Guest post by Danielle Day, originally published on her blog Warrior by Day
Therapists need a therapist.
Personal trainers need a personal trainer.
Coaches need a coach.
Teachers need a teacher.
If you ever get to a point in your life or career where you feel like you don’t need someone else’s help or perspective, that you have learned all you need to learn, then you also have nothing left to teach others.
We can be leaders that do an amazing job helping to guide and mentor others, but it’s not always as easy to take our own advice or see where we have gaps or room for growth.
When we stop asking others for help, or deny that we need guidance ourselves, we limit our own potential, and thus the potential we can help bring out in others.
Last year I wrote an article for the fertility community (that also had broader lessons outside of that community) about how to navigate and trust emotions during challenging times, and how to embrace what is needed in the moment as a mechanism of controlling the unknown.
A few months later I found myself thrust deeply into an unexpected unknown and was struggling to embrace my own emotional response.
After 5 years of failure to conceive I was finally pregnant, but I had a bleed at five weeks and was convinced I was having a miscarriage. I had to wait 2 weeks to find out if the baby had a heartbeat. Two weeks of having absolutely zero control over what was going on inside my body and how it would ultimately affect my life’s path.
In my article I had written for others, I wrote that we should allow ourselves to feel all of the emotions that we need to feel when in the midst of circumstances that are out of our control. I was suppose to choose to be sad, angry, hopeful, hopeless or whatever I needed to feel in each torturous moment as I waited to find out whether my child was still alive inside me or not. And I did that. And I got through it. But then another unexpected turn occurred.
At 12 weeks we received news that something was likely wrong with the fetus. Various hypotheses were thrown at us and a stretch of testing ensued over the course of the next 9 weeks. No answers. Only more questions, fears, doubts, anger…I was still feeling all of the emotions, still taking my own advice in that regard, but I was losing my grip day-by-day.
I know how to breathe through pain. I know how to silence my thoughts. I know these things…I teach these things…as a yoga instructor, as a mentor, as a coach, as a friend, as a peer support group leader for people battling infertility…
But in the midst of one of the hardest seasons of my life I realized I could no longer weather this particular challenge alone, even though I literally wrote a guide on how to do so.
I went to the very community where I volunteer to help others navigate the unpredictable waters of infertility and I placed myself on the other side of the zoom screen, not as a peer support leader, but as an attendee in a group designed for people who were expecting after enduring infertility.
I asked for support. And people, all of whom had their own very difficult struggles going on as well, showed up in force to hold me up and remind me that I am human, and I am allowed to feel whatever I need to feel.
They held up a mirror, and played a recording of my own advice back to me.
And I needed to hear it from them, because my inner self-talk was constantly admonishing me for not handling things “better.”
“I ‘should’ be able to handle this,” it would say to me. “I teach others how to handle things like this; why am I struggling?” I’m known for listening and comforting and providing validation for people to move through the full spectrum of human emotions without shame or guilt. I create space for others to be real, to be human and to feel seen and heard. It’s the thing I love to do more than anything in my life!
But I couldn’t do it for myself during this particular time.
When it was my turn to tell my story on that support group call I bawled my eyes out and swore like a sailor at the universe and whatever other forces were fucking me over once again in threatening to take this long-sought-for child away from me.
No one else who had relayed their troubles before me on the call had cried or swore, but after I poured myself out with abandon onto their computer screens they all gave off mute swearing with me and validating the unfairness and sending me private messages to say “I’m so sorry,” “you are so brave,” “this sucks and it isn’t fair.”
I’m a support-group leader, and I also need support. Acknowledging that fact, regardless of what our “role” is in our family, our friend circle, our job, whatever it is we think we are “supposed” to be for others, it doesn’t mean that we don’t need that same tending for ourselves.
When I asked for the other support group attendees’ help, I also gave them the wonderful feeling that I get when I feel I’ve helped another person. And I also probably gave them a moment to forget about their own stuff while they turned to support a fellow struggler. (Check out “The Gift of Receiving” blog post for more on this concept.)
It has been said that the best thing you can do for yourself when you’re feeling down or hopeless is to turn your energy towards helping others who are also struggling.
This is the give-and-take of human connection that we must continue to find wherever we can. We must move towards one another in difficult times, not turn our backs or keep 6-feet away. We will only grow as a human race if we do this together.
That means showing humility and vulnerability, showing up for ourselves and for each other and admitting to ourselves when we need to look UP and find our own support system just as we provide support for others.
As leaders we look below us to the people who seek our guidance, and to whom we give hope, love and support, we can’t forget to look up when we are feeling overwhelmed or our cup is empty from helping others.
We all need each other.