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“Help, Thanks, Wow!”
Anne Lamott

Those defiant words of a teen struggling to be independent came to us through the commercial airwaves in the 60’s. My family members often remember these things and laugh. That girl and her mother have provided us with lots of giggles over the years. However, in our second half of life as Baby Boomers, there is a more troubling or serious side effect of that expression.

DIY, do-it-yourself is a theme that penetrates deeper into our psyche than just a reference to home improvement projects. Independence and being tough enough to do it on your own, not asking for or needing help, and suffering in silence became badges of honor over time. If we needed help or if we were fearful and/or anxious we were weak, less than, and dismissed.

I am learning, in my second half, the importance of asking for help. I am coming to understand I don’t do ANYTHING alone, on my own, there are always other forces and other people involved. To assume I have accomplished anything without any help is IGNORANT. To resist asking for help signals a deep-seated feeling, “I AM UNWORTHY”. To RECEIVE and ACCEPT help with gratitude is DIVINE.

We are all in this together. You are part of my world and I am part of yours. There is no division except by the walls we erect to “go it alone”.

SURRENDER

Here’s the next step in this process, once you ask for help, you surrender. You thought asking for help was hard? Try surrender!

I was writing earlier in the week about “There is no TRY”…the words of Yoda which have been a baseline theme echoing in my mind for years. This phrase is taking on such a different meaning for me now.

Heretofore I interpreted this in a kind of punitive way. In other words, if you TRY, your heart is only half in. TRY-ing is half-assed, it’s not forging ahead with ENOUGH willpower (another loaded word, I will get to it) to actually succeed. TRY-ing is doing the easy parts but not the hard parts. Do you hear where this self-talk is going? TRY-ing is just enough to check the DID-IT box, but it’s probably not going to succeed…..again (insert shrug emoji).

This has been my M.O. for—-maybe for-ever? Until now. Lessons are showing up in the form of events, life events that are outside MY control. Life events that may affect another person directly but even for them are out of their CONTROL.

Oh, that word….CONTROL. This is what TRY is all about. TRY-ing is about thinking you have CONTROL and when things don’t go the way you planned (outcome) you attach to that outcome and blame. I mostly blame myself…it’s a style thing. I think most people are self-blamers or other-blamers. Self-blamers are the ones that think they are RESPONSIBLE for everything that happens to them, good or bad. Other blamers think everything happens TO them and they are just unlucky or just lucky depending on what happens. I’m sure everyone is actually a hybrid of the two, but I prefer to describe the extremes for effect ;-).

As a self-blamer, if something didn’t go the way I hoped or planned, I would look in the mirror and see all the things I could have done that would have changed the course. Then I act as my own whipping boy, ugh.

Here’s the lesson I’m learning now, for which I am SOOO grateful.

IT’S NOT IN MY CONTROL

For me and perhaps for some of you, this feels like; LAZY, COP-OUT, LAISSEZ-FAIRE, and borders on SLOPPY, OUT OF CONTROL, and IRRESPONSIBLE.

I would have agreed with that most of my life. That is what always pulls me back into the punishing self-talk. “You just don’t have the discipline to control your____________(fill in the blank, eating, drinking, exercising, spending, etc…).” “You have no WILLPOWER”.

Then there’s WILLPOWER. Discipline. TRY harder! If you want something badly enough you will find a way to get it or do it. WILLPOWER. That word has baggage for me. It carried judgment before. It was usually preceded in my self-talk by “you just don’t have enough”.

Here’s the lesson. I have infinite willpower. I just don’t have CONTROL over the outcome.

Here’s where the switch occurs. The power of will allows me to envision a feeling, a state of emotion, and set my will on the path. I’ve come to see that the result I believed would give me a particular feeling, often did not deliver on the promise. It was the feeling I was going for, NOT the specific outcome.

There are no TRY means, I am not trying to achieve a specific outcome or result. I imagine how I will FEEL when I get there. I can FEEL that feeling now. It also means I can SURRENDER CONTROL. Give it up!

Who am I to think I have control in this world? If there is a higher power (I KNOW there is, but I know a lot of people don’t believe it or think it is evil). I can ALLOW it to come through me. I can surrender and I know it is FOR me, whatever it is. I am open to new opportunities, different outcomes even disappointments only to discover there’s a silver lining.

Often, when bad things happened (or what I judged as bad at the moment) my default was “What did I do to create or cause it?” “What could I have done to avoid it?”.

Now, I’m shifting. Now I ask “Why is this happening? What’s the lesson? What is the good that I’m not seeing right away?”.

It doesn’t happen immediately, certainly not automatically. It’s a psychic muscle and I’m building it.

So, the opposite of TRY is SURRENDER. The opposite of having WILLPOWER is TRUSTING.
Aging, if we try to control it or resist it, feels like a loss. We focus on the losses and the changes we perceive as losses.

Grey hair is a loss of youthful color. Wrinkles are a loss of youthful resilience. Aches and pains, arthritis are a loss of flexibility, strength, and vigor. Retirement can be the loss of a job, and income, and for too many PURPOSE and MEANING.

All of this sets us up to feel punished by aging. Feeling punished makes us TRY to resist, to TRY to avoid the slide into OLD age and the expected disability. This is a prison of imagined control.

If you are alive, there is hope. If you are still breathing your WILL has infinite power but it does not have CONTROL. SURRENDER, LET GO!

I didn’t say “Let yourself go” (another self-talk judgment habit that usually comes up with respect to someone else and mirrors back to us). “She/he really let her/himself go….”.

I said LET GO. Let go of the idea that you can control the outcome and if it doesn’t go the way you hoped, you are to blame or someone/something outside of you is to blame.

This is SURRENDER. Surrender is not TRY-ing to control an outcome and leaving it up to what will be. Next time you are headed down the path of “I hope it goes this way and I’ll do everything I can to TRY to make it go this way” STOP. Ask yourself how do I want to feel when this is done. Dig in and feel that feeling now. You never know what is really going to give you that feeling, so leave the outcome to ____ (you fill that blank in). Ask for help, you need it. Know that whatever happens is meant to be and you will find some good in it. Whatever happens, be grateful, something good will come your way. Don’t waste time blaming yourself or anyone else, that is a losing proposition.

I love Anne Lamott and I especially love to hear her words in her own voice. Her instrument is weathered and crackles with the effects of struggle and redemption. Her expression and the title of one of her books: “HELP, THANKS, WOW!”. She says in 3 words what it has taken me 3 pages to try to explain.

This is Graceing Agefully.