You don’t need to do it alone

Tenderfoot Yogi Podcast and Audio Blog: Perspectives and Insights for Ease in Your Awakening

It’s not a mystery how we got to be this way. This way in which we feel we must be independent, self-sufficient, lone warriors on the battleground of our lives. That’s what ‘tough’ men and women do right? Go it alone. If you can’t do it yourself then you can’t do it. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and make it happen. From our earliest days we are told stories of parents and grandparents working through hardships and struggling to get ahead, and doing so on their own. There is no room for emotion. No room for feeling and no time for understanding. Besides it’s easier alone. No one to answer to and no one to get in our way. If we can’t do it ourselves then it must not be worth doing. Sink or swim. All of this is completely untrue. It’s almost as untrue as it is unkind. It’s how we get ourselves knee deep into the muck that we end up later digging ourselves out of when we finally accept that we aren’t meant to do everything alone. There is support for you out here, and you should accept it. Here is what I’m learning…

Listen to the Podcast version of the post below

Self-reliance

Before we get too far down this path of accepting the support of others we should address the idea of self-reliance. In a previous post titled ‘Build your self-reliance and be free‘ I talked all about the freedom we attain in learning to rely on ourselves. It’s essential to liberate ourselves from this reliance that does nothing more than keep us in our comfort zone. This remains true. But it’s also true that sometimes in life we simply need support from kind, understanding people to help us along our way. There is a reason that as human beings we are able to relate to each other and have compassion for and interest in each other. Life can be messy sometimes. The idea that these messy times are times to go it alone is simply wrong and unkind.

Privacy

Privacy is overrated. We think that our struggles are unique and that everyone else is just fine out there. So, we pretend that we’re just fine even when we are not. We keep our private lives private, because really who can we trust with the stuff that is really bothering us? The answer is simple and easy. Pretty much anyone with a willing ear and open mind who gathers your trust is a person worth trusting. Because that private stuff really isn’t that private. When we have something that is keeping us from our peace of mind we tend to think that we are the only human being in the history of human beings who has dealt with the particular something. We are not. Chances are your next-door neighbor can relate. Or the neighbor on the other side.

Light

I’m not suggesting that you go next door and pour your heart out to your neighbor. But I am suggesting that you open to the idea that there is support for you. Support that is kind and loving and understanding and compassionate and warm. It’s just a matter of connecting with the right person to hear your story and go from there. I have learned that issues in our lives that we perceive as problems thrive in the dark. It is amazing how quickly little bits of Peace begin to peek in as we allow our struggles out into the light. The more we do it, the more we open.

Whirlwind of dramatic proportion

Another thing that happens when we stop trying to do everything alone, when we open to some support from another human being, is that the stuff on our mind start to get clarified. Even purified. When we sit alone with something a concern turns into a worry that quickly becomes an issue, and then a problem and finally a struggle. Things get wound up into a whirlwind of dramatic proportion inside our minds. Until eventually we open to some support and with the right person’s reflection we learn that actually this thing is much smaller than we thought. We may even learn that it’s an opportunity.

April

The trick with finding some support, whether it’s a friend or family member or teacher or coach, is that the person is willing to speak the truth of what they hear. The old adage ‘misery loves company’ is very true, and it tends to keep us stagnant. Here in the Northeast it’s easy to notice this example in the month of April. By the time April rolls around it has been cold and gray since November and everyone is ready for Spring. But it’s still cold and gray. So, everyone complains. Standing in line at the grocery store, if one person mentions the weather suddenly everyone in the line along with the clerk begins to commiserate about it.

Yes man

The grocery store line commiserating is not the kind of support we need when we are seeking our Peace. We need more than a ‘yes man’ when we look for support. Having someone validate all of the stories that we have going around our struggle will not move us forward. This is hard. It’s hard because no one in the grocery store line likes the person who pipes up in the middle of all of the commiserating with something along the lines of how good the rain is for the May flowers or how perfect the weather is for movie marathons and popcorn. How dare she come in with an alternative perspective and ruin our misery right? Of course, the reason that we don’t like her is because she’s challenging our story. But she’s exactly right.

Challenge

Part of the reason that we don’t seek out support when we know that we need it is that we have inherited or adopted the idea that this is reflective of weakness – that we should be able to handle it ourselves. But another part of the reason is that we really don’t enjoy having our stories challenged. We like our stories. We are attached to our stories. We are especially attached to the stories of our struggles. If we were to learn that there is a completely different perspective we could take on our stories, then this may cause us to change. It is easy to say on the surface that we desire change. It is much harder to accept the challenge to embrace it.

Human

The fear of change and the ‘go it alone’ approach are human traits that we have inherited and adopted. We are not bad or weak people because of this – it’s everyone. But we do need to recognize these traits and tendencies and then reach beyond if we truly desire change. I promise it’s worth it. Because as humans we also have the inherent capacity for compassion. It is quite something to find yourself in touch with another human who shows you compassion. Who relates to your perceived predicament, one human to another.

Seen

To be seen, accepted, and loved for your own humanity without judgment or condition by a compassionate person is a gift like no other. It can change everything actually. Suddenly that alone feeling melts away and you wonder how you ever thought that it was the way. New perspectives relegate the stuff that had become so big in your mind to stuff that you just happened to be thinking about – then altered and replaced by new thoughts. Human connections matter. They help. They even save. It’s a big part of why we’re here. Just reach out. And keep reaching out. Before long the exact person you need to meet will reach back.

For what it’s worth, and for the knowing that all is well.

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