Building Supportive Relationships
Consider the example of Marie, a woman who recently attended one of my weekend workshops. Bright, energetic, and outgoing, Marie is in her 60s and has been divorced for 15 years. During that time, she’s built an active social life by joining various groups, and she currently belongs to three singles groups in the Philadelphia area. Although Marie has many friends, most of these friendships are lopsided. She has always tended to be the one who reaches out, the one who offers support and nurturance, the one who takes care of other people. During a recent Mastering the Art of Aloneness workshop session, she realized she was replicating the relationship dynamic she had with her parents. Marie’s father was an alcoholic; her mother was depressed and addicted to food, and as an only child, Marie suppressed her own needs in favor of those of her parents. She was the caretaker, the Lost Child. Throughout her life, Marie has played out the same scenario in many of her friendships—giving and giving but getting back little in return.
Mastering the art of aloneness has a lot to do with relationships—your relationship with yourself and your relationships with others. As Ann Kaiser Stearns wrote in Living Through Personal Crisis: “The most self-loving action any of us performs in a lifetime is learning how to develop . . . close friendships.”3Developing and engaging in caring relationships is an important aspect of personal transformation. As you move forward, the emphasis must be on developing a supportive network of friends—not just developing a network of friends.
Like Marie, we all tend to pull people into our lives who treat us the way we were treated during our formative years, replicating the relationship dynamics that are familiar to us. For example, it’s quite common for people to fall into the Critical Parent role in relationships or to seek out Critical Parents among their friends. That’s because so many of us had critical parents. Such relationships may feel familiar, but they’re ultimately unhealthy, unloving, and unsupportive. In earlier chapters, I’ve talked about ways to begin to be more discerning in your friendships and to communicate your needs and boundaries more effectively so you can enjoy friendships that are mutually respectful and fulfilling. Now, as you consciously build your outer support system, it’s time to take that process to the next level. Here, we’re going to focus more thoroughly on how to create a network of loving, supportive people in your life. I encourage you to refer back to those early chapters as you work through this section.
Not all people have what it takes to be supportive, and not all unsupportive people can be avoided—for example, sometimes you can’t escape family members and co-workers. But, the idea here is to begin to identify the qualities that support your transformational process, spend time with people who embody those qualities, and, as much as possible, avoid people who are detrimental to you and your personal development.
Attributes of a Supportive Person
A truly supportive person:
• Provides a safe space for expressing your thoughts and feelings
• Does not judge or blame you
• Acknowledges and respects your feelings and boundaries
• Is empathetic and compassionate
• Is loving and caring, without sexual overtones or hidden, self-serving agendas
• Helps you recognize and nourish your own strengths and inner power
• Appreciates your willingness to be open and vulnerable, and behaves likewise
• Is loving, caring, and sensitive in his communication
• Expresses impatience, anger, or frustration in a respectful manner
• Is honest and clear about her boundaries
• Is dependable and honors commitments
• Is trustworthy and maintains confidentiality
• Offers small acts of kindness, especially during difficult times
• Is willing to listen, offering honest feedback when asked for it
• Acknowledges and takes responsibility for his flaws and mistakes
A truly supportive person does not:
• Criticize or blame you
• Label you as “selfish,” “nuts,” “out of control,” “over-emotional,” “silly,” or “ overreactive”
• Break your confidentiality and trust
• Disrespect your boundaries and needs
• Continually break commitments
• Disappear during the difficult times
• Use your vulnerability to her advantage—that is, to make herself look better
• Constantly tell you what you “should” be doing
• Make everything about his own needs
• Judge, react defensively, or counterattack when you share your feelings
• Take without ever giving in return
There are many ways to cultivate supportive friendships. Here are a few of them:
• Be a good sounding board. When a friend wants to talk to you about something he’s going through—a crisis or problem—the best approach is simply to listen. Don’t offer advice without asking permission, because it may be that he just wanted to share his experience, or vent his anger or frustration about a situation. He may be looking for someone to validate his feelings. Understanding and compassion should be the order of the day.
• Don’t be judgmental. It’s important to avoid being judgmental—especially if your friend is sharing something that’s in conflict with your own value system. Remember that other people are not you; take care not to impose your value system on someone else. Remember, everybody’s doing the best they can at any given moment.
• Avoid “shoulding” people. I suggest refraining from telling your friends what they “should” or “shouldn’t” do. I talked earlier about “shoulding” people—it reflects the Critical Parent ego state. If you’re in a relationship with someone who has a habit of telling you what you should and shouldn’t do, that’s a red flag. Instead of listening, this person is basing their actions on assumptions about you or about the way you should be living your life.
• Be empathetic. Empathy is the act of putting yourself in another person’s shoes. It’s a trait you’ll want to develop in yourself and a quality you should be looking for in others. Years ago, I had a teacher who told me: “If you could connect, just for an instant, with the deepest pain that your greatest enemy has experienced, you would never again want to do anything that would cause that person more harm.” If someone tells you something painful, recounting a personal crisis she went through, or a difficult situation she faces, show compassion. The simple statement “I’m really sorry you had to go through that” can be the most supportive approach.
• Practice emotional intelligence. Look for, practice, and promote emotional honesty, maturity, and intelligence in your relationships. Here’s an example. Say you’ve made plans with a friend to go out on New Year’s Eve, but you have to cancel because you have the flu. A supportive friend may be disappointed, but will be understanding. She might even offer to pick up some chicken soup or a movie for you. But, if your friend gets angry, it’s a tip-off that you’re not dealing with a supportive and emotionally mature person.
• Cultivate effective communication skills. You’ll encounter occasional conflicts with any friend. Those conflicts present you with an opportunity to determine whether you can meet each other on an emotionally mature footing. For example, I had a friend who snapped at me, very early in our relationship, when I called her at an inconvenient time. In response, I didn’t blame her or counterattack; instead, I carefully composed an e-mail, saying: “I apologize again for disturbing you last night. I tend to be sensitive to harsh communication styles, and although it may not have been your intention, I experienced your response as harsh. When you feel upset with me, it would be great if you could communicate your feelings and needs in a more gentle way. I respond much better to that kind of communication.” She responded by calling me and apologizing. She was able to say: “I can be abrupt, especially when I feel like my space is being invaded. I’m sorry I sn
apped at you, and I’ll try to be more sensitive going forward.” As a result, our relationship has continued to grow, and she has become one of my dearest friends.
• Be emotionally honest. Emotional honesty, which involves the willingness to be vulnerable, is central to sharing healthy, supportive relationships. For example, what if a friend says something hurtful to you? “You look like you’ve put on weight,” or “I saw your ex-husband last night with his new girlfriend, and he looked really happy.” It’s important to tell that person how you feel. You might say: “I’m having a reaction to what you just said. It may not have been your intention, but I found what you said hurtful.” Many people believe that vulnerability is a sign of weakness. I see it, instead, as having the courage to be authentic. By saying, “I’m feeling hurt,” you’re laying yourself wide open. But it’s a gesture that shows other people that you care enough about them and the relationship to share who you really are, and you’re inviting them to be who they really are. And, when you do, the other person’s response speaks volumes. It will let you know whether or not this is a supportive person with whom you want to engage.
• Know when to let go. Every relationship hits bumps along the way, which is when effective communication becomes especially important. It helps you find out whether you can effectively work through a conflict and negotiate your differences with someone else. If you can’t—if the other person is not emotionally mature enough, not far enough along in his own development—you may find it’s better to let the relationship go. Then, rather than create an unpleasant drama, you can disengage in a respectful, emotionally intelligent way. You can say: “I don’t think we’re a good fit as friends.” Or “I think our values or lifestyles are just too different to support a friendship.” Or “We’re experiencing a lot of conflict that we can’t seem to resolve and this just doesn’t feel good to me.” The better you know yourself, the easier it is to assess whether people are a good fit as part of your outer support system.
Assessing Your Relationships
The best starting point for assessing the quality of any relationship in your life is through your feelings. First and foremost, notice how you feel around the other person. Ask yourself: Do I feel good? Do I feel uplifted? Do I feel happy to be with her? Do I walk away feeling it was a joyful time with her? Do I feel respected? Do I feel understood?Do I feel valued? Supported? Accepted? If not, then it’s time to further assess the relationship using these tools that you learned earlier:
• Check in with your intuition. Get a sense of how you feel about the relationship deep down inside. Is this relationship good for me?Is it in alignment with who I really am and in alignment with where I want to go in my life?
• Do a reality check. Notice how the other person behaves toward you. Does she honor your confidentiality? Does she respect your feelings, needs, and boundaries? Review and check her behavior against the attributes of a truly supportive person from the list provided earlier in this chapter.
• Weigh the pros and cons. If it’s still not clear to you whether or not a relationship is serving your best interests, do the pros and cons exercise. List all the positive aspects of the relationship—all the things you value about the person and the relationship. Then list all the things you don’t like. Just as I outlined earlier in the book, once you have all the pros and cons listed, go back and rate the items on each list, using a scale of 1 to 10 based on their importance or value to you (1 having the least impact, 10 having the highest). Then add up the totals from each column and compare them. Are there more pros or cons? Are there any 10s on your cons side? If your cons outweigh your pros or you have any 10s on your cons side, it may be time to let the relationship go.
You can use this approach to assess new relationships or old ones, to decide whether to deepen a friendship or let it go. Assessing your relationships will help you change or eliminate those that are unhealthy and develop an outer support system that will help you transform your life.
Seeking Professional Support
Someone asked me at a recent workshop if it’s possible to fully achieve personal mastery and move completely beyond the core limiting beliefs and habitual behaviors of the conditioned self. My response: No. Each of us is a work in progress. There’s always another layer to explore—something new to discover, another quality or strength to develop, or a new lesson to learn about your life and the people in it. Your conditioned self grew out of your need to adapt to your own family when you were a young child. It’s been the driving force in your life for many years, and it will remain a part of who you are for the rest of your life.
The challenge is to manage your conditioned self with compassion. When it starts to take over, treat it as you would a young child—with consistency and love. In truth, that’s exactly what your conditioned self is—a part of you that was created during your formative years and still functions as the child within. I encourage my clients to embrace the conditioned self and to work with it in a loving and gentle way, but not to allow it to run their lives. Just as you wouldn’t allow a young child to take the steering wheel and drive your car, it is your authentic self that needs to be in control of your adult life. You need to manage your conditioned self so it’s not managing you.
Many people have regrets about choices they’ve made, how they’ve lived their lives, or the pain that they’ve experienced or caused. When my clients encounter those feelings, I encourage them to activate the Inner Nurturing Parent. Instead of judging, hating, or rejecting the conditioned self, I suggest extending love and compassion to it, just as you would to a young child who makes mistakes because he doesn’t know any better.
“One famous Zen master actually described spiritual practice as ‘one mistake after another,’” writes Jack Kornfield in A Path with Heart, “which is to say, one opportunity after another to learn. It is from ‘difficulties, mistakes, and errors’ that we actually learn. To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others—we are at ease with the difficulties of life.”4When my clients are experiencing emotional pain, I suggest they reframe it as something of tremendous value. Emotional pain gives us a reference point for what it’s like to feel joy. Pain and adversity are mechanisms by which we learn, grow, and develop. Pain can also be an effective barometer for telling us when we’re off course in our lives. As such, it can be a powerful catalyst for change.
Personal-development work poses many challenges. While it’s a pathway to greater freedom, joy, and fulfillment, it’s not an easy journey. For many of us, it involves confronting parts of ourselves, our lives, and our past experiences that are upsetting and painful. In this book, I’ve offered you guidance for following a path of personal transformation, but as you move forward I encourage you to seek professional support whenever you need it. Here are some examples of instances in which professional resources may be valuable or even essential:
• Support for specific steps in your family-of-origin work. It can be helpful to seek professional help when you’re working through issues and feelings associated with your family of origin—pain, anger, and confusion. Learning to treat your conditioned self with love and compassion is a process, and you may struggle with feelings or issues that you cannot resolve by yourself. A trained professional can help you understand and move beyond the old patterns that prevent you from realizing your true potential and achieving the life you want to have. So don’t hesitate to seek help when you need it.
• Crisis and loss. Experiencing a crisis or loss can activate your default operating system and trigger your conditioned self to take over. A death in the family, divorce, job loss, or other personal or job-related setback can make you fall into old patterns. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of finding a supportive group and/or professional during the grieving and healing process and beyond. If you’re newly divorced, a supportive group, therapist, or coach can be a valuable resource by serving as a safe haven where
you can explore old, self-defeating patterns that block you from moving forward; a place to share the pleasures and pain of your new-found freedom; and a resource for survival strategies and new perspectives on single parenting.
• Feelings of depression or anxiety or other emotional issues. If you’re plagued by deep feelings of sadness or emptiness and you can’t seem to shake them; if you have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning or you’ve lost interest in your normal, daily routine; if you have a decrease or increase in appetite, you can’t sleep, or you feel listless and depleted—you may be in the throes of depression. You’ll recall my experience after my children and I returned to Boston from Germany—that Labor Day Weekend when I felt I just couldn’t go on. I found a doctor who prescribed medication to help me manage the crisis point of my depression, and then I connected with an exceptional therapist and coach to work with over an extended period of time. Remember Rana? She spent her evenings curled up in the basement, watching TV, avoiding her family and friends. She was experiencing a depression that didn’t ease up until we began her personal-development work.
Depression is not uncommon among people who are living out of alignment with their authentic selves. But depression comes in many shapes and forms. If you’re experiencing an ongoing or severe depression, it’s important to seek help. You can consult your medical doctor, a psychiatrist, or a psychotherapist. When seeking help for depression and/or anxiety, it’s particularly important to see someone who is qualified to diagnose the severity of the depression and determine whether or not you need medication. Depression and anxiety can be symptoms of a chemical imbalance that may require medication or a combination of medication and therapy.
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