Category Archives: culture

How Are You a Helper?

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Photo by Eileen Barrett

I have thought actively about this question for weeks now, if not many years.

It’s easy to see doctors, nurses, teachers, and childcare workers as Helpers–we do it for a living. Do you consider yourself a member of a Helping profession? Why and why not?
Here is my premise: We are all Helpers.

I just spent two days at Readers Take Denver, my first ever book event (it’s all about romance, surprise!). I skipped my annual national professional society meeting, in the city where Son goes to school, to attend this giant convention where I would meet some of my favorite voice actors and fellow Shane East fanatics. It. Was. Glorious.

I decided to get the whole experience, so I registered to volunteer for parts of the event. I was assigned to help Susie Tate for an afternoon, taking pictures with readers and moving books. I knew of her but have not read or listened to any of her work. Turns out she’s a doctor in the UK! We hung out between signings, and when anyone approached the table I got so excited to help a fellow woman physician writer connect with her readers! What a privilege. Looking back on our conversations, it stands out to me that Susie’s work as both physician and romance author helps people immensely. She may see 50 patients a day in her general practice clinic, and when someone is sick she knows how to navigate the system to get them admitted while also caring for everybody else on her schedule. It’s heroic. She draws on her medical knowledge and experience in writing novels with complex characters, living relationships of struggle and redemption. Readers and listeners relate to her stories and gush about how much her books mean to them. Susie Tate and all of her romance author peers are Helpers, no question.

Let’s also consider the amazing, talented, generous, and gifted romance narrators, shall we? I have now met Shane, as well as Jason Clarke, Sofia Lette, Kit Swann, Angelina Rocca, Gary Furlong, Henry Kramer, Sean Crisden, Lessa Lamb, Chris Brinkley, Aaron Shedlock, and Teri Schnaubelt. Not only do they bring these empathic stories to life in our ears, but they are, themselves, some of the most kind, compassionate, present, thoughtful, and attuned people I have met. It makes sense, right? They engage with stories every day, putting themselves in a diversity of characters’ shoes, minds, and hearts, all in service of helping us relate more deeply and meaningfully to our shared humanity. Wow. Helpers. God bless ’em all.

En route to Denver, I texted my Ethos friends (who are all basically 20 years my junior):

The Ethos Breakfast Club showed up! Encouragement, reflection, validation, humor, and love flowed forth more than I could have imagined, and I felt immediately buoyed. I was able to present at the convention not just to Shane, but to everybody I met, all me and all in, feeling humbly confident, grounded, and attuned. If you are a friend, you are a Helper! In times of struggle, pain, defeat, and fear, who but our friends lift us up? In times of joy, accomplishment, celebration, and connection, who but our friends ampify the light most brightly? I say often, “The only way out is through; the best way through is together.” It is a truth I hold sacred; none of us does anything without help from others.

And it was on me to ask for the help I needed, no? Helping oneself, in this case knowing when, where, and on whom to call, is a life skill, as important as any other. Individualistic Western culture promotes a delusion of self-made-ness that harms us. With help from one another, we can learn to balance independence with interdependence and live richer, more stable, and more fulfilling lives. We simply cannot overestimate how much human connection helps and heals.

Know it, like it, want it or not, we are all in relationship. All humans, everything in nature, the cosmos. Therefore, anytime you do something that makes anything better for anyone else, you Help us all. Stocking grocery store shelves. Driving a city bus. Growing food. Performing standup comedy. Listening. Parenting. Taking care of yourself.
Imagine if we defined any given job or activity as Helping? How would this change our perspective about its role in society? How would we show up differently to the work in this new context? ‘Helping,’ as a concept, feels very different from ‘providing a service.’ The former is personal; the latter is transactional.
Helping is connecting, person to person, recognizing and honoring shared humanity.

Identify as a Helper.

How could everything be better if we all practiced this, even a little bit?

Milestones: Learned, Liberated, and Empowered

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Happy 600th post on Healing Through Connection!

What do you celebrate today?

I vaguely recall marking the 200th post here; that was a big deal, as I had only set out to maintain this blog for one year. HTC turns nine years old this month! Thank you for indulging me in this reflection. I love most that I have documented a slow and steady personal and professional evolution here. My core values and writing mission remain unchanged, and my attitudes, approaches, and conclusions are both more convicted and somehow also softer now. Maybe it’s that I notice and embrace polarities more, and navigate them more willingly and skillfully? I definitely embrace paradox more openly and joyfully. Both of these practices make me happier, more peaceful, and a better communicator, I’m convinced.
I know some readers have followed since the beginning–what have you noticed these nine years?

Other milestones I celebrate at this writing:
50 years of life
25 years an MD
15 years at Northwestern Medicine
15 years of active, intentional inner work
10 years of intentional physical fitness training
1 year training at Ethos
18 months of romance audio immersion and community engagement
20 years of parenting, one kid flown

Here’s another marker, much darker: April 20, 2024 marks the 25th year since the mass shooting at Columbine High School. My friend’s daughter, who was 18 when she died there, would be 43 now. I have no words for this loss.

What is the point of marking any of these things? Fundamentally it is a reflection, an assessment, a way to make meaning of time, life, relationships–anything that matters to us. Looking back, seeing how far we have come, and then looking foward at how far we have yet to go–it lends perspective. I get to acknowledge some significance of my individual presence, activity, and impact, while also recognizing the utter smallness of it at the same time. And at this age, it all feels both peaceful and activating–more paradox!

Learned. I’ll think more on it, but learning may be the most rewarding thing we can do in life. And it only gets better with age, if we are paying attention, because any new acquisition–of information, knowledge, awareness, insight–is added to a synergistically cumulative body of experience that both expands and deepens exponentially over a lifetime. Marking milestones shows me how I have grown, what I have learned, and how vast the potential of human learning really is.

Liberated. The more I know, the more I know I don’t know. Rather than sparking fear or insecurity, rather than making me feel small and ineffective, this realization frees me. I can accept that everything I know is incomplete, that we’re all here doing the best we can with what we have in real time. I am liberated from thinking I can or should have all the answers–I can walk with anybody on any path, and we can figure it out as we go. My own knowledge, insights, and wisdom, however incomplete, are hard won; at this age I feel solid confidence in the skill set I have honed to acquire them. I also know that the honing will continue lifelong. Milestones mark the evidence of effort. It’s a joyous humility of sorts, anticipating recurrent lessons that may be painful, but maybe a little less so every time, and it will all ultimately make me better. Bring it.

Empowered. Happy to keep learning. Freed to acquire, apply, and share all learning in creative and collaborative ways to make my best contribution. Looking back on these milestones gives me confidence that I indeed have something to offer. The best thing I can do is use my own personal power to elevate others, to help them find and strengthen their own power. Together we can keep learning, keep growing, keep reaching, doing, making, being our best for one another.

Lots of people are having a hard time right now, so much pain and suffering all around us. Markers of joy and pain are all meaningful, all serve a purpose. Everything gained comes at a cost. This blog helps me process it all, gives me a place to reflect, record, and remember later. Nine years blogging and going strong, maybe even getting stronger. And yes, Book. *sigh* Momentum for that project ebbs and flows; the ultimate outcome is still unclear, and I’m okay with it. I have never loved writing more than I do now, so hopefully that portends something concrete for my future. It’s been nine years since the idea of publishing a book occurred to me, nine months since the writing workshop where I renewed my commitment. Let’s see when the next Book milestone occurs, eh? Exciting.

Let us mark and celebrate meaningful things more regularly and reverently, shall we? Not just milestones but inch pebbles and the like. Small wins, any progress, any connection, any epiphany, in any domain. It all matters if we care, if it’s valuable to us. And all the better if we can turn that reverent, celebratory energy into mutual uplift and rocket fuel for humanity’s journey toward ever stronger and more loving relationships.

What can we find this week to mark the next step on this path toward healing connection?


To Comfort Always

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Joseph Carey Merrick; Written by Michael Howell and Peter Ford, Narrated by Steve West

Sometimes a book affects you.

You already know parts of the story
Because it’s legend
And you know it’s sad
You just don’t know how sad
And you usually avoid such things

And then you see
That your favorite voice actor narrates the True History
And it’s also about the doctor
Who did good
By a patient, a lovely man
Whom the world had degraded and abandoned
So you decide to endure
Because you know the voice
And you trust it to shepard the account
With respect and dignity

And through the tragedy
That almost brings you to tears
Because how can people be so cruel
How can one person endure so much
And never harbor bitterness, resentment, or rage

Through all of that
The line that shines most brightly
That calls to your physician, helper, human soul
Is one you have not heard in years
When you should probably recite it yourself daily:

“To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always.”

These days people expect
Cure often if not always
Relief, when incomplete, disappoints

And Comfort, well, what does that even mean
In an age when physician-patient
Relationship is defined more and more
By transaction than by
True and deep human connection

And yet
Stories like this inspire, reassure and
Comfort us
Who do it for the connection
Because in the end
It’s worth every effort

————-

The True History of the Elephant Man: The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick
Written by Michael Howell and Peter Ford
Narrated by Steve West

Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.

©2010 Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

*I have no interests in any entities mentioned in this post