If you've ever been the person everyone else calls, the fixer, the one who handles it, this next few minutes is for you. I'm dropping in a clip from Jen Hatmakers for the Love podcast. Jen recorded it on a solo trip this summer, two weeks out from major surgery, while her partner is in the middle of chemo, and her whole full life is still waiting back home. And she gets honest about something most of us never say out loud. That asking for help feels like admitting we're needy or weak.
or that we can't handle it. and how none of that is actually true. It's not a tidy inspirational take. It's her working it out in real time. And while you're listening to this preview, find and follow For the Love with Jen Hatmaker, wherever you get your podcasts.
Here's Jen. I'm thinking about all of us who struggle to ask for help. And again, this is no flex. It's not like, hey, we don't ask for help because we're awesome. And we just can handle everything, and we're strong, and we're independent.
That is just not true, and that's not how it feels, and that's not how it works. I think those of us who struggle to ask for help have some like brutal combination of. Pride Um the bad kind. And A a false sense of self-sufficiency? And this is somehow wrapped up in how people think of us.
I'm describing myself right now, but it's got to apply to some of you. How do people think of us? Do they think of us as, do they think of me as needy? Do they think of me as irresponsible? I'm just giving you right now the thoughts in my brain.
Do they think of me as she can't handle it? Do they think of me as. Um weak. 'Cause like I mean, I can tell you this in my life, with a couple of exceptions right now, of everything I've met on my plate. If I just picked up.
Most of them individually, one at a time, you would look at that and go, okay, well, it's not that big of a deal. Or that's not that hard. Or that only takes such and such amount of effort, energy, and hours, and you would. Carry that over the finish line. And that's so largely true to some degree.
Not all of it, some of these are. I got a couple of. plates that are so full, they're the only thing on it. But I like that's you can hear like this is this is the song in my head like Why can't you just handle that? It's just when they're all together sometimes, when they've compounded and compounded and compounded, and then you add a couple of really, really big ones on top of it, really, really consequential.
And don't forget, my favorite person, I mean, my My partner and boyfriend is in Nashville right now, just duking it out with cancer. He's in the middle of chemotherapy.
So that gives me also this sense of: I cannot be in all the places I need to be and want to be at once. am realizing Because I started calling for help. Maybe three weeks ago. And there was nothing I could do because I was. I was incapacitated.
That was surgery. Like, I was down. I was in the hospital for two days. Like, it wasn't like a little procedure, it was a surgery. And so, because there was nothing I could literally physically do and called in help.
On five different levels, I just started watching the very good, capable, loving, committed. other adults in my life step in, to some of these places? With Such competency, of course, And I realized this is some lingering codependence that I have. This idea. that I and I alone Have to fix it.
Can fix it. I'm the solver. The whole thing's going to fall apart without me. Nobody else can do this, nobody else can help me, nobody else understands the complexities of this particular thing like I do. There's only a small category of things where that is true.
Yes, I'm the only person that can call and wrangle with my insurance company. There's a handful of things that I indeed have to manage. But the truth is, there was a lot that I could hand over, and I watched these other adults and family members go, We'll do that for you. We're going to show up for you. We'll be there at 10.
I picked this up. I made this phone call for you. I. In some cases, I had this conversation with a person. That you Alone.
Don't have to have by yourself. Will also join the discussion. We will join the group. project here for some of these and very, very heavy lifts. And I realized, uh-huh, it's the codependent.
who thinks she's indispensable. That life will capsize without her. And And the truth is, when I finally just went, I cannot do it. I can't do it. Um Turns out other people can, and some of them can do it for themselves.
Codependency keeps people in a perpetual state of To some degree, and in some ways, infantilization, because they do not have to show up and do their own work. They don't have to be responsible for the consequences because you're doing the things. And so, like, the way that I know this, I have talked about this, I have written about this, I have spoken about this, I have taught about this. I have some version of this in the last four books. Yeah.
Knowing it is one thing, putting it into practice is another. I felt this sense of like a complete lack of control. I've lost control and I love control. God, I love it. I love it.
I love control. I love to feel like I'm controlling outcomes, that I am in charge of how something goes, that I get to make all the choices. And decisions that get us from point A to point B, but I've lost that completely. It's just busted, and all the ways I normally guard against that. have crumbled Um And here I am.
And so I want to just tell you that I am a living, breathing example of kind of what it looks like when. I'm doing air quotes. You can't see me. Holding it all together for everyone. Finally, like busts.
And Your life And your capacity, just say no. Like Bitch, no. Like.
Okay. We're not here for it. We can't do it. Um I am living it like I'm living it right this second. This morning, I was in the phone call.
I was on the phone with another family member asking, How can I help? And I gave three ways. Here's what you can do. And he was like on it. I'll make the call today.
I'm like, look how easy that was. Look how easy that was. And then, of course, not only does this do the solutions Emerge. But they emerge in greater strength. Cause guess what's better than one lady who thinks she's the center of the universe solving everything?
Like putting her efforts into practice. You know what's better than that? Ten of us. Ten of us Row in the boat. ten people going, hey, we've got an ore, let us Let us row on our little side for a minute.
Let us do our part. I'm literally, I'm in it. I'm in practice right now. That was Jen Hatmaker from an episode of her podcast For the Love. The full episode is available now.
It's called When Life Outpaces You, Rest Isn't Optional. And I think you're really going to love it. You can find For the Love with Jen Hatmaker wherever you get your podcasts.
