We all need support. We all need various forms of community where we can give and receive life, encouragement, help, and share our gifts including critical gifts like time, attention, and a listening ear. Below I have laid out some simple ideas for building and increasing your support systems. Dr E James Wilder was a psychologist who ran a large counseling practice on the west coast. They noticed that the clients who improved the most and the fastest were those who had some form of healthy community to belong to. I hope the same for all of my clients. While it is not my job, nor am I capable of knowing who would be good sources of support for each client, I have laid out a few ideas for establishing these connections.
Getting Started: (Pre-session and Phase 1)
- Get a blank page or imagine writing a list of the people you currently connect with at least monthly. Now add anyone you see or talk to at least yearly.
- Out of this list, are there 2-4 people who could support you on your counseling healing and growth journey. Ideally these are people who are good listeners and won’t just try to jump right to giving you advice. It’s also ideal if they are adequately wise and mature and can keep your sharing private. This does not need to be big commitment for them as you will see. Ideally select people beyond your immediate family who are not too closely involved with your work life.
- Consider if you would feel comfortable to make some form of the following request to these people.
- Write a real letter or an email to the following effect. Please adjust the wording to what feels right and comfortable to you. You can of course choose how much you want to tell them about the nature of the journey:
“Dear (friend), I am embarking on a new stage of my growth and healing journey [if desired you may mention this is by way of counseling and therapy work]. I am looking for a little additional support to help me as I do the work of shaking off some old blockages and get up to speed with some new skills so that I can come at life in a new, more relaxed, confident, and joyful way [adjust according to your main goals]. I am wondering if you would be willing to support me in any or each of the following ways? [adjust according to your felt needs]
- Communicate once or twice a month in person or over the phone throughout the next 3-6 months to talk through how the work is going.
- Keep me in your thoughts and/or prayers during the coming 3-6 months.
- Send an occasional text or email to ask how things are going for me.
- I will be starting the journey within the next [two weeks] and am trying to establish some basic supports so please give it some thought and let me know if you would feel up to this. Please do not feel any pressure or obligation, but if this does feel like something that feels life giving or fitting to you, please do let me know by [the end of the month]
If all goes well, this exercise will establish a helpful support foundation that can be of great help throughout the course of your counseling work.
Further Developing Your Support System (Phase 2)
As you move further along in the counseling work, there may be interest and benefit to deepening your social support systems. This may include connecting with a group of some sort to provide additional mutual support and encouragement. It could also include things like inviting a support person to join you in a counseling session to provide an extra sense of support as you resolve various memories, etc. These are of course optional and can be discerned both in counseling and with the wise counsel of supportive friends.
Lifelong Community (Phase 3 and beyond.)
We are simply social creatures. And while all of us need a mix of time to ourselves and time with others, when it comes down to it, we all need each other to survive and thrive. There is no way around it – humans simply are social beings. We rely on each other for everything from growing our food to treating our diseases. One of the outcomes I really hope to see in the people I work with is a new freedom both to connect, give, and receive in the context of healthy communities. That may include a wide range of connections from a small circle of close friends, to a healthy religious community, to groups of friends who get together to play games and have fun.
I hope that connecting with people in healthy ways whether with new friends or old ones feels increasingly more life giving as the work proceeds. My hope is that through the course of the counseling journey people realize the gifts they have to offer like wisdom, maturity, and skills that to share with others. Most of all I hope that people realize that the most important gift may be the gift of our presence and the ability to offer others our relaxed, focused, undivided, and compassionate attention.
I also hope that everyone I work with is able to establish ongoing relationships with people who can help them continue to grow, heal, love, and live a beautiful life; and who can walk with them far beyond the counseling journey. Ideally this community will include the following:
- People who encourage us.
- People who regularly give us honest feedback to help us see our blindspots.
- Mentors who are further down the road who can share wisdom and perspective with us.
- People who are at an earlier stage in the journey that we are able to support and encourage along the way.
- Good friends with whom we can truly be ourselves and who bring out the best in us.
- Participation in a group or community who holds life giving values that really call forth our best self.
While there is no perfect individual or group, and all of us need to regularly step back and evaluate how we are being influenced by our friends and community, we all need the good things that life giving individuals and groups have to offer at each stage of our lives. And the truth is, our friends and communities also need the good gifts that we have to offer in return.