Performing Self-Care by Asking for Help
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.