Thirty minutes before my guests were due to start arriving for my 60th birthday party, I walked into the venue, a bar in inner Melbourne, to be confronted by an immaculately decorated room, tables set, balloons floating, everything in place. I looked around and asked where we were planning to lay out the food, and was told: “It’s all sorted”. This was a very new experience for me, because I let other people organise everything for something dedicated to me.
I like to say I have had a real job since 1997; that was when I started running or co-founding my own businesses. When you start a business, you are responsible for every detail; you are both the chief and the bottle washer, so it becomes ingrained that you check everything and hold everyone to their commitments. After a couple of decades, that habit becomes part of your DNA, and it’s very difficult to reengineer.
If I had been organising my party, I can imagine exactly what I would have been like. Spreadsheets at dawn. Messaging suppliers and the venue. Choosing helium balloon colours and worrying that the weights used to hold them down were heavy enough.
Of course I knew my party was approaching; I had been the one to organise the venue, discuss general arrangements - a drink on arrival, the snacks and pizzas that would be needed. And over a couple of months, I’d had general conversations with friends about fun ways to ensure everyone had a good night.
But then a couple of close friends made it clear that they were taking over. They made it clear to me that it was all under control, so even when I asked a few questions, they pushed back: “Leave it to us.” I think I surprised them - and very definitely myself - how easily I acquiesced. What made the difference is that I trusted them completely, and that’s another very new experience for me.
Plenty of people in the room for the party likely would have been quite surprised by that. A couple of years ago, when I moved house, I did the whole thing myself along with my son. We rented a van and packed and moved everything apart from the large furniture items - we hired a couple of guys and a truck to come to move those. A while after, one of the same friends who organised my party firmly took me to task for not asking for help - the irony being I had been one of half a dozen people who helped someone else move only a few months ago. So I was happy to help someone else when they asked! It wasn’t that I chose not to put the call out for help; it literally did not cross my mind, the DNA runs so deeply.
I wrote about it at the time, in an article called Why Don’t We Ask for Help When We’re Lonely?:
“I have a track record of being rubbish at asking for help. More than one friend has pointed this out to me recently. My instinct is to go it alone.”
The habit that made me good at running companies was the same one keeping people at arm’s length, and it’s taken a birthday and some true friends to properly interrupt it.
The psychologist Steven C. Hayes, who developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, calls the capacity I was missing psychological flexibility.
“Psychological flexibility is the ability to feel and think with openness, to attend voluntarily to your experience of the present moment, and to move your life in directions that are important to you, building habits that allow you to live life in accordance with your values and aspirations.”
Standing in the room surveying everything just before guests arrived, I found it interesting that I felt wonderment, not relief nor surprise. I think my brain quickly realised that, of course, these amazing people would do a wonderful job. They’d curated a playlist, a running order, organised a giant card for everyone to sign, and baked a truly gorgeous cake. Then they’d figured out a couple of surprises through the evening based on occasional conversations over the past few months about what might be cool activities during the party.
Brené Brown writes about this kind of exposure directly.
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
Handing over the physical and emotional weight of organising the party felt so vulnerable for me. Maybe there wasn’t a business or marriage on the line, but I don’t think I’ve had such a big hullabaloo made about me since I was a child; the emotion of the evening was palpable. For once I let people do something for me instead of the other way around, and I’m actually quite impressed at how comfortably that made me feel.
Of course there’ll be plenty more tests to come; my DNA means I don’t release control easily, this one party won’t undo the habits built over such a long time, but I believe this time I walked into a room for a major life moment and let it all be built by people who loved me, and I passed. Next time someone offers to help with something important to me, I’m definitely saying yes.
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