Habit #2: Pursue social support—of a specific kind
Mounds of evidence shows that creating community and connection is vitally important for building a thriving life. It helps with everything. When you have a supportive community, you are less likely to snap at your kids (yes, it’s true!), more likely to have better physical and mental health and do better in school, and (if your supportive community is supportive of marriage) less likely to get divorced.
What I’m curious about now is: what kind of social support is most impactful for helping us push through life’s challenges? We can guess that having friends who will encourage us, and who are good listeners matters.
But what we are finding in the research so far is much, much more specific: To truly come through trauma and hardship well, these four variables matter:
- You need someone you can talk to
- You expect they will ‘get’ your troubles
- You expect them to be vulnerable with you
- You are vulnerable with them
The pattern applies to everyone and every issue, but let’s suppose you are caring for a spouse whose mental health has dramatically declined. Your once-loving spouse now screams out their needs … or doesn’t even remember you. To process it all, you need to talk to someone—but not just anyone. Your friends from church may sympathize, but they won’t get it. They don’t know the demands of caregiving while someone you love slowly slips away. So, you need to talk to another caregiver who intimately understands.
And here’s the key: You need to be able to be vulnerable about what you are really going through—and you are most likely to be vulnerable if you expect the other person will be, too.
So that’s the formula that appears most likely to work: Reach out to the person who can relate—who you think and hope might be willing to really open their heart—and then take the risk to open yours. Build the connection that will be life-giving for both of you.
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