Finding the Strength to Feel
1965 was a frenzied year in the already frenzied and chaotic career of The Beatles. In a very short period of time they went from a punkish underground movement to the largest public stage music had ever seen.
The “Fabs” gave up their leather and donned coordinated business-boy outfits, breaking every record the industry currently held—including holding the top five slots of the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time, a record that has never been broken. At Shea Stadium they performed the largest concert ever, ushering in arena rock.
Their fame, and the demands it made upon them, saw their career moving more quickly than technology and social norms could follow. Their inadequate and outdated concert equipment was drowned out by the cheering, screaming and sometimes peeing, fans.
By 1965 John Lennon had written two books, and the band had already starred in two hit films, A Hard Day’s Night and its follow-up Help.
Though they were the most scrutinized and documented group in history, did anyone—including themselves—stop to think how been beneath the offhand quips and cheerful faces how frightening this might have been? As the group’s lead guitarist George Harrison later said, the fans “gave their money, and they gave their screams. But the Beatles gave their nervous systems.”
Lennon later said that the song “Help!” was, in fact, a cry for help.
Over so much of his career Lennon wrote songs that spoke to fundamental human experience. Help! marked the point where simple love songs became deeper and more personal. And by becoming more personal, his songs became universal.
What this story reveals is how touching in with ourselves makes us more relatable to others—and how all of us, at some point, feel overwhelmed and may need to ask for help. “When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody’s help in any way.” The lyric traces a journey into adulthood, one that begins to surrender obvious defenses and says, simply: help me if you can.
I’m writing this now because aspects of my life are reaching critical mass. And yet I keep soldiering on, somehow believing that surviving is the same as thriving. But inside a part of me feels squeezed, buried and unseen.
When my life becomes overwhelming I’m often at a loss for how to find the end of a thread that might unwind the chaos. Where do I begin? I need to do this, but I can’t until I’ve done that—and I certainly can’t do that until I’ve done the other thing.
Do you know that one?
My coaching brain would tell me to find the simplest place to start. Avoid trying to leap beyond the present moment. In order to swim we need to stop splashing in panic. But we also need to avoid the other extreme—simply giving up and waiting for someone to rescue us. There is a middle way: trusting that the first stroke will be followed by the next.
Unfortunately, I have always been a terrible swimmer.
Whenever I tried to join friends and swim across what seemed, to them, a very easy distance, I would somehow reach the middle and realize there was nothing beneath me and I would panic.
In every case someone came to help me. And in every case I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Growing up in a very male-oriented environment it wasn’t just embarrassing to fail like that—it was deeply uncomfortable to have to relax into the arms of another man.
Once panting on the shore I felt alone, incapable, overwhelmed. What I needed then—and what I still need now—is the bravery to accept help. The willingness to let go of preconceptions about what “real adults” should be capable of.
As I’ve grown older, success in certain areas of my life has been rewarding, exhilarating, even admirable. But often that success has come at the expense of hearing the inner voice crying out for help. The stronger I’ve appeared in some ways, the less those cries were heard.
Years ago I sketched the bones of a play called Winter. Its protagonist, Susan, comes home for the holidays to visit her family. She has been successful in college and seems poised for success in her career. As the oldest child she is admired and looked up to. Her family demands much from her because of her potential. Her friends envy her.
And yet, despite being loved and admired, she has no one who truly listens.
I never finished the play because I didn’t know what it was that Susan wanted people to understand. But now I’m drawn back to her with a different awareness. Of course she didn’t understand either. Before we know how to ask others to listen, we might learn to listen to ourselves first. What is it we want when we feel broken or overwhelmed? If we ask for help, whom do we ask? And what kind of help would actually help?
We all have people in life who would fix us. But we don’t really want to be fixed, do we? How can we trust anyone to fix us who hasn’t even heard us.
I understand this as a coach, as a teacher, and hopefully as a friend. I try to be open, accepting, and available to the people I care about. But I have not created a world where I allow people to reach back to me.
My career—such as it is—rests partly on the idea that I am the adult, the grown-up, the one who has their merde together.
But the truth is, I do not. Not always. Maybe not ever.
Perhaps the many tasks I imagine must be completed before clarity and peace can arrive actually begin with a simpler step: admitting that I am lost and do not know. Just as I didn’t know how my play would move forward.
Maybe I simply wasn’t listening. Maybe I need Susan to tell me. Maybe we all need to uncover ourselves and discover what we need. And maybe then we may find the strength to ask for help.
I didn’t know how my play developed, but I always knew how it ended. I could see it clearly on stage.
Susan sits beneath a single spotlight. The lights of the stage slowly draw in slowly until she is alone under the spot beam as snowflakes begin to fall, visible as they pass through the light.
One of the themes of the play was that, despite the holiday season, there had been no snow—and that absence had broken her heart. Just before the play’s end, we learn Susan has taken sleeping pills.
We simply watch her sitting alone as the snow begins to fall.