Like all of us, I’ve been living inside some hard layers. Yesterday was the culmination of a long- standing challenge, and I could feel how worn down I was and tender in places I couldn’t quite wrap in the grace I strive for.
I realized I was not going to be able to show up the way I wanted to without help so I reached out. A few texts. An email. I asked for good thoughts, prayers, and whatever voodoo people might have tucked in their back pockets.
Over the past few years, I’ve had to ask for far more support than I ever would have chosen. It forced me to live what I teach by scraping me all the way down to the bone. No outsmarting this living dying rite of passage with wisdom or spiritualized remedies.
And — if I’m honest — part of me still wants to be done with the needing. And yep, what we resist persists. Grace might come via the ebb and flow of our vulnerability. Maybe success is creating the habit of calling upon each other and recognizing it as necessary, versus needy.
Yesterday, I could feel the hands at my back during my hard meeting. It was palpable. The love in that room almost thickened the air. It steadied me. I don’t know yet how things will turn out, but I do know this — I was myself in that room. Clear. Grounded. Kind.
That simple act — reaching and being met — felt like the small but mighty miracle of the day.
I am deeply grateful for the community I love and that loves me back.
And here’s the thing I can’t stop thinking about:
We all know this works.
We know what a hand at our back can do. We know what it feels like to be held in someone’s thoughts. We know it as givers and we know it as receivers. Research aside — we know this in our bones.
And yet — we try not to ask.
We ask when something breaks. When there’s a diagnosis. When the relationship ends. When we are flat on our backs.
But most of life isn’t lived there.
It’s lived in the middle.
In the long day alone with a tired child.
In the meeting you don’t feel ready for.
In the email you’re afraid to open.
In the dental chair.
In the hard conversation.
In the Tuesday when you wake up already at capacity and still have to be kind.
Why are we not calling the circle for that?
Why do we wait for crisis before we reach?
What if the radical act in these strange times isn’t louder opinions or grand gestures — but using each other more?
What if it looks like texting three people before a meeting: “Stand with me at 2.”
What if it’s saying, “Tomorrow might be a short fuse day. Keep me in mind.”
What if asking for prayers before dental work feels as normal as bringing your insurance card?
Nothing dramatic. No collapse required.
Just small reaching.
We are so quietly steeped in this idea that strength means handling it alone. That needing is weakness. That independence is the goal.
But we are hyper-relational creatures. We do better together. Not occasionally. Not in catastrophe. But always, all ways.
Small exchanges of support.
Steady giving and receiving.
A hand at the back before we stumble.
Stronger communities and better lives are built in these tiny, consistent acts of leaning and being leaned on.
In a time that feels fragmented and lonely, maybe the most rebellious thing we can do is refuse the cultural kool-aid of hyper-independence. Refuse the war of isolation on our souls, communities, and families.
Yes, still, begin within… AND reach out.
