do you see that wind up there?
So, the other day, I put it out there: I asked for help with my big project. I asked for a color-correcting tutor. bleh. I hate asking for help.
And, it worked. I have a date with the tutor this weekend!
Which is great.
Progress!
And, and —
(sigh)
I am still uncomfortable with it all.
I know. I know! I got what I asked for and yet I’m all wincing and ducking and trying to run.
bleh.
What I’d usually do in a situation like this is get a bigger bag. Close my eyes, and think of other things while I pack it all up—the discomfort of it being new to ask, vulnerable for me to involve someone else in my work so directly, embarrassing for me to admit I actually need the help in the first place—all that stuff, my stuff that is too boring and pathetic to face—pack it up and take it with me.
I may be all twisted up inside about it, but I am keeping the session. That much I know. Anyway, this project isn’t all I have going, so it’s got to get packed up and put away. I have things to do.
Like I said, this is what I usually do.
Instead, today, instead of going bag shopping (because I NEVER have the right bag in my closet. Why is that?) I’m going to unpack. No shopping for anything outside myself or my stuff, no ducking. I’m just going to sit back down and make this better.
Self-help instructions for my big bag of stuff:
- find the value in it. Things are easier when you know why something matters (on the planet of you, not in the larger scheme of things, specifically to you). And, if I’m this twisted up about asking for help then there’s stuff in here that matters to me, like work I want to protect and other things I worry about and want to make a happen a certain way. This is my big project. It matters. And not just to me. Sometimes, I forget the point of it all and why it’s worth some struggle to make it happen.
- discard a few items—or prepare to. Identifying what doesn’t actually serve you, the things you do (or don’t do) compulsively, habitually or fearfully is step one to letting them go. Sometimes just adding daylight and some breathing space to what you worry about is enough to dissipate it. Other times, it takes a lot more. Noticing it. Identifying it for what it is, like that there really is no studio audience grading my progress, is step one toward tossing them out on their asses.
- reorganize. Sometimes, my assumptions are just wrong. I’ve decided that there’s only one way to do a thing, for example, and if I can’t do that like that right here and now, then I am stuck. My feet are lead. Sometimes, I’m just wrong and if I shift things a little, I’ll see that. A different thing that I can do right here and now usually shows up in the newly created space. Tiny new thing or huge decision—any shift prompts momentum. That’s how I got to hiring the tutor in the first place. It finally dawned on me that I could. That, rather than (endlessly attempt to) teach myself one more thing that clearly (years into it, with lots of ducking mixed in) I am not good at teaching myself to do, I could just hire someone who is.
OK.
I’m going to keep going with this asking-for-help thing and see what happens.
Bag-shopping canceled! postponed. (sigh) I still think there is a perfect bag out there for me.
Yeh, I know.
leave the castle 
Posted on March 1, 2011
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