Building a Support System

“Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, the sooner we learn that, the better for all of us.” – Erik Ericson

Throughout my growing years, I have seen the so-called support systems failing. All I knew back then was they were projective support systems and not realistic support systems. A projective support system is one where you are projecting your expectations on what the other person should be like, often staying blind to the true nature. A realistic support system is one where you understand the values and needs of yourself and others in your support system.

One of the biggest blow ups I have seen among parents of friends which scarred me was people leaving their partners when physical or mental health failed. It was so traumatic for me that it was a big deal for me to consider a marriage for companionship. But by writing down my needs and evaluating the values and needs of others, I could find a match which felt safe for marriage.

While a major part of the support system is your own family – spouse, children, parents and in-laws, given the amount of time you spend with friends, they also constitute the support system for various needs. Knowing who constitutes your support system, you can spend your resources like time, money and health on people who will matter in the long term.

Recently, one of my old friends didn’t share the live link of her marriage with me. She gave a cold reply when I wished her a happy married life. It gave me a strong deja vu feeling about how she dumped me and said “I don’t need you anymore”, when she had her first boyfriend. After she broke up with him, she again got back to me for mental support. So for more than a decade, she had used me and abused me for mental support, leaving me every time she found love. To her, I was an emotional dump. I was continuing the friendship for the old time sake. But now, I realised I was at loss for investing countless hours in her, trying to be there for her, absorbing her negative energy throughout. I don’t even remember the last time I was happy about spending time with her.

That one incident made me reflect on the major relationships in my life and evaluate what my support system looks like. I realised that I don’t want to be investing my time only on people who drain the life out of me. I want to have more healthy give and take relationships. Invest my time on people who can be there for me too. If someone has to be there for me, they should be able to regulate their own emotions to a certain extent so that they can make space for the good and the bad of others. That was my major learning on how I should choose my future friends who can become part of my support system.

What to expect from the workshop?

Building a support system is an extensive process where you need a solid framework to understand the different areas of life, your values and needs and that of others and find a suitable match. If you don’t already have people, you should start conversing with new people and start new relations. While conversations can be good, you need to upgrade to trust to make them a part of your support system.

I broke down this entire process to 3 different parts and have a different workshop for each of this.

Part 1 – Understanding needs

Part 2 – Conversations

Part 3 – Trust

In the first workshop, you will go through what your major needs and values are based on a well researched, tried and tested framework.

Why understand needs?

All events in our life run based on our underlying needs.

1.Growth in Professional life

People who grow fast in their career are those who understand the needs of their reportees, manager and clients. I once left a job because I was not feeling appreciated by superiors even though I had a good friend circle.

2. Satisfaction in Personal life

Most of the times when you are unhappy, binge eating and binge watching are not the solutions. It might be your need for appreciation or connection.

In your marriage life, getting angry for your wife spending too much time at work is because you want to get some attention and feel important part of her life.

Unless you know what your needs are you can’t define the underlying causes of various circumstances and find a solution for them.

This workshop will help you in finding a suitable life partner, if you are not already married. If you are already married, it will help you understand your partner and communicate your needs objectively. You will also learn how the other existing people in your life can fill the needs which your partner can’t.

While it might seem a simple exercise, I found it highly uncomfortable because the truth of the relationships vs what I wish they were was completely different. The sooner we open our eyes the better chance we have at building a stable reliable network.

We will end the workshop with a guided imagery session based on Neuro linguistic programming modalities (NLP) to make changes to your subconscious mind which helps in attracting and maintaining the right support system in your life.