Welcome to Conflict Confidential, a newsletter about relationships and, of course, conflict. Listen to this post on Spotify.
I’ve been in transition. Still am. Even before moving my family out of the city I have felt like I’m living within a major shift. In recent years it’s been more pronounced - the pandemic, birthing a second child, adapting to a drastically different lifestyle, and traversing a career change. It’s been quite a ride.
Transitions are hard. Change is constant, and damn it’s jarring nonetheless. I’ve had to learn how to be adaptive in completely new ways. A real stretching of myself. With these transitions, new challenges keep popping up. Emotional shit I’ve carried for years gets majorly shaken loose. I’m still figuring out how to usher in a sort of settling so I can move forward with more ease. Yet the jumbling is hella messy. With all these emotional particles floating around and landing on all aspects of my life, I often found myself feeling overwhelmed.
These anxiety-tinged feelings are especially heightened when some of these transitions carry conflict. Big conflicts like the painful dissolution of relationships and small conflicts like navigating hints of tensions on a team at a new job. These conflicts are like tests. When dealing with curveballs can I stay connected to who I am and walk away feeling whole? I hate when I respond in ways which don’t help anything, or make things worse. It feels terrible. So I’ve been trying new things. I’m working on my shit so I can better notice when I’m projecting vs. when I’m being impacted by someone else’s shit. It’s a fine line (what’s my shit, what’s their shit?) but having the awareness makes a huge difference. So I’m seeking, learning, and practicing new skills to transmute situations into more positive results. Definitely not always successful, often failing. But I’m also practicing self-compassion so I remind myself to shrug like at least I’m trying.
It’s challenging to experiment amid big changes. It’s clear to me it’s impossible to do this alone. Whatever changes might happen within oneself is most vividly felt, and tested, and reinforced, in our relationships. We might want to see ourselves as one way but then people in our families or social circles bring out someone else. Certain personalities trigger certain responses in us. When we come together to create something, like as a group at work, school, community or wherever, the quality of the relationships will shape the outcome. We’re never really alone in our experience of the world. We’re constantly informed by, and contributing to, our inherent interconnectedness with other people.
Life is multifaceted and complex. How we behave in one area of life is inextricably influenced by what might be going on in our other areas. Like an instrument, we need to be attuned to show up as best we can where it matters most. Humans are highly sophisticated operating systems. We understand the world through our senses and our memories of past experiences. We process information with our whole body, through our brains and our nervous systems. (Pro tip: Google image search “human nervous system.” That’s inside us! Sending signals. Sensing things. Responding to other nervous systems. All day every day.) We ebb and flow as we transition through states of regulation and constriction, stimulation and rest. While in these states we make decisions, or find fulfillment, through a combination of an internal and external flow of data. We are “informed” by our bodies and the data we take in from others. To use an internet analogy, simultaneously uploading and downloading we are constantly streaming information.1 How we make sense of it all is unique to each of us. So there’s opportunity here. We can intentionally manipulate our dataflow. If we think about the people we interact with as part of our energetic information forcefield, then we should organize our feedback loop to conjure our best selves.
We can create our own System of Support. It’s a system to move through life stronger.
There are endless lifehacks on how to live better- how to form positive habits, be more productive, be mindful, etc. Subscribing to these hacks one notices a theme: creating a system makes the payoff seem effortless. Systems look like routines, or sequencing, or assembling certain life components to get into an optimal flow. (I’m training for a half-marathon right now. It’s kind of mindless as I’m just following a week-by-week training program on an app. A system was created for me. I just have to follow the plan, press play, and run. I’m already more than halfway toward my goal.) Systems work.
When we design our System of Support we must first look at all the aspects of life to honestly assess how things are going. Then we ask: Who do we turn to for support? Which relationships bring out the best in us? We think about the people who make us feel seen, who reflect back to us the person we know we are. Who inspires us? Who helps us process difficulties? Who helps us understand the world? Who helps us heal? We want to identify who makes us feel safe. Whose words get us to think more sharply. Who is fun? Who’s reliable? Whose guidance is resonant? Whose perspective do we trust with our whole body? Who infuses something special into our life and at what frequency? We think about which of our relationships shine bright to generate warmth within us. We know who we can be really real with.
No one person can be all of these things. Instead, multiple people come through, on different levels. It’s helpful to envision a sort of web of relationships with ourselves at the center. We map our web. We have agency to curate who is in our orbit. Not everyone lives within a built-in community, so we must be creative in forming it for ourselves. We can shift and change our supporters or relationship intensity as we see fit. We might look around at the people in our lives and see a need for strengthening or editing, adjusting or repairing. Our supporters can be our friends. We can also find support in committing to working with a professional.2 Our support can come from people we know IRL, or from thought-leaders we admire now or throughout history. We can see supporters in person, talk solely through technology, or read or listen to their wisdom from afar. Support can be through connecting with spirit, or our ancestors. Plant and animal friends are valid too. If we notice voids in our spread of relationships we might find courage to reach beyond those already in the mix and forge new connections to support the life areas in need of extra attention.
Our System of Support is adaptive for different seasons of life. We shape it as we go to find the balance. It is our relational scaffolding for maintaining mental resilience and encouraging more positive self-talk. We’re ensuring our bodies regularly get to feel into love and be in acceptance mode. Recalibrating this way allows us to deepen our connection to our surroundings. Being grounded fuels our presence.
“Through others we become ourselves.” -Lev Vygotsky, Soviet Psychologist
I appreciate the advice by Ryan Howes on a recent six minute episode of The Best Advice Show on how we might go about building a team for our System of Support. It’s like assembling a Life Board of Advisors. Howes proposes writing down a list of the trusted people we can turn to in these eight areas of life:
Emotional Support
Physical Health
Career Advice
Relationship Guidance
Spirituality
Finances
Political and Societal Problems
Pure Fun and Joy
Perhaps there are other areas to add too, like Sexuality, Parenting, Creative Expression…
I’ve been working through this idea since I heard it. My list is maybe halfway solid. I must admit I’m still stuck on a few. It's a good thought exercise for being intentional about who I consider a part of my System of Support.
Our trusted advisors help us become stronger individuals. Having a System of Support lets us exist more calmly in our day-to-day. When in the practice of processing our life with our chosen community, we are able to handle the more difficult moments solo. For example in conflict, we might be better able to zoom out. We might see ourselves less engulfed and instead try to view the situation “from the balcony.” More spaciousness in conflict helps us better understand the whole situation and not stay trapped in emotional binary thinking which keep us each stuck in our positions, in our own heads, and make rash decisions. In these tense situations, with a System of Support we can hear the echos of our supporters and know we’re not alone. We might pause to consider, WW(S)D? Feeling held by our people, we may open capacity for empathy towards those who lash out from deficiencies in their lives.
Framing our perspective through the lens of our System of Support allows us to also practice being part of a collective consciousness. Being part of a community is the antidote to feelings of isolation or hopelessness. Reciprocity of thought and care spurs new possibilities.3 This is a built-in feature of the system.
What we pay attention to grows. Some days I can hardly recognize my life. Yet I’m paying attention. I’m able to move deliberately even amidst uncertainty because of my System of Support. They keep me focused. I’m taking risks and showing up, while behind the scenes I’m definitely being helped by my people. If one person falls back I might feel a way, but I’m definitely not abandoned- I still have the rest of my team. I know who to reach out to in times of conflict to feel affirmed and more clear in next steps. I know who’s there for a guaranteed good story, generating inspiration. I prioritize fun and pleasure in the relationships where we can really just go there together. I heed smart advice. I model after good influences. I’m held accountable by people who I genuinely care about and who make me feel loved. I’m finding it invaluable to maintain these safe supportive relationships for sorting through vulnerable messiness. Then when I do find myself in tricky situations I’m as steady as I can be, hopefully sending positive ripples instead of causing friction. Because I have my system, I’m a stronger support for others, playing my part in their System of Support too. It’s how these systems work. We shape our reality, our actions impact others. Our webs intersect and interconnect. Support for ourselves is support for all.
Risk-taking
I’m contemplating hosting a Circle of Support this fall. Would you wanna join us?
Listen Here,
Thomas Hübl’s interview with Prentis Hemphil on our collective body hit the spot.
The always inspiring Staci Haines on Green Dreamer talking about embodying new practices to reshape our relationships.
S. E. Rogie shares the Recipe for Truth and Lasting Happiness.
Thomas Hübl has a lot to say on how we experience one another. This interview is a real fascinating dive. Read more in his new book Attuned.
Professional support is support - therapist, coach, advisor, specialist, consultant, healer, doula. There are incredible people out there. It’s worth exploring, and investing in ourself.
“The future is a field of possibility.” -Artist and author Jenny Odell in a recent interview with Emergence Magazine on our experience of time. Check out her book(s).