Episode 94: Taking Personal Responsibility, and Opening Up Your Circle of Support
Photo credit - Unsplash - Joshua Hoene
Today I wanted to talk to you about personal responsibility and circles of support.
For those listening in the UK, we have the privilege of the National Health Service to take care of us all. I’m hugely grateful for and respectful of the NHS and all that it stands for. By having a service that we don’t directly pay for though, we can become complacent.
I’ve become more and more invested in helping people to take an active, informed stance about their own health and wellbeing. This requires a number of factors such as developing the ability to feel the sensations of the body, as well as health information that’s easy to understand. The old-fashioned approach to medicine keeps knowledge and information for the select few. In reality, we all have bodies, and health is something that should be available to us all. Health information needs to be democratic. Another factor is a proactive approach that looks at goals and takes a long-term view, rather than waiting until something is broken before it’s fixed. The knee-jerk reaction won’t ever offer true health. For example, the odd night of broken sleep here and there won’t have a huge impact, but in the long-term there are many effects on the systems of the body that are related to chronic sleep deprivation. So the Netflix habit, or tendency to work too late in the night can drain our resources. Seeing the impact of our choices, both good and bad can help to prioritise what’s most important.
Last year I completed a Women’s Health Coaching certification and it was such an eye-opener for me. As my in-person clients know, I love to give people post-it notes with recommendations of books, podcasts and website links that might be helpful to their particular circumstances. However, there’s a marked difference when someone can have the space to listen deeply to their own needs and discover their own answers or determine their next steps. I see my role less as a fixer or diagnoser these days and more about holding space. As Ram Das said, “we are all just walking one another home”. Particularly in the field of women’s health, there’s great importance on intuitive capabilities. We live in an increasingly information-orientated world, but never forget the depth of body wisdom that we all have available to us. Helping someone to listen to their body as well as understand health information makes them the centre of their health and healing.
I firmly believe in community and society and the greater collective. You can see the impact of recent events such as Brexit, Black Lives Matter and Covid on our collective health. It’s a universal law that we are all one, even if we feel different or don’t feel like we belong. Collective health has to start with our personal responsibility. The decisions we make about what we eat, when we sleep, how we put boundaries in our lives. Health behaviours start from the individual sense of responsibility and ripple out into the greater collective. It’s been interesting to hear of people’s experiences of working from home, and the aspects of this change that people want to take forward. By paying attention to our own personal needs we can have a more productive and rewarding work-life balance. One person might be a morning person, and another might have an elderly parent that they care for. Another might be recovering from chronic illness. Each situation and each personality has different health needs that can be tended to.
Now let’s talk about the circle of support.
In one of the previous episodes with Robin Grille, he said that each child needs 4 adults around them for stability. I often think about this. Four has a feeling of stability about it like a chair or table. There’s something grounding even when there’s change going on. I don’t think this applies just to children though. We all need people to lean on, even if we are capable or well-resourced or happy doing things on our own.
Support has been a topic that I often reflect on. I grew up in an extended family with 3 of my grandparents living with us at different stages of life. For a few years, we stayed with an uncle who was a lifelong bachelor. Immigrant families like mine have survived and thrived because of being able to support one another. I love hearing stories about how our community of close friends and family have helped in all life events such as moving house, having a new baby or taking care of a loved one with a terminal illness. Caring for others can override the needs of the self, so it’s a fine line between how supportive others are or how challenging they can be.
In Western society, there’s a push towards independence that’s noticeable even in the early months. Training a baby to be able to soothe themselves or sleep independently. And then once that child becomes a teenager, they’re expected to fly the nest, never to return. Leaning on others or asking for help isn’t valued and is still seen as a sign of weakness. Archetypes of the ‘Superwoman’ who can juggle a big job and family whilst looking good and having an active social life set the bar far too high to be realistic. I’ve seen the value of multi-generational communities because there’s strength in people being in different places in their life. A retired person might have the time in their day and the patience to help look after a toddler. A single person might be happy to do an overnighter to keep an elderly relative company.
It never made sense to me that groups are often formed around the exact life experience, such as school year groups where everyone is the same age, or pregnancy groups where everyone is at the same stage of starting their families. I think it’s far more beneficial to have a broader type of life experience. For a few years, I’ve been in a women’s group. I’ve had the chance to travel to Amsterdam 4 times a year and gather with other women. Each time we sit on the floor in a circle. One by one we share what’s going on in the different fields of our life. Some are mothers, some are single, some run their own businesses. We might not have personally experienced the things that the group shares about, such as menopause, or dealing with the loss of a parent, or raising a blended family, but the safe space to talk and express and be witnessed is incredibly powerful.
Sometimes people feel alone. I often have conversations like this in the treatment room where people feel like their personal situation is unique to them. And yes we are all unique, and yet there are experiences that are universal. Situations such as loss and grief have been proven to affect us by making us feel alone and then isolating ourselves. Just when we need the most support, we find it hard to reach out and ask for help.
Exercise:
Here’s a quick exercise for you about support. Grab a pen and paper. List the different areas of your life such as work, family, personal relationships, community and spiritual life.
Write down how you’re supported and how you support others in each of the areas of life. For example, maybe a family member calls you regularly to encourage you in your new business. Or maybe you volunteer at your local church to welcome new members of the congregation.
Notice whether you’re extending more support than you receive or vice versa. If you’re requiring more support than you’re able to give, that might be down to your personal circumstances now and that’s ok. But are there other ways such as saying thank you more or smiling more that can lift someone else? It takes energy to nurture ourselves in order to nurture others. And if you’re a carer in your work and/ or home life, you need to make sure that you’re getting good support. You can’t always be the one holding others. Psychotherapists receive supervision to ensure that they stay well and whilst there isn’t a similar requirement for bodyworkers, it’s something that is vital. I regularly see other practitioners for bodywork and have counselling or attend a retreat. It positively impacts all the other areas of life to do this.
If you spotted some gaps in support on your piece of paper, jot down some ways that you might be able to give or receive support. Be realistic with your time and energy and if you’re already feeling stretched. And then take one action step to do with your circle of support. One former client moved to a new area and she put up a notice at her child’s nursery asking if any of the parents would like to go for a pizza with her. It’s such a simple action that helped her to make new friends and find community. I’d love to hear what you’ve noticed about support in your life and one simple action that you can take about it.
And if you’ve enjoyed listening about this approach to health and wellbeing and would like more of it, make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter. I’ll be doing a live round of ‘The Intuitive Way to Wellness’ soon to help people to find their personal priorities for gentle and accessible tools for a healthier life.
Resources:
Childhood Connection and Empathy for a Harmonious Society with Robin Grille