Asking for Help
I remember so vividly the messages from my parents and grandparents growing up. “You need to be able to do things for yourself. You need to learn to be independent, you don’t want to rely on anyone.” And while as helpful as this may be and I have gotten far in life playing this program, there is a point at which you may find yourself in a situation where it just doesn’t work. This was my realization a few weeks ago.
I woke up on a Monday morning and I just didn’t feel like myself, I felt off and coffee didn’t help. It was raining, again, so a long walk with Paolo wasn’t going to help either. I looked at my monthly list and the top two things on it said Carte Vitale (my French health cover card) and Prefecture. For the Prefecture, I was waiting on a letter for my second appointment which would have me sign a cultural integration contract committing that I would take the steps to integrate into French culture including things like learning the language, learning how things work here and committing to understanding the principles of French society, like what the French motto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” actually means. Also, at this appointment I will take a language test, if I don’t pass that test, I will be provided with free French lessons.
This appointment at the prefecture would also kick off my attendance at 3 cultural days where I would learn how certain things work. At all these appointments and classes I will be given a receipt of attendance. These proofs of attendance are required to be included when I apply for my visa renewal which is coming up in a few months.
I looked at those items on my list as I had done each week for months now, typically I would say well I can’t move those forward, I am waiting for something, and I would move to the other items on the list and see if there was anything that I could move forward. But today, I was frustrated that they didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
I decided that I was going to go to the CPAM (Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie) website and see if I could find a way to check on the status of my application which had been submitted back in November. I decided to reach out to the people that I had hired to assist me with some of the administration tasks during this first year. I had sent them an email back in January and got a brief note back that CPAM was running behind and I needed to be patient, well now in March I was running thin on patience.
This time they agreed that I should have heard, and they contacted CPAM. A few hours later I had a reply from them to say that while we had confirmation that my dossier had been delivered to CPAM in November they seem to have lost it, so it had been resent. While it was frustrating to hear this and know that so much time had gone by with no progress, at least I knew what the problem was and how we would fix it. I put a calendar reminder in my computer for three weeks to have them follow-up with CPAM if I still haven’t heard, so for now this one was firmly back in the waiting stage.
Now that prefecture appointment. I wasn’t sure if this appointment was going to be at the Agen or Bordeaux prefectures, so I went to the website of the Agen prefecture and was able to find an email address in addition to a number to call. While my French is getting much better every day, phone calls are still the worst, so I try to find other ways to communicate if at all possible. I crafted my email in French and then double checked it in google translate to make sure that I had everything right and sent an email off to check on the status of my appointment letter. Within 30 minutes I received my first reply that let me know that my question had been forwarded on to the proper department. Yeah, I had movement! Then mid-afternoon I received an email from the Bordeaux prefecture with a copy of my invitation letter attached. Yeah, I had my appointment!
I felt so good, I was so glad that I decided to ask for help, that I was able to move things forward. It was in that moment that I realized that it felt great to receive help and I didn’t need to make it mean that I wasn’t competent, in fact it had taken my competency to know where to reach out for help.
Now, I do not have this down by any stretch of the imagination, my independence is a well-worn program but with this fresh awareness that asking for help wasn’t so bad after all, that I wasn’t being an inconvenience and that in fact it may also feel good to the other person who was helping me to be of service. Asking for help could create good feelings for both of us.
As I write this, it is almost ridiculous to me that such a simple thing as being able to ask for help had literally been programmed out of me. Well, no more, from now on I am approaching this much differently. Explore the questions below to find out how.
I find it deeply meaningful to question everything and ponder the questions of life to continue to grow and become a better human. The following are a few questions that you may want to ponder in your own journal, morning commute or mid-day walk.
- Are there things in my life that it would feel good to get help on?
- How does asking for help make me feel?
- How do I feel when I help others?
- Practical exercise: Today – Ask someone to help you with something and when they do, pay attention to how that made you feel and how did that make them feel? I promise, it feels like magic!
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Finally, I am planning to launch a YouTube format of this blog, but likely with more practical information about what I have learned about life in France, how things work as I figure them out. Including the questions about life in France that I am currently working on trying to figure out because at this point in the journey there are way more questions than there are answers most days, but I feel like I am making progress. I will let you know more about the channel launch when I get there.
I hope you are all taking care of yourselves and each other and I will see you here again soon. I am including a few photos with this blog that I took during one of my walks with Paolo in Céret, France. I hope you enjoy them.
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