“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.” - James Clear, Atomic Habits
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Let’s talk about your anxiety support system. Who are you surrounded by? Who are you leaning on and sharing with? What do they believe about your anxiety? What are they doing about theirs?
These are important questions because who you surround yourself with can have a real impact on your recovery. Let’s look at the definition of “support” for a moment. What is support? What does it mean to you?
Almost by default, support is seen as having a place where you can share, vent and commiserate with people that understand and/or share your struggle. Having support means not being alone in with your problems. I won’t argue against that. This is certainly true in my eyes.
But that can’t be the only definition of support. I would argue that support also means cheering for you and believing in you when you are struggling to believe in yourself. Support involves encouraging, inspiring, and empowering. If you listen to these emails as a podcast, those words are going to sound very familiar since they’re in the opening of every Anxious Morning podcast episode. I put them there for a reason.
Especially when it comes to online support systems, ask yourself if you are demanding encouragement, inspiration, and empowerment, or if you are content with just hearing yet another person tell you that they also feel dizzy today. Are you surrounding yourself with people that only mirror your fear back at you and focus on comparing horror stories, or are you traveling in circles based on more than that.
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I would argue pretty loudly that it is in your very best interest to demand more from your support systems. Find places and groups full of people that not only share your struggle, but who are also committed to actually getting better by making real changes. The best support systems are full of people that understand what you’re up against, but that are not content to just passively wait for something to happen that might make things better. The best support systems are full of people actively engaged in the work of recovery.
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If you’re struggling to move forward because you’re having a hard time accepting the fact that you have to do difficult work to do that, surround yourself with people who are doing that difficult work. It will matter.
Who are you surrounded by?
Tomorrow we’ll follow-up on this topic by looking at how helping can also help the helper.
38. What Does Your Support System Look Like?