What does Support mean to you? Having a steady job or career, financial security, owning a home, being able to provide resources to take care of yourself and your family? Knowing that you can rely on your partner and community of friends to stand by you? Depending on a structure for your life that is consistent and reliable?

There are other kinds of support you may have been taking for granted: People follow rules of the road, electricity turns on when you flip a switch, weather in your region follows a fairly predictable pattern, your tap water is drinkable, you have access to affordable health care, and our elected officials are doing their job to ensure that you – and your loved ones – continue to be safe in this world.

These days many of my clients feel that the support they’ve relied upon is eroding. As we address concerns like how to transition into the new career, stay revitalized while growing older, or bring intimacy back into a long-term relationship, underlying  most of our conversations is a bigger worry: Are we going to continue to be safe in the world? Most of my clients don’t feel supported by the new administration. Rather, they feel destabilized by the crises that occur on a daily basis in the White House. There is fear that the safety we’ve taken for granted for decades is on very shaky ground.

So I ask you – and myself – a difficult question: What if the external forms of support we rely upon do fall apart? What if we lose affordable health care, protection of basic human rights, funding for resources to protect the planet? What if our national security is threatened? Then what?

Is there a deeper kind of support you can rely upon? I have learned through my travels in third world countries, and more importantly, though journeying into my own psyche – and holding space for my clients to do their inner work – that true support is NOT external. The support I’m talking about doesn’t have anything to do with a physical home, tangible job, even a committed relationship. There is a bedrock of stability that exists within us that is so strong and solid that nothing external can ever shake it.

I’m not suggesting that you sit back, bury your head in the sand or do nothing about what’s going on in the world. However, I do offer this: If you allow yourself to be consumed with anger or fear or take sides against ‘those people’, you drain your most precious resource – your vital energy – and you may burn yourself out. When you’re exhausted, you’re no help to anyone – and life’s challenges do seem insurmountable.

It’s absolutely imperative you focus on igniting and sustaining your internal vitality, so you can be resilient like a firmly rooted  tree, and solid like a mountain. If external storms blow, or things fall apart, you can ground into yourself and stay steady. When you rely on this internal support you gain access to a deeper wisdom, and can take powerful action.

Cultivating this inner resiliency is an essential part of my work with clients. As you uncover and learn to depend your connection with your inner Being, the true source of support, you feel enlivened, and life flows in new and unexpected ways. Resources appear, relationships deepen, your actions make a difference, and everything gets a lot more fun (miracles happen!)

Here is a simple 4 step process from my book, The Power of Pause: simple meditations for complicated lives. It may help when you find yourself reacting to the latest new bulletin:

  1. Wake up: If you are feeing uncomfortable, overwhelmed, reactive or out of control, PAUSE. Your body is telling you to wake up and listen.
  2. Become Aware: Ask yourself, “what am I telling myself about this situation? how is the story I’m telling making me feel and respond? Does this response feel familiar, and is this response making the situation better or worse?
  3. Shift: Breathe and consider the possibility that there is NOTHING to do, except be with what is arising without trying to fix it.
  4. Take Action: Notice if a new response naturally arises from within you when you’re not striving to fix or change the situation.

Would you like to learn more about how to cultivate Inner Support? Contact me for a complementary consultation.