Something Out of Nothing: Finding Purpose in Trying Times
Keren Gudeman and I met several years ago on Twitter; I was looking for someone to collaborate with on using improv skills to help parents. Even though we’ve never met in person, we connected instantly as people, parents, and creatives trying to bring the magic of an improvisational mindset to ordinary situations. During the pandemic, with little else to do, Keren and I teamed up to bring our skills to a weekly parenting “happy hour,” with friends from around the country zooming in to play games led by Keren, and hear my mindful offerings about raising children during that unprecedented time. As lockdown progressed, having this joyful event to look forward to, I began to notice trends and themes in parents’ struggles in my practice and parenting groups. Those fed naturally into each week’s set of games. Ultimately, we paused the weekly meetings, but never stopped thinking about our collaboration, and when Keren reached out to me after some months, she told me that everything we’d thought about would make a great book, and that we should write it together. Of course, I said, “Yes, and!”
The vision for the book morphed over time, starting out as a book about “parenting and disasters,” but as we reached out to parents through a survey about their experiences during the pandemic, we began to realize that our idea wasn’t to write a book about parenting at all, but rather a book about parents themselves. In other words, we weren’t thinking about discipline and empathy, how to keep kids from running into the street and throwing food off the high chair. We were thinking solely about the experience of parents holding themselves together during tough times both large and small. We couldn’t find anything else like it anywhere, and realized we were on to something. It’s strange that we would need to put parents back in parenting, but that is exactly what we were hoping to do.
It’s strange that we would need to put parents back in parenting, but that is exactly what we were hoping to do.
In a very real way, Keren’s and my work together during and beyond the pandemic exemplifies one of our findings about what helps parents (and people in general) thrive during uncertain times. In their groundbreaking book Burnout: The Secret to Solving the Stress Cycle, sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski draw on robust scientific research showing that learned helplessness (which can be brought about by challenges, crises, and traumas, big and small) can be reversed simply by doing something. Just, any thing you can think of, which they define as “anything that isn’t nothing.” As they put it, “We unlearn helplessness by doing a thing—a thing that uses our body. Go for a walk. Scream into a pillow. Or, as Carrie Fisher put it, ‘Take your broken heart, make it into art.’” Fighting back existential despair brought about by learned helplessness can be as simple as knitting one sock. Or cleaning one dish. Or making a cup of tea. Or creating something new and surprising.
Learned helplessness can be reversed simply by doing something.
Something is simply “anything that isn’t nothing.”
-Emily and Amelia Nagoski
In Lost Connections, an epic work on the true causes of depression in our society and how to address them, Johann Hari makes a similar argument: that as a result of contemporary Western society’s reliance on “junk values,” we have become increasingly removed from the fundamental qualities that humans require in order to thrive.
In an astounding example of the healing power of collaborative creation in the face of despair, he describes a group of clinically depressed patients in an East-London hospital whom their revolutionary doctor gives an odd prescription: to transform “an ugly scratch of scrub and concrete that the locals dubbed ‘Dog Shit Alley’” into a garden. “They had one member of the staff to coordinate, but otherwise it was up to a group of around twenty volunteer-patients who were depressed or suffering from other forms of distress. It’s yours, they said. Help us to make it beautiful.”
Over time, day in and day out of investing energy and commitment, the patients slowly saw their work literally flower and bear fruit. Instead of being healed by the junk values of exhausting, unfulfilling work and acquisition, the group members were healed by repairing two forms of deep disconnection: from other people and from the natural world, with its accompanying sense of awe and wonder.
The group members were healed by repairing two forms of deep disconnection: from other people and from the natural world, with its accompanying sense of awe and wonder.
Like the plants they grew, the group members thrived as a result of this novel program, as illustrated in this anecdote:
“After she had been in the gardening program for a few years, Lisa stopped taking Prozac, and over the next few years, she lost...(62 pounds) in weight. She had met a gardener who she fell in love with...and after a few years more, she moved away to a village in Wales, where by the time I met her, she was about to open a gardening center of her own. She is still in touch with some of the people from the gardening group. They saved each other, she told me. Them, and the soil.”
Hari and the Nagoskis’ evidence resonates strongly with our findings, both in our own experience of doing and making with each other during stressful times (pandemic and beyond), as well as in the experiences of the parents who responded to Keren’s and my informal survey.
When we asked parents if they had found themselves trying new things that brought them fulfillment during the pandemic, they shared enthusiastically that they had adopted new hobbies and picked up old ones (like cooking, painting, writing, and raising butterflies, both with and without their children) and engaged in creative pivots with their work. As one respondent shared, “Novelty seems to provide energy and gratitude.” Claire, a 45-year-old mother of one from New York City, noted that in order to thrive, she needed to be “in perpetual motion and [be] creative.” Holly, a 39-year-old mother of two in Texas shared that it helps her to survive and thrive during difficult times when she feeds “off of and into the resilience and creativity of [her] children, like in the movie Life Is Beautiful.” More than one participant emphasized that they needed a “creative outlet” in order to thrive during trying times.
More than one parent participant emphasized that they needed a “creative outlet” in order to thrive during trying times.
Making something from nothing is a divine creative act, one that beats back the creeping tendrils of helplessness and insignificance in the face of overwhelm and disaster. Case in point, there’s a reason why I’m posting this story today. Keren’s and my book plan is on indefinite pause, but I found myself moved to share this essay as I myself am feeling the tendrils of despair creeping in. A few days ago, I learned that a dear friend has fallen suddenly ill, and their recovery is uncertain. In the fog of grief and shock, I find myself struggling. This morning I had the choice to continue soothing myself with YouTube videos, or practice what I preach. So I chose to make something, this very something you’re reading, and share it with all of you. In the coming weeks as my friend’s healing journey unfolds, I know I will continue to get lost in the numbing rabbit hole of internet videos, but I also plan to make a little bit of something every day. I need it, my soul needs it, and I know my friend would want me to do it too.
In this disconnected society, as Johann Hari emphasizes, we have lost our deep and fruitful connections with each other. If you are struggling as a parent, I invite you to simply make something. Alone, with your kids, or with a creative partner. Anything that isn’t nothing. Start today.
Rebekka Helford is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Los Angeles, California. With over a decade of experience working with parents and young children, Rebekka specializes in short-term intensive parenting consultation, using a variety of tools including home, office, and school visits to help families navigate developmental hiccups and get back on track. Virtual visits now available!
Click here to schedule an appointment or contact Rebekka with a question – who knows, she might even answer it in her next post!