There are a few fundamental shifts I want to see happening in the world. One is a shift from independence to interdependence. In my experience our current culture trains us into a twisted version of self-sufficiency: don’t be a weight on others, and certain things a “normal adult” has to be able to do themselves to be taken seriously (and if you can’t, you try and hide it). It’s twisted because not only does it often leave us feeling alone and possibly even ashamed, it’s also vastly inefficient, and it tries to keep up an illusion of us being independent beings.
And sure, we do want to become non-dependent. We don’t want to stay dependent through our adult lives the way we were as children. But there is something other than being dependent and independent: leaning actively on webs of support in ways that make it possible for us to do things we otherwise couldn’t do at all or to do things with much less energy spent.
What I was struggling with
There has been a time over the last year during which, for a variety of reasons, I was so behind with taxes and tax-related things (like health insurance) that any letter from the tax office or health insurance almost elicited a sense of panic in me. Would it be (again) some urgent, possibly complicated request (demand, really), some reminder charges? I was dreading these letters and it took me so much inner effort to open them, that I often left them lying around for weeks. That kind of worked: everyday I did not open them the pressure within me slightly increased, so that after weeks at some point the point would be reached that it became impossible to ignore. But at that point it was often already too late. I had missed a deadline, a fee had been added, I would receive calls from a tax office person who was (understandably!) very frustrated about what I was doing. So it worked in the sense that things were still moving, I did effectively attend to the tasks. And did not work for me at all in the sense that so much of my energy was drained by this, and the outcome did not contribute in any way to what I was hoping to contribute to this world in any way. This process was incredibly wasteful (and those who know me better know how much I like things to be efficient)! If I do something and it does not directly contribute to what I want to see happening in the world, I would want it to give me energy, or at least not drain my energy.
The actual support system: Unboxing tax letters
I reached out to someone (Fox) and he said yes! Yes to what? Yes to meeting with me on Zoom every week for a few weeks for (just!) 10 minutes or so, and witness me opening those letters, and be there to receive me sharing my distress, rant about tax laws, bureaucracy or whatever, and celebrate me for doing something that is difficult for me and for asking for support for it. It was AMAZING! Opening those letters became a highlight, we had lots of good laughs, and it gave both of us energy. We felt like those people on YouTube overexcitedly “unboxing” their latest gadget. And by now I’m back up to speed, no more tax or health insurance related things in the backlog. I can do these things again easily by myself and even enjoy doing them now to some extent, and I know that support is available, and that, if I ever needed it again (likely!), I know I can reach out and it will be amazing!
Here you see us joyfully celebrating yet another unboxed tax letter:
Some meta thoughts on support systems
What I love about this particular system, is that it was close to zero effort for the person who supported me, that ended up giving him energy. It’s such a beautiful example for me about what interdependence looks like: when we stop assuming that we need to be able to do anything by ourselves, really, and that supporting us is not by default a weight on others, we can ask others for the support we need for as long as we need it. We are not dependent on that particular person, and we still need the support from someone. And this kind of support I would never have gotten from a todo-list, a reminder, etc., it needed to a human being with their loving presence.
I’m grateful for my time in the NGL Community [1], which was my initiation into support-systems: Instead of asking “Can I do this?” I was always invited to ask instead “What support do I need to be able to do this?” I’m also grateful for the field of love in that community which made it possible for me to look deep enough and with open eyes to be able to catch what is actually difficult for me in such an instance and then find support that is an accurate fit for this or that struggle.
[1] Nonviolent Global Liberation Community