Episode 7: Finding the Courage to Ask for Help

When we moved here to Whidbey Island in Washington state, one of my new friends who’s been a resident on the island for decades warned me.  She said, “you have to be careful. It’s easy to become an island on this island.” 

“Yup,” I said. “And it’s hard to become a part of a community that doesn’t seem to exist. And, even if you try to form one, you have to overcome that vulnerability thing and depend on others.”

I think of it like this: we humans are no different than guanacos or sheep or any other animal that finds comfort in the presence of others. We rely on each other for help and support, warmth and protection. At our very core, we need one another to thrive. But it’s not easy to find our herd. And if we are lucky to find like-minded folks who want to form a community, it’s not easy to go against the emphasis on self-reliance that society has taught us. It’s not easy to learn to depend on one other. 

But if we can do this, and make life a potluck of sorts where each of us brings to our community table what we can  contribute, and each of us takes what we need, the result might just be what we are all actually wired to pursue: a rich sense of mutual aid and belonging.

In this episode, we’re going to do a deep dive into the question: “why is it so hard to connect with others and create a sense of community?” I’m going to share the beginnings of what may become a vibrant fiber producers guild here on the island. And I’m going to share with you my partner in this endeavor, Katie Whitlock. Brittany Bobbit gets recruited to our Mud Support group. And Greg and I talk about our very slow progress on a goal we set in 2020. We all end up answering the question, “what’s preventing this sense of community from growing?”  So, if you wish for more connection and a sense of community like we do, I hope you join me. Maybe something we say will inspire you to take some steps.  And, honestly, doing this episode is going to help me keep trying to do that which seems so hard – ask for help.

Sitting with Greg in our home, I pulled out a particular large folder neither of us had seen in quite some time.

“So this is our Farm Folder,” I said, showing Greg. “I made this before we moved here. This was for inspiration. There is a picture of the tree that is separated into two sides and has sort of a long representation that we use for our logo, and it says “Aliento” on there. Remember? 

“I do remember,” greg said. “And actually, I must have given it to you for Valentine’s Day. Yeah, it was a Valentine’s present. Where did you find it?”

“It’s been in the magazine rack the whole time,” I said. “So basically, it says, “Dear Valentine, we have such an opportunity to create another dream together. I hope this notebook can serve as a collaborative catch all for the bits and pieces we gather along the way.” So, I’m getting to the page that I’m looking for.”

I flipped through numerous pages inside the old book. 

“Okay. So, in 2020, which was during the pandemic, we sat down for a New Year’s check-in. And we wrote a list to this question: “what do we want to grow in 2020?” 

“Okay, I don’t have a remote memory of any of that,” Greg chuckled. “It makes me feel really old.”

“Well, it’s good that we brought it down, right?” I said going through the pages. “Okay. So we were gonna welcome new babies that we had bred and we were thinking about a trip to South America. We were training Eva; it says, “to help her grow into a well-behaved dog.”

“I think we got a C-minus on that one,” Greg joked.

“I think we’re better than that. But anyway,” I continued. “Here’s the part that I wanted to share with you. It says, “Connect with people over rural life and farming.” We’ve had this idea of sharing this farm and this rural life with others from the beginning. Is that still relevant for you?” I asked Greg.

“In a different way. But yes, it’s still relevant,” he said. “If you share a passion or a commitment with someone, you are connecting with them about if they have the same sort of feelings, and that becomes a personal connection; someone you can depend on and someone that depends on you for their well-being.”

“I think that there is a dependency, right?” I said. It’s not unhealthy. It’s an interdependency.”

“A “reliance” may be a better word,” Greg pondered. That you rely on them, and they on you.”

Yeah,” I agreed. “So, the other thing that I’ve been really thinking about pretty in-depth wise is that, like you say, in order to create a community, in order to establish a reliance on one another, people actually have to do two things. One is to ask for help. And the other one is to give help, right? And I think I’m very bad at asking for help.” 

“I think probably both of us are,” Greg nodded.

Twenty years ago, when I started my private practice in Sacramento, CA, the first thing I did was join CAMFT. That’s the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. They had a monthly meeting, and I started attending. I was shy. So at first it was all about the bacon. Literally. The free breakfast was awesome. But then I started to get to know other therapists, and pretty soon I was secretary, and then president for 3 years. At the time, I needed help and support, and joining CAMFT was the best thing I could have done. I Found like-minded people, and got to ask for the help I desperately needed. Paperwork templates, referrals, references, even emotional support were all answers to my request for help. Plus, many of the people at that meeting became dear friends.  

When I left Sacramento and moved to Whidbey Island – and basically gave all of that up – I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to find a similar support community for my new endeavor, fiber farming. At the beginning, I wished for things like a Match.com for fiber producers. Where I could just make a profile and start connections. Or a 4H for grown ups –an already established group that I could just find out when they meet and start to attend.

But there’s nothing like that.  

One day at a Weaver’s Guild meeting, a new member showed up and introduced herself as Katie Whitlock. I’d been stalking her on Instagram because she raises Romedale and Romney sheep right around the corner from me. Turns out she’d been stalking me in the same way, so when I introduced myself to her we instantly became a 2-member fiber producers guild, and have been meeting and working on this plan ever since.  

“Oh, I had been low-level stalking you,” Katie told me as we talked in her barn. 

“Really?” I asked surprisingly. 

“Yeah. For at least 6 months because I came across the podcast, and then I was following along on Instagram,” Katie said. “And I was like, “Oh, she’s on Whidbey Island. Oh, she’s local. But I couldn’t figure out how to talk to you, you know? It’s hard to cold-call somebody. So when I saw you at the guild meeting, I was so excited. And actually, I was sort of tickled because you seemed excited to.

We laughed. 

“Yeah, I knew I had seen your posts on Instagram, too,” I said. And then there you were. I knew that you were on Whidbey, and then you appeared.”

“You just have to identify that there is a person who is doing something that’s interesting and similar,” Katie said. “And I think the thing that feels hard for me is, ‘do they feel the same way that I feel about community?’ And ‘do they feel the same way that I do about farming?’”

Katie and I hit upon a difficult subject. Making connections can sometimes be a surprisingly daunting task.

“I’m so excited to talk about this,” I said. “Because I think that having been sort of this insular farm now for going on 5 years, and starting to talk to you about, “well, wait a minute, that’s really not the way to do it.” And I was even going back to what Greg and I did for New Year’s goals a couple years ago. And it actually said, “establish your community.” And I feel like talking with you is like a little, tiny breadcrumb towards that, but it’s 2 years later.” 

“Well, I mean, it’s something you have to start somewhere,” Katie said. “I think that coming into farming, I really wanted community. That was a big part of it for me. I grew up, and I think for better or worse, a lot of us did grow up in spaces where independence and hyper-independence was valued so highly. There was just an importance on being able to take care of yourself as much as possible. And I mean, almost to the point of being a sort of moral failing, if you needed help, or you asked for help, or you wanted help. And I’m not sure where it came from. I really wonder how that developed. Because I’m not sure that that was true a few generations back. I think the independence wasn’t viewed in that sort of extreme way. But certainly that’s how I interpreted it into my own life.”

“For me, I was born into the “you are a woman, you can have it all” generation,” I said. “And you can have your career, and you can have your family and you can do it all. Asking for help meant you didn’t have it all somehow. 

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it funny how much shame that comes with the idea that you have to ask for help? How dare I ask for help?” Katie laughed. “I really think that independence has had the unfortunate side-effect of isolating people, or making people feel afraid to ask for help. And not only that, I think it’s almost like, it sets up a hierarchy. So that the person who’s asking for help, they’ve already failed, and the person who’s giving help, they’re somehow the success,

“Right, they’re the rescuer,” I reasoned. “They’re the better one. They’re the person who has to provide, as opposed to somebody who needs something. That’s not a good way to look at it.”

“And I don’t think it’s true,” Katie said in agreement. “I think the truth is that we go through phases and seasons and life when we need a little bit more help. And we go through phases where we have more help to give.”

“Completely. I also think for me, and this is just an admission,” I said. “I thought I had it setup when I was raising my kids and in the peak of my career that I actually didn’t need help. And, you know, like, I’m so good and have it so together and organized that I don’t even need help. And then we move here and there’s more to do than we can possibly do. We absolutely need help. Plus, it’s stuff that we can’t do alone. I mean, it’s just impossible. And so I’ve had to sort of come to terms with the fact that I do need help, and I want help. And it’s a good thing, you know?”

“I think it is a good thing, Katie said. “And I think it really hit home for me. We lived just outside of Seattle previously, and right after we moved into our house (I had at that point two small children), the neighbor came over and he said, “Hey, I’m going to be out of town for a week. Can you just take the trash cans down the driveway?” And it was no big deal. And I was so excited to do it. Like stupidly excited to do it. And it bonded me to him in a way that had never occurred to me. All of those years that I had been thinking, “I should never ask for help. If I need someone to take my trash can to the end of the driveway, I should pay someone or definitely I should only ever ask my very closest friend whom I’ve already done, you know, at least twenty such favors for.”

“Right. Or if there is this dire, dire situation, and the situation is so bad, you can overcome anything to ask for help,” I said.

“I hadn’t figured how much I would appreciate that he asked,” Katie said. “He had the audacity to ask, right? And it wasn’t any big deal. And I just took away from that how much I enjoyed being asked, and how much I wanted to help. And there’s no reason why he should have felt weird about it. I would have had such a hard time asking.”

“Yeah. So you and I have talked several times now about somehow figuring out the building of a community, but when you envision a community, what do you envision that to feel like?” I asked. 

“I really love the sort of ‘potluck feel,’ everybody’s putting a little bit in, but not more than they can, and everybody’s getting a little,” Katie said. “Food or labor or wisdom or fill-in-the-blank.”

“You know, I’m sitting here thinking about how it feels less alone,” I said. “Like somebody’s in it with me, not the exact challenge, but for sure there were similarities, and that made me feel less alone in it.”

“I think that’s true,” Katie said. “It’s really a space for just sharing the burden, sharing the joys and sharing the hard parts with other people who really can feel that too. Because they know how complicated it is when you lose an animal. Or they understand how exciting it is when you get a new piece of equipment.”

We laughed.

“I think that there is wisdom in what you said about being able to ask for support,’ I said. “And what you need is one character trait or one wish, or someone that has to be part of the potluck. That has to be part of what you bring, if you want to be a member of a community, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” Katie said. “I think it’s such a funny reversal, because I always thought, “oh, in order to be part of a community you need to be prepared to offer something. But I think that the flip-side of that is that we’re having more trouble with what you actually need.. Earlier this year, I guess it was last Fall, I did my hearing and you came and Greg came and you helped out. You were doing some of the fleece prepping, and it wasn’t that hard or that big of a deal. But it would have been overwhelming and impossible for me to do it all by myself. So having more people; I was almost in tears afterward by how much of a relief it was and how grateful I was. Why can’t we just do that for each other? Like, just accept that help? It was actually very hard for me to accept it, having you come over and help me do that.”

“I was like, “I’m forcing myself on her. Because we are a community. We are the two that we’ve identified. And this is what happens,” I explained. “And I at least know how to do this, you know?”

“And it was huge for me,” Katie said. “It was huge. Yeah.”

“For me, it’s like being able to do the neighbor’s trash can,” I explained. 

“You have to, you have to be willing to ask for the help, as well as receive or offer the help,” Katie said.

“It is definitely both things,” I said.

Katie and I had been identifying other fiber producers on Whidbey and had floated our idea to several farmers. Brittany Bobbit was our first recruit. So after our conversation that day, we went to visit Brittany, who runs Fiber and Flame with her husband Devin. 

We sat down together with Brittany the next day.

“I’m a happy recruit,” Brittany laughed. “Very happy, and willing. It’s very fun. I think it inspires me to reach out to the people who are in my community a little more. Traditionally, I’m fairly introverted. And you know, making friends as an adult is hard!”

“That goes back to “the want.” And when you put your “want” out there, and it gets turned down, sometimes it can feel like a rejection, not just of your “want,” but of you,” Katie said.

“That’s a tenuous thing for someone who’s already on funny footing, socially,” Brittany admitted, chuckling.

Several weeks ago, when I first asked Brittany if she wanted to be part of our fiber producers guild, she was enthusiastic. She said in a playful way, “I need a mud support group. Sign me up!” And so we convened our first “mud support group” meeting of the Whidbey Island Fiber Producers Guild right then and there.

“You know, we can’t do anything about the mud. But geez, is it nice to sit and talk to people who understand why I go on and on and on about mud,” Brittany said exhaustedly. “Because, you know, you go and you talk to other people who aren’t farmer sorts or animal people, and you’re like, “…and the mud!” and they’re like, “why are you talking to me about the mud?” And I’m like, “because anytime I go outside, I have to change all my clothes because I come back in covered in some combination of poop and mud.”

We all laughed, nodding in agreement.

“Also, what about the smell?” I added. “I get all I get self-conscious that my farm smells.”

“I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried putting as a base-layer in the barn to keep it dry and to keep it less apt to basically ferment under there, but yeah, it smells,” Brittany complained. “And I’m back to straw again. Because I can’t find anything. You both know all about that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Katie chimed in. “I’m like, “it’s getting kind of damp. Let’s put more straw down.” But now it’s all knee-high.

“So has mine too!” I added.

“Okay, good. That’s all I needed to hear,” Katie said. “I use a lot of sand. So it’s like a different unrelated problem, but because all the water just sits on top of it. And it’s messy. It’s messy and it gets in the wall. So I was like, “I should put some straw on top of it, because I just moved my bottle babies in there, my lambs. I didn’t want my bottle babies knee-deep in that stuff.  And so I put the straw down”

“It didn’t work, did it?” I said laughing. “It just mixed in.”

“Yeah, it’s just mixed,” Brittany said. “And we tried the Gorilla Mulch stuff for a while. And that does OK. But you know, it’s not the cheapest stuff in the world. And then you’re like, “How often should we do this?””

Yeah, our thing is we have concrete. So as long as we keep it clean, it’s good,” I said. “But then animals go out in the back pasture and they love to roll in the mud. It’s like a mud bath.”

“Alpacas are the same way,” Brittany said.

They bounce in it,” I said. “And they forget that it’s mud.”

“Alright, see again, we’re the Mud Support Group,” Brittany joked.

The Mud Support Group!” We all cheered. 

“Okay, call to order!” I shouted.

After our meeting, Greg and I revisited this new understanding about how forming a sense of community requires getting vulnerable and asking for help.

“Asking for help is still something I’m working through,” I told Greg. “I can ask for information easily. “Can you teach me this? Can you tell me this? Can you verify this? This is what’s happening with my Indigo. Can you tell me something that I should be doing?” That I have no problem. That’s information.”

“As opposed to the vulnerability of asking for help,” Greg said.

“Yeah. It’s like when that tree came down over six of our fences,” I said.

“Right. That was scary. And several trees came down,” Greg said.

“People we knew, said “please let us come help.” And all I wanted was to be able to say was “yes, please. We really need help,” I recalled. “And instead, you know, we were hauling those branches, and you were chain sawing like crazy all by ourselves. And it was a whole day. And it was hard.”

“Well, it was actually several days. Way more than one day,” Greg corrected. “And it was hard work, but the other thing was that, and Lisa, I completely understand your feelings and hear them, but it was somewhat dangerous work. And I I didn’t want anyone risking getting hurt by doing it.”

“I think that’s an obstacle for you, because I got nowhere near the chainsaw or the trees and I worked all day, too. I was never in danger.”

“That’s true,” Greg admitted.

“I think that that in and of itself is an obstacle for me to overcome that,” I said. “Why do I have to throw up those roadblocks? Like, ‘oh, no, that’s too much to ask.’ Or ‘it’s too dangerous.’ Why do I have to throw those up, rather than just ask?”

“So what you’re saying, if I can try to reframe it, is that your protection of others is really an excuse for not getting your own needs met, and not being able to be vulnerable enough to ask,” Greg said.

“Yes, in some recent examples. I can identify that. Yeah,” I said.

“So what do you think are others?” Greg asked. “Is it just, you can’t ask, because you’re imposing on others? What is it?”

“You know, it’s the, “Do I really need somebody? I can do it,” attitude,” I said. “It’s the imposition on them. “Is this something that, really, really is necessary?” And so I, I basically then just deal with that on my own by myself.”

“Yes, like me fixing the road, right?” Greg said. “Yeah, I can kind of resent that nobody else is fixing it. But at the same time, I just go fix it.”

“I think the other thing that has been helping me,” I said. “Is this idea from a psychologist that I love, Rick Hansen, who talks about “preferred outcome.” And that if you can visualize the outcome in the way that you prefer it to go, for example, the formation of a community, in the way that you prefer to go, it’s much more productive than identifying how you don’t have a community, or what you’re not doing, or what other people aren’t doing. The state of mind that a preferred outcome puts you in makes it more likely to produce the preferred outcome. And even if it doesn’t, you’re in a much better frame of mind anyway. I actually really love it because it’s a mindset shift that makes all the difference in the world. If, you know, you’re going around, for instance, feeling like I should have asked people to come with a chainsaw when the fence fell. And instead, I visualize the preferred outcome of that, which would be  people arriving in their pickup trucks with their loppers, and gloves on, ready to go. And so, I’ve been working on that, in terms of the preferred outcome, for a sense of community. And I think I think that helps. I think what it does is it opens up our farm to more visitors, which was also on the list. And people who are here not just for educational purposes, but are here to help both work-wise and emotionally for connection purposes.”

“I think you’re right, visualizing that helps,” Greg said. “So I think you’re absolutely right about that. And the vision can be adapted to whatever situation you may find yourself. And so that it’s a flexible vision of how that could work.” 

“Are you imagining a vision?” I asked.

“Well, I’m just again imagining a community of neighbors that can work on fixing the road together,” Greg said. “Yeah, it would just be nicer if I could talk to people and say, “hey, the road needs fixing, what are we gonna do about it?”” 

“And what do you visualize the response to be as in your preferred outcome?” I asked.

“Well, there would be people willing to help, going and getting the rock, and helping me shovel and rake it. And maybe better ideas about how to maintain the road,” Greg said.

“And in that example, it sounds like you do have the idea that you ask for it as well,” I said.

“That I initiate? Yeah,” Greg said. “As opposed to grumbling, and just doing it by myself. Right.”

“See, I think in all sorts of scenarios,” I said. “And I’ve been talking with Katie about this, too. It’s like it all starts with the ask.”

“I think you have to make a request for connection,” Greg said. “Otherwise, it doesn’t happen.”

“Right. If you ask for the connection, and you receive it, it’s given and you receive it, then that’s the breadcrumb to community,” I said.

“I think that’s a great metaphor,” Greg said.

It is a great metaphor. It’s a clear concept. But it’s easier said than done. We are so used to self-reliance that we just haven’t practiced the alternative. And, this is starting to make a lot of sense about why it’s been so hard to build a sense of community from scratch.

Back with Katie in her barn, we continued our conversation.

“So, what do you need?” Katie asked.

“What do I need?” I pondered. “I think, I mean, that’s really hard. So right now, it’s like, I don’t know, how do you do that?  I’ll tell you, I don’t know that it’s a need. That’s the thing.” 

“I think that it can be wants and needs,” Katie said. “Because I think when we get into this “needs” place, it’s like, then we’re starting to get over into, “Okay, well, how close to an emergency is it? Is it enough of an emergency to actually ask for help?” But it can just be, “You know what? I’m going to be hoof-trimming in a week. And it will be so helpful to just have a second person here to shove a sheep through the chute when they’re not going.”

“I love it. I mean, you just said it. That’s what I need or want,” I said.

“I mean, it’s that I can technically do both things, but it will be slow and painful and awful. So, it’s a want, but I mean, it’s it’s a borderline like need,” Katie said.

“Okay, so what day are you hoof trimming?” I asked assertively.

“Oh, I haven’t set a schedule,” Katie said. “Let me look at my calendar. Anytime in the next couple of weeks, because they all need it. And I want to put the lambs and sheep out on pasture. I feel like if I put them out on pasture, then, man, all bets are off. So right now, they’re still contained.” 

“Okay. I will, I’ll lend the support,” I said.

“I will, I will figure out when in the calendar makes sense,” Katie said. “Great. We can talk about it. Can I ask you a question now?”

“Yeah,” I said. 

“When you lose an animal, what would help you the most?” she asked, as if reading my mind.

“That is exactly why I came to this idea of interdependence. So I’ll tell you, and we’re not going to anticipate any more losses. Thank you very much. But it’s a good example. So when we, when we put, I think it was Cooper that we were putting down, not when we put the last animal down (that was Milo), but the last guanaco that we put down, Greg was taking a break and said he was gonna go dig the hole. And I said to myself, “I need to call everybody and they need to help us dig.” And I didn’t I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t call people. It  was so raw. And I could have called neighbors, you know. I could have called you. I could. And I had this vision. It’s such a sort of idealized vision, but all these neighbors, like coming for a barn raising, all these neighbors come in with their shovels. And they were walking up our driveway, and asking, “where is the hole gonna be?” And then it’s done. And everybody hugs everybody, and we don’t have to bear it ourselves, you know. And instead, I couldn’t do it. And instead, what happened was, I was doing something, something else that had to do with whatever we were dealing with. And Greg was digging the hole. And then we buried the animal alone. And that, I mean, that’s the thing where it’s like, it would be so nice to have people who just come help.”

“Because there’s a physical labor piece, and there’s an emotional labor piece of it,” Katie rationalized. 

“Yeah. I think the other thing is, we have this fiber sale coming up, and I’m in the process of sorting. I’m going to sell raw fleeces for the first time ever,” I said. “And you know, I guess I don’t necessarily need someone to come and help me sort through fleeces, because that’s boring. And I get in the zone. And then I need to just make decisions and stuff. But even if someone who says, “How’s it going with your fleece sorting? And when’s your sale? I’m so  excited for you. And how did the sale go?” You know, just that. That would be a want.”

“Yeah. And so easy,” Katie said. “I’ll do that for you.”

“Oh, thank you,” I replied. 

“Of course,” she shot back. “Also, if you need an extra pair of hands to like, grab stuff and whatever, I can do that, too.” 

“Thank you,” I said graciously.

We were making progress on asking for help. 

“It’s very exciting. Very exciting,” Katie said.

“It’s really good to practice with you,” I said.

Hoof trimming day came. I showed up at Katie’s farm, and we shoved sheep into the shoot together. Jackie was there helping, too. Which is a totally fun side note. Jackie is new to raising sheep, like Katie. Dr. Farris (the wonderful vet that all three of us rely on), set Jackie and Katie up. Can you believe that? There is a Match.com for shepherds after all!

Looking at the flock of sheep that needed their hooves trimmed in the barn, I asked, “Who’s next?”

“This little Romney,” Katie said.

“Go in there,” I said, pushing the sheep along into the restraining device.

“Come on honey, come on sweetie!” Katie followed up.

“Can I do something?” I asked. 

“Umm, give a shove?” she said. “Everybody.”

“I’m shoving the train,” I said giggling.

Hoof trimming went well. We logged another fiber producers guild event that day. And there will be many more; we’re sure of it now. But I want to go back to something important. You know how Katie offered to help me during my fiber sale and I told her I really only needed encouragement? Well, that was me NOT practicing asking for help. It’s true, I didn’t need her help, the sale went really well.Greg was there and was a huge help. But it would have felt really good to have Katie there too. I’m going to make a note to myself about that. Just because I can do it myself, doesn’t mean I can’t ask for help.

I mentioned this to Greg.

“So if we were to go back to our notebook, our Farm Folder, what would you say in terms of, like now, the updated version of 2023, is growing a sense of community?” I said.

“Well, I would say first of all, step one is learning how to depend upon others, and learning how to depend upon others,” Greg said. “And you can use a shared sense of values or shared interest to do that. But that learning has to be how you depend on others.”

We still have a lot to learn and practice. So, here I go… If you are a fiber producer who lives on Whidbey Island, or if you know of someone who fits this description, will you send them our way? We’d love to invite them to be a part of our community.  

And, in keeping with the potluck example. Remember, being a part of our community, or any community for that matter, means not only do you bring a dish to share, but you bring your needs and wants to share, too. It’s all part of the banquet, you don’t come empty handed. 

If you’d like to hear more stories about our farm life and what we learn when we live close to nature and use our hands to make things from what we raise, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast listening app–or, if you want to be notified every time we post a new episode, you can sign up for those notifications here on our website, afiberlife.com.