Susie Taaffe and Cass discuss why women struggle to accept help, using the Camino pilgrimage and personal stories to show how cultural conditioning makes us say "I've got this." They argue that practicing acceptance in small moments, like letting someone set up chairs or make you coffee, builds the confidence to receive help when it matters most.
Chapters
And we did have a lovely viewer who commented, um, how they struggled to ask for help. And so Cass and I have really been talking about this theme of asking for help, and, and we think that it actually has to go a step further before you can ask for help. You have to learn how to receive help.
Yeah.
And I think the Camino really, like, you You had to receive help because otherwise you couldn't go on. So that community, like, explain how, like, how the Camino part, and then I think we'll apply it into real life.
Yeah. So the— I feel like sometimes like I'm a, like a 3-year-old child who wants to tie their own shoelaces. I can do it on my own. I can do the Camino. I can walk all the steps. I can make all the bookings. I can Choose which way I'm going to go. But it you you get decision fatigue on Camino because you have to make every single decision every single day, and you're in a new location with new environment, new surroundings, new place to stay.
Get beaten down.
You do get beaten down, and it is definitely decision fatigue, and it it's overwhelming sometimes. And it's it's such a beautiful community because people want to help. They want to help you with. Your feet, they want to offer Band-Aids or— and threading blisters, um, which is a really gruesome—
That's not for me. I would not be— sorry, I'm threading no one's blisters. Sorry, you're on your own there. I will get you an ice cold drink though. I'm very good at that.
But people want to share their— they want to share their food with you, they want to share their time with you, they want to share their life with you and their experiences. It's incredible. And I don't think I've mentioned this, but it's incredible how On the Camino, people will share with you, and you find yourself sharing information, which might this might be a totally different not really because I think it's like the openness, and I think the point being is that in order to receive help, you've got to be open to it.
So I think that that probably clanger. You yes, you have to be open in order to receive. So. Like, I know, like, it's so cliché and we hear it all the time, like, but the 3D practice of it is what is hard. Like, it's really hard because we'll say you and I, we have been— we've spent a lot of our time— we grew up with a very strong independent female role model. Like, you can do any— everything, you do just get on it with it and you do everything.
And, and so we, we do everything. Um, and, and I, when we were talking about the lovely comment about this woman wanting to ask for help, we were, we were talking about it. It's like, well, it's a big step to go from being that I can do everything, and we can do everything. Yeah, literally, literally everything. Whatever, whatever, we can do it. Yes. Um, but that doesn't mean that you should. No, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. Yes. But it's a big step to go from being super independent hyper-independent to asking for help. And we were talking about there might actually be a midpoint, um, where you— because there's people want to help, they want to help. Like on Camino, they want to help with your— with everything. They want to help you physically, they want to help you emotionally, and they— and there's just so much offering of help. Um, and we were thinking about how starting that awareness around when people are offering help and you're not even hearing it.
Are you blocking help being offered to you because you've got this? I've got this. I can do it.
I can do this.
I can do it. No, it's all good, it's all good. But that's what we was like, being open to receive the help and allow it to come in. Those, that's sort of like starting with the micro moments of, okay, yeah, you can do it individually. It doesn't matter. You can, you can schlep those groceries up the thing. You can pack the dishwasher, you like, without help from the kids. Although I've got it, I'm fine. So, The awareness of listen to your language. How many times are you like, no, I've got this. No, I'm all good. No, I've got this. Like, no thanks. No, I'm good. I can do this. Like, catch yourself. Where are you saying that in your life and not allowing the help to come in? Because I think it's finding those little micro moments of in— like, it's low-stakes environment, which is what we keep banging on about.
Exactly.
The low stakes, like practicing this in a low-stakes environment.
Yeah.
So then maybe when you need help with a bigger task, it's easier to recognize and be open.
That you need help.
That you need help.
And then you can then ask for help. Um, but the, yeah, the micro moments of—
Would you like to tell the story about the chairs?
You tell it so well.
Well, I can if you like. But anyway, I, I, this always comes to me. It's, and it's again, I can do it, I can do it. And Cass and I, we were Traveling with our cousin and his friend, and we were up north in the redwoods, and we were setting up some chairs to watch the beautiful, like, um, stream going down in between these majestic redwoods. So we were setting them up in a row. So my cousin said repeatedly, oh, I'll get— I've got the chairs. And Cass and I both said, no, it's okay, we can do it. We're like struggling, wrestling with the outside chairs. And he goes— he goes something like— it was quite like, women, would you just let us help you? And I was like, oh. Okay, sure, you get the check. Guilty.
Yeah.
Guilty, because he was offering to help. He wanted to help us, and we were blocking it and blocking it. No, we're good, we're good, we're fine. But so without being open to it, you're not actually giving the other person the opportunity to provide you with the gift of helping. So you're actually robbing them of being able to help you, which actually makes them feel good about themselves. And I think that I like to think of it like to flip the perspective. Like, okay, and this is actually another really good example because at the moment we're living in this house and it has a teeny like galley kitchen. Only one person can be in there. Like literally, we cannot, like you cannot—
If the dishwasher's open, you have to high jump over.
You can't have the dishwasher open and the oven on the fridge. Like it is like one at a time and one person. So Cass and I are both used to like being like helping each other out in the kitchen, but only one of us can. And I watched between us, it's like when Cass was making me a piece of toast and a coffee, my, um, instinct that I needed to go and help her was so strong. And I knew, like, I was watching her, and in my head I literally played this out. I was like, if it was you making her the toast and the coffee, would you care that she was doing it without your help? I'd be like, no, I would love to do that for her without, um, helping.
Yeah.
But I had to talk myself off the ledge, the guilt ledge, not like 3 times. I was like, no, Only one of us actually fits in the kitchen. You physically can't go. Just sit, lady. Yeah, just sit, sit, receive a piece of toast and receive a piece of toast.
And I'm not giving you a kidney yet.
Yet.
I'm just making some toast and coffee. I know what you've done for me for the last couple of days.
I know, but that feeling of, oh, I've got like— it's difficult. Yeah, like it's actually difficult to receive. And I, as I said, this was a piece of toast and a coffee. Like 3 times I had to talk myself back. Like literally my head was like, no, if it was you doing it, she wouldn't care. She wants to make you a piece of toast and a coffee. Like, let her help you. Do you know what I mean?
