How can I help you?

Unraveling individualism in order to create more ease for one another.

My family recently had COVID-19 for the first time. I got it first and tried to isolate from my partner and toddler, but days later, both of them tested positive. My symptoms improved as my partner’s worsened for a few days, enabling us to toggle between parenting duties while our child was out of childcare for a week. Even as I started to feel better, I wasn’t fully functional. Feeling better was measured by how many hours I could go between Dayquil doses, by how much of the day I needed to spend in bed. I checked in on a few work projects, but I mostly parented and rested. My brain was foggy. My energy would dip dramatically throughout the day. Leaving the house was out of the question not only because of the contagious respiratory illness, but just the sheer amount of effort. One day I ambitiously drove 10 minutes and back to pick up a grocery order, and promptly had to go back to bed because driving took so much focus. My body was fighting a virus, and the relentless truth of parenting is that there are no days off.

At a few different points in this week of illness, more than one friend texted me to ask if they could bring us anything. As these texts arrived on my phone, I felt the warmth of a friend’s care. But this was quickly extinguished by a rush of uncertainty and vulnerability, causing me to decline these offers. Swiftly, almost automatically, I replied with my thanks and insistence that we had everything we needed. This is a wonderful, privileged truth of our situation. But was it the whole truth?

There were multiple points in the week that I would have loved some support around dinner - someone to decide on something easy and just show up with it. Losing my taste and smell left me disinterested in food, but all of us needed to eat. It would have also felt supportive to have some new things to engage my toddler with. Two year olds are never bored, so she was doing fine with what we already had at home. But spending an entire week in your house is monotonous for anyone, and something novel would have engaged all of us. Of course the internet and post-2020 retail world means I had access to almost anything I could think of. But again, we were low on thinking energy. Our capacity for decision-making was severely limited. 

As these ideas came to me, having already declined the kind outreach of friends, the voice of my inner critic, likely the one responsible for my automatic “no thanks” response, chimed in: These ideas are extras, they are “nice to have” things. These aren’t real needs. You have no right to ask for them. We had food, a home, Dayquil and one functional parent available during the day, (even if sometimes propped up by back-to=-ack episodes of Trash Truck on Netflix). Using all of this as evidence of self sufficiency, my inner critic continued to drown out any whispers of a need or desire for support: You don’t need their help. Don’t inconvenience others for your own comfort.

In this isolating and lonely week, we were just barely eking out the capacity to meet our family’s basic needs. We were making it through one day at a time, stealing pockets of rest wherever we could, and even still trying to keep up with work. Did it need to be this hard? 

This voice in my head that talked me out of receiving any help when my family was sick also told me repeatedly: Other people have it worse. Who are you to have these needs? No way that person actually has time to do anything for you, so don’t even explore it. They have their own family, their own needs to attend to. We can surely get by without anything extra. You should be able to handle this on your own, like everyone else.

There it is: American individualism. A belief system so ingrained in us that it passes for truth.

I noticed I’m so often working from the assumption that no one has the capacity to help and care for anyone outside of their nuclear family. Working, parenting, just being a human… it’s all so hard, so busy, so full, that it is understandable if we don’t have any energy left to help more people. Once again I’m wonder: is this the whole truth?

This question nags at me like a thread starting to fray. I could ignore it, accept it and move on. But this is a thread worth tugging at. Because if we don’t unravel these assumptions, we will continue to operate as though they are the whole truth. I know there’s something better, something more expansive, more supportive underneath the fabric of these assumptions that we’ve wrapped around ourselves so tightly. I’m ready to shed this garment of these ingrained patterns. What new reality can we stitch together? To create a new pattern of being together, we need to pull a little harder on the frayed edges of the fabric of individualism. Believing that we don’t have anything to offer, and that no one outside of our nuclear family could possibly have the capacity to support us cuts us off from one another. This thinking also chips away at our relationship to our own humanity by denying our own needs are real enough to speak aloud. If we do not practice asking for and offering support, how will we ever cultivate the community we’re dreaming of?

I dream of a world where everyone has what they need. One where people have the ability to share what they have to spare. I dream of trust. I dream of a reality where we recognize our own needs and the needs of others. I dream of the expansion necessary to hold all of these needs simultaneously, even when they inevitably conflict. I dream of us all feeling more comfortable asking for support, where it’s okay for others to say, ”That’s not in my current capacity, but I can do X instead. Would that be helpful?” I dream of us leading with naming what we can give and when. I dream of the boldness to show up with dinner, or to drop off a care package, not because it was asked for, but because you want to extend the care. I dream of a world where we build bridges over the pools of reluctance and hesitation so we can reach each other. With practice, we could make it easier to ask for what we need. I dream of a world not without vulnerability, but one where we feel comfortable holding that vulnerability for one another. I dream of healthy interdependence.

Nature knows the interdependence I’m dreaming of. Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush flowers growing together under a Texas sunset.

Though my inner critic would have me believe that I should go it alone, I know that’s not true. As ingrained as American individualism may be in my thinking, I know that before I learned the rules of this system, I knew the value of helping others. This wisdom predates anything individualism tried to convince me of because I see it in my two year old. Her desire to help is as big as all the other desires she expresses every day, which is to say: it’s huge! I see her full body urgency to do anything that brings her closer to participating in something she sees us adults doing. If someone drops something, she wants to pick it up. On a walk, she clocks every open garbage bin lid, insisting that we help, that we correct each small injustice. This behavior is about developing independence. But it’s also a reminder of how early we develop the impulse to help, to participate, to connect, to do what we can for someone else.

Help is more than meeting basic needs. (Yes, let’s start there!) Help is also care and comfort and creating more ease for one another. Have you ever had a lot of items to carry and then a friend picks up the other handle of a bag without even being asked, or a stranger sees you coming and holds the door for you? We can lighten the load for one another. I want more of this. As we unravel from the extreme individualism we’ve learned to over-value, we can take steps toward the interdependent community we’re dreaming of. Let’s create more ease for one another. We need to practice, even in small ways, manifesting a new reality to replace the one that doesn’t serve us.

As hard as it is to receive help, so much also gets in the way of offering help: we might worry about assuming familiarity or intimacy that we aren’t sure is shared; maybe we don’t want to make it weird; we don’t want to impose or bother someone going through a hard time. But when we are so worried about overstepping, we end up not taking any steps at all. We miss out on connection. We miss out on giving and receiving ease. What information do we need to be brave enough to help? What specifics do we need to be brave enough to accept help? I am an ambitious learner and worker. What would happen if I applied this same diligence and relentless curiosity to my relationships? I want to turn “Can I bring you anything?” into “I’m bringing you some grocery items. What’s your favorite fruit right now?” I want to keep a note in my phone about my people’s go-to coffee orders, favorite snacks, favorite colors. The more we know each other, the better equipped we feel to help in specific, tangible ways. If nothing else, we can start with ourselves: think about what would create more ease for you if you were in their situation and let that be your guide. What can you offer?

Your Turn

Here are a few questions to take with you. As always, feel free to respond below in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts.

• What does it feel like to help someone?

• How do you feel about receiving help? What tensions exist for you? What reliefs?

• What new reality do you dream of for you and your community? And what’s a step you can take today to bring it about?

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