How to offer support to your loved ones & your tribe
Tribal tips for moms, dads, practitioners, sisters and lovers of all kinds
We always talk about what we need, want, and desire in our relationships, but very seldom do we think or talk about how can we offer the correct support to the people we are in a relationship with. This is especially true for young children as we have an incredible opportunity at hand to offer the right support to those who haven’t been conditioned yet, but of course, it extends to everyone who’s close to us and who we consider a part of our tribe. As someone with a lot of tribal energy in my human design chart, offering support comes very naturally to me as long as I am listening to my instincts and not acting out of my not-self.
Are love and support the same thing? Not really. We can be very loving and yet we may not have the necessary awareness, empathy, and information at hand to offer the correct support to the person we so deeply love. When I look back at my childhood I can see that my parents truly loved me but they did not have the correct support information. When I look back at my previous friendships and relationships, I find the same thing. When I look at my sister, who is a very individual being, I admit I struggle to not feel supported sometimes in the way I craved to despite knowing that she does truly love me immensely. And you know what? Quiet same for them!
In this article, I wanted to enlist a few tribal tips that you may take from someone who’s been actively learning, teaching, and practicing support in very practical ways in her work and beyond. You can use these tips in your personal dynamics as well as for your professional consultations and facilitations if you hold one. Let’s go -
01. Offer openness, hold space:
When someone is in need of support, that’s also when they are in a deep resistance to receiving support. They might not believe they would be received for their authenticity, truth, and vulnerability. You must offer space and openness to assure them that they have the permission to express themselves in whatever ways they desire to and you’d hold space for them unconditionally, sans any judgements. This also means that you got to mean this and for a few moments, you got to throw your judgments and prejudices out of the window.
02. Offer empathy, hold back solutions
I know it’s very tempting to jump in with your thinking hats and start dishing out active solutions when you find someone you love stuck in problems. My intensive mind always loves to be a problem-solver. It believes that the knight in shining armor for some reason rescues the princess with his mind and muscle power. Enticing, but not so much when you want to offer support. Offering support is very feminine and means listening and offering heartfelt empathy that this person in front of you is no damsel in distress, but instead, a courageous, breathing human who is going through their battles. When we offer solutions in their peak vulnerability, we dismiss their courage and their power. Trust me you don’t want to belittle them in this vulnerable moment. The greatest gift you can offer in this moment is a listening ear and an empathetic heart.
03. Offer yourself self-inquiry and self-soothing
This is a very unconventional way of offering support, but sometimes, it’s the best we can do, okay? We are all messy humans and we all have our waves and battles to combat. Some days are good, some are okay, and some can be reactive. Self-enquiry can save so many relationships on this planet right now. We have to enquire with ourselves if we are actually in the space to offer support. If you know even a percentage of human design, you’d know how one can amplify another’s energy. And so, it’s important that before we want to step in to ‘save them’, we ask ourselves, if we have the nervous system capacity to be even present in the same room as them (of course this doesn’t apply to actual life and death situations!). If we find ourselves getting reactive with their energy, how can we take a moment of time out to self-soothe ourselves instead before we can soothe them? And then, if you still find yourself unable to be neutral, know that you get to come back around later and let them find support in themselves. Note that when I say neutral, I don’t mean easy as offering support is never comfortable and easy and will always ask you to step up your vulnerability game. What we are thinking here is to be in a space where you can be in a place to respond and support instead of react.
04. Offer their preferred choice of soothing
We all are so unique. Our trauma associations and desired love language are just as unique. While for some touch can extremely be soothing (someone like me who carries a 19-49 channel of sensitivity in Human Design), for someone else, it can instead be even more alarming and triggering. Get to know your tribe’s preferred choice of soothing. Is it touch, word, validation, space - what is it that they truly need from someone who loves them in that very moment that can potentially restore their peace? If you don’t know, give them choices or ask them. Yes, it’s simple but ask them - what do they need?
05. Ask them- how can I support you?
This makes it so much easier for you to offer the kind of support that they need or desire from you - be it a hug, an affirmation, a tangible form of support, or a wise perspective. Instead of second-guessing and throwing spaghetti on the wall, you get to give them the freedom to answer it for you. When you are offering support, it is indeed about them. Let this time and moment be for them. This doesn’t mean you get to promise them something you don’t have. Honour yourself and let them in response know what is your personal capacity of extending support. Yes, not very comfortable, but again, I wouldn’t be writing this article if this whole thing was that comfortable.
06. Offer time and pause, don’t rush in
Sometimes, even if unknowingly, we can find ourselves in a rush and would want to jump to conclusions. Maybe this is because some personal threads are being pulled through this vulnerable exchange, maybe it’s because you are distracted or maybe you just want to hop to the next moment where you and your loved one/s are finally over this uncomfortable situation. Nonetheless, rushing doesn’t help. Real support happens at its own pace and time. You have to trust their pace and their process. We have no idea what their life wants them to extract from their situation and transmutation at hand and so you ought to gift them the freedom to receive from life.
Offering support can translate to witnessing life with your loved one and letting them know that they still get to move at their own pace.
As you saw above, offering support becomes a shared space rather than a lonely road. Support in itself means that you have their back.
No, you cannot do life for them,
No, you cannot feel for them. No, you can also not heal for them.
And yet you get to support them anyway. This is the beauty of tribal support, of being held, of not feeling like you’re an outsider. This is the beauty of ‘being there’. Oh, ask a tribal being what it means to have someone be there for them. Everything!
The truth is we are not living in tribes anymore and we don’t have a whole village at hand to raise kids. Truth is, our sense of tribe is only going to get diminished more and more as move into the age of individualization. And yet, we need and crave support more than ever before. Our minds and our bodies are still having a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that tribal support is not in existence anymore. This transition is brutal.
And so I hope, with this article and my entire body of work, that you can find some resources and a bucket-ton of relief to support your process of transition anyhow. Much love and grace xx
Do let me know in the comments if this article resonates with you and how!! I love hearing stories of resonance and truth immensely.
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