everything at the last minute
Gah! You leave things til the last minute? Woe is me! ;)
yes, but not you ;-)
I am also a kind of a person with the no ending lists%)) I guess some people are born like that. I had my own difficulties with asking for help and I can relate to your post a lot. I do agree that asking for help is self-care. I might be able to do a lot of things very well, but it doesn't mean I have to do ALL of them esp if there is someone who can do it better. I would say it is a big question of trust and self-acceptance here as well. Thank you for a beautiful story you shared!
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This:
It has taken me SO LONG to learn that. Thank you for saying that here.
I also seem to live in chaos just now, getting more organised. I told some people how I was feeling and just having that support helped. I got myself together and went for a short walk in the snow.
That's perfect, Beth. Being heard, I think, allows our thoughts to shift and sift and fall into place. And walks are excellent for that as well. I hope your walk was beautiful.
I'm not doing a very good job of taking care of myself. So will you help me? ;-)
What a brave person you are. The first step is asking for help. Through experience I know the only time you can receive help is when you ask and are ready to receive. ❤️
Oh goodness how true this is.
On my way. You cook, right? ;)
Could kiss you for this line.
Personally though, the burden of reciprocity is and still remains a demon for me. It is all there is to my not asking for help from anybody. Not pride, not esteem, not ego, just that expectation that one good turn on my life immediately sets up a clock ticking towards the day I will have to sacrifice my peace to do good. I am not sure how I can escape that bubble.
I have a really hard time asking for help. Damn near impossible. But after my near death experience the other day it was instinctual. I did not hesitate to call on my loved ones for help. And to ask for support and tell my story here on Steemit. It has been cathartic.
It's strange how when I am at the very last legs and hopeless is when I have no issues asking for help...
This is a part of the complexity in life I've been trying to explain to people.... I would love to chip in a little story (looks like I always have a story for every issue? Yes, who won't! When you are surrounded with strong people passing through tough time, certainly, you will ). But let me keep it for another day.
I've seen people miss a lot of opportunity simply because they counted it as shame to ask for help ( imagine the hypocrisy) ......
I've seen broken homes, simply because the parties involved (that is,:husband and wife) refused to ask for help from each other.....
I've seen corpses lowered down six feet below simply because they allowed people's definition of self-help to control them.....
@shawnamawna,most times, I try to fit into someone's shoe so as to feel what he/she felt when making a decision,this attitude makes it very impossible for me to blame people's decision and at the end, the society gets the blame.
Why do I blame the society for the crime it didn't commit?
The society most times promotes a deranged definition of strength, they make it look sinful to ask for help in time of need, they kill the inward morale, while promoting a fake ego outside. The world doesn't need this,even the individual involved can't survive this. Why are we are taught what we won't be allowed to practice?
Why is the very essence of living which is being an umbrella to each other being frown upon?
I believe the real strength is in combined effort. God created us in the way that our strengths neutralises others' weaknesses thus creating a supernatural force to reckon with.
Nothing is impossible if and only if we learn the concept of self-love, know it's true definition and live a simple life.
Let's make our world a better place.
I am @sammynathaniels
Unfortunately I hate lists and asking for help. But I’ve never been big on self-care either which most likely explains why I developed Fibromyalgia-an overactive nervous system characterized by pain, brain fog, fatigue, and sensitivities to almost everything
And now that I’m dealing with the loss of a loved one my mind, body and soul just completely crashed. Your post reinforced the necessity of lists and asking for help. Quite possibly a literal lifeline for me.
On another thought I’ve always believed that the key to efficiency and service, especially in the workplace, is specializing in what you do best. And yet so many positions require a myriad of skills.
The YMCA management team I was part of for a couple of years collectively had every possible skill needed to conquer the world. But each us individually continued to fall short. The stand-a-lone spirit so prominent in our society is wreaking havoc on everyone.
Thank you so much for this post. So inspiring.
We all need help to balance the equation of our thought proving us with the
precise answer in suiting our understanding of things. @shawnamawna.
Way to go! Asking for help is certainly something I struggle with, but I'm working to get better.