STEP
3
Get and Give Support

“Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Support is the vehicle through which you use the pain surfaced in the early Steps as a crucial stepping-stone to the learning, lightness, and letting go inherent in Steps Four through Seven. Support reminds you that betrayal can be a gift and provides tremendous opportunity for growth when you let yourself see it that way. Step Three of the Seven Steps for Healing is about how you can reach out to others for support, whether you are the betrayed or the inadvertent betrayer.

Many times, people surface their feelings and then stop the healing process. Support helps you to make a choice about the path to take. Courage is your partner when you embrace Step Three. You choose to move into and embrace your healing. Conversely, when you choose to linger in Steps One and Two, you embrace the stance of the victim. Healing to rebuild trust does not happen to you, it happens because of you, as a result of the conscious choice you make about how to respond to disappointment, hurt, or pain.

Over the last two decades, in supporting individuals, teams, and organizations to rebuild trust, we have accompanied some people who immediately embrace the path of healing, and others who linger in the victim mode, have false starts, or stop partway through. We honor their choices, no matter how circuitous their paths may be. What we caution them against is choosing to remain a victim. Why?

They settle into resentment and bitterness. Over time, they take on an air of entitlement, feeling justified in what they feel the world “owes” them. These are not easy people to work with. When they don’t get what they feel they are owed, they become apathetic and abdicate responsibility. They tend to go through the motions, doing only what is necessary to get by, and are masterful at covering their tracks.

Does this description sound familiar to you? Are you this person? Do you work with someone like this? If yes, you are not alone. The workplace is filled with these “working wounded.” Think of what it is like to collaborate with this individual.

When people choose the path of healing, they step directly into their pain and choose to work through it instead of becoming defined by it. The result is renewal with heightened awareness of self, others, and what it takes to have healthy relationships that produce results.

These individuals are conscious and aware of themselves and of others. They are as invested in others’ success as they are in their own. They are inclined to take responsibility and hold themselves accountable. In short, they are trustworthy and you know that, with them, you can accomplish just about anything.

Do these people sound familiar to you? Are some on your team? What is it like to collaborate with these people? Would you like to have more of them around you? Would you like to be a person who chooses this path?

Ways to Get Support

Support is a gift you give to yourself. Everyone, including the person who hurt someone else, is deserving of support. Many people, ashamed of their pain, let their pride stop them from reaching out. They deny themselves compassion. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; support may, in fact, challenge you to go even deeper into your pain than you might on your own. In seeking support, you are extending compassion to yourself and honoring your humanness.

The role of support is to provide perspective that you may not see in your pain. Through support, you discover lessons. You come to understand your pain. Support comes in many forms, and the degree of support needed will vary depending on the circumstances: the more hurtful the betrayal, or the more unresolved the feelings that are left over from past betrayals, the greater the need for a strong framework of support.

Ask Others for Support

The most common way to garner support is to reach out to friends, family, colleagues, or professionals such as clergy members, coaches, consultants, facilitators, and Human Resources specialists. It’s important to talk to someone with whom you feel safe. As one of our clients said, “The first place I went was to my wife and my minister . . . people who love me, warts and all.” Support that fosters healing most effectively comes from a person who can remain neutral by suspending her own judgment and is someone you feel safe expressing your feelings to.

Your supporter’s role is to:

Help you to move through the Steps of acknowledging what happened, allowing your feelings to surface, and gaining objectivity to reframe your experience and take responsibility

Hold the space of healing

Hold you accountable compassionately

The sacred container of support is compromised if he or she:

Tells you what to do

Is judgmental toward you or the other person involved

Engages in venting about what happened

“Joins forces” with you by taking your side in a way that helps you stay stuck in blaming another: “That guy was a jerk to me just like he was to you! He was so wrong and you were right!”

You can also tap into communities of support such as “trust circles” and other safe forums with colleagues. Through hearing others’ experiences, you come to understand your own. Expressing your feelings within a group to gain support for healing is not griping, whining, or moaning for the sake of blaming others or the organization. The focus of these groups is to seek support from others who are also willing to take responsibility for their behavior and for seeking solutions.

Find Support Within Yourself

In looking back over his journey to heal from a major betrayal, one of our clients said, “While external support was helpful, I didn’t really move toward healing until I was able to support myself.”

You, too, have an enormous capacity to support yourself. You even have the power to heal yourself, should you choose to. Healing begins with your choice to listen to yourself and to an internal voice that says you deserve healing and renewal. When you take the time to be present, thoughtful, and purposeful, your energy begins to expand and you return to yourself.

Sometimes the greatest form of support you can give to yourself is stillness. Actually doing nothing may be exactly what you need most. Give yourself permission to step back to create space and distance. Doing so will provide perspective about what you are experiencing and what you may need from others.

Many people we have worked with find it helpful to engage in gentle movement, such as yoga, a walk, a light run, or easy swim that supports introspection and gets stagnant energy moving. Journaling is another powerful venue wherein you may provide yourself support. In journaling, there is both a release that lightens your mind and heart, and learning that moves you along the path of healing. The act of putting your thoughts and feelings on paper validates them; once you accept them as written, you open part of yourself to hear the insight that is within you but may be blocked or buried in your pain.

Here, for instance, are a few insights from Dennis’s journal, written in the middle of the night as he lay in a hospital bed during his second bout with cancer:

“In stillness, we can listen to our inner being: who we are and what we need. Stillness is the window to our soul.”

“Pain is a great teacher. Many lessons lie in its presence; that is, if we are still enough to listen and learn.”

“In stillness, we can connect with that part of us which knows how to heal ourselves, that part of us that knows the core truth, our truth: of who we are, of what we need to learn and grow and accomplish our life’s purpose and destiny.”

Dennis learned through journaling that in the space of stillness, with his doubt and fear quieted, he was able to give himself the kind of support that no one else could give. He was able to connect with his Higher Self for strength and comfort.

Trust Tip Some of our greatest insight can come through stillness with ourselves and by talking about our insights with others.

When You Have Been Betrayed

A global organization laid-off employees company-wide due to a downturn in the domestic market. Gail, Karl, and Dawn, old friends who worked in different areas of the business, were laid off on exactly the same day.

Feeling betrayed by her boss, the company, and the situation, Gail reached out for support. She spoke with friends and colleagues and sought help from trained counselors to work through her pain. In the mornings she wrote her difficult thoughts in a journal, and in the evenings she worked out her negative feelings at the gym. She took responsibility for herself in the situation and, as a result, has moved through her pain to excel in new opportunities.

Karl reached out to his managers for support, but they refused to give it to him because they said if they helped him, they would have to help fifteen others as well. Not having time for all of them and not wanting to show favoritism, they suggested Karl talk to family and friends outside of the company. Karl found that they didn’t know how to help, and so their support was inadequate, especially now that he felt doubly betrayed by his managers. He had given so much of himself to the job prior to the layoff and had been a consistent high performer. With that resume, he moved quickly into new job with long hours, but it is less than satisfactory. Devastated and feeling victimized, Karl directs his anger toward his former managers. He remains stuck in his anger and has not been able to process his feelings or move on successfully.

Dawn did not seek support at all. Instead, she buried her feelings and declined any assistance that was offered by her managers, HR, and even her friends and family. Saying she needed to concentrate on getting a new job, she dropped out of her cycling group, gained weight, and began experiencing back pain. She continued to blame others for her misfortune and not take the time to deal with her anger. To this day she is resentful of the circumstances and struggling with her unresolved feelings. She consults to former clients on a project-by-project basis but has not found a full-time job.

The three friends experienced such different outcomes. What was the key difference in their approaches? Gail successfully reached out to others and within herself for support, while neither Karl nor Dawn found support from others or from within themselves. Gail has reached a sense of peace in her life while both Karl and Dawn wrestle with the shadow of the past.

We cannot overstate how important it is for you to find the kind of support that is right for you. Whether your support is a professional, friend, family member, or colleague, share your feelings with a “trusted adviser.” If you are dealing with a major betrayal, have him or her assist you in reconnecting with painful feelings from your past that are related to your present circumstance. Use this support to help you confront feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, or powerlessness so that you may reestablish your self-esteem and return to a fuller sense of self. Have the person help you to see the choices and options available to you.

When You Have Betrayed Others

When you realize that you have breached someone’s trust, you have feelings, too. But it is less likely that someone will approach you, someone who hurt another, to see if you need support—especially if you are the boss or supervisor. Yet you, too, are human and deserve support.

You will have to go through the same Steps for healing as the person who was betrayed because you are hurting, too. Sometimes the realization that you have hurt another person can cause deeper discomfort than when you are the one who has been hurt by someone else. The betrayal of the self is a deeply felt betrayal. You need support to provide you with perspectives that you may not be able to see through your pain and guilt. Support will help you to regain your confidence and be able to be fully present with the person you betrayed in order to heal that relationship.

You first need to give yourself support so that you are able to observe the situation and fully acknowledge the impact of your behavior on the other person. You also need support to work through your own feelings of vulnerability, shame, embarrassment, or blame. Support will help you to see that, while you may have lost your footing, you are not a “bad” person.

Here’s an example of how someone might transition from observation, impact, and surfacing feelings to asking specific questions for support:

“I hurt someone else and I am ashamed, embarrassed, and feeling guilty. As a result, the other person has shunned me and I feel isolated and abandoned.”

“I made a mistake and I feel like hell. I want to understand what caused me to behave in such a way. How did I lose my footing?”

“I want to know if I should be beating myself up so much for my blunder. How do I make this better? How do I give restitution to the person I hurt?” “How do I get the relationship back? How do I make this pain go away?”

When you are ready to seek support, it is best that you not go to the person you hurt or individuals closely aligned with that person. Your support person needs to be present with you and detached from what happened. It is almost impossible for people close to the situation to overcome their own hurt feelings to be an objective source of support for you.

When You Want to Help Others Rebuild Trust

Ralph thought he was next in line for the director’s job. He had worked his way up through the ranks diligently for the last twelve years and had a good working relationship with his board of directors, who were aware of his big plans to take the agency to new heights.

When Ralph didn’t get the job, he was awestruck and devastated. “How could that be? I don’t believe it!” he repeated again and again to himself and to his wife, Carol. Carol supported Ralph by listening, reflecting, and helping him to surface his feelings. She offered him solace and compassion. But when Ralph started to blame others for his misery, she put her foot down. “Stop your bellyaching and wallowing in self-pity. Take some responsibility for yourself!”

Carol challenged Ralph to look beyond his pain. She encouraged him to see both the positive and negative truth of the situation, which he was unwilling to face. Through her support, Ralph was able to reframe his situation, and shift from trying to preserve his pride and ego to exploring the choices and opportunities now available to him.

Just as getting support for yourself takes many forms, giving support may take many forms as well. Even as you support one person, your role, like Carol’s in the story above, may shift from being a quiet sounding board to actively challenging the person’s assumptions. Take a look at “When You Want to Help Others” sections throughout the book. They contain the nuts and bolts of providing support for each Step in the healing process. We provide guidance specific to each Step within each of those chapters, and you will notice that the support you offer will often circle back to prior Steps.

In addition to understanding the trajectory of the Seven Steps for Healing, there are some basic skills that are fundamental to providing support, no matter the phase of the healing process. We provide a primer on three of these fundamentals here for you to use in each of the other Steps.

Maintain Clear Intentions

Before supporting someone else, you need to make sure you are emotionally ready and clear in your intentions. Use this checklist to know that you are prepared:

Are you aware of any of your feelings that might get in the way of supporting another effectively? Are you feeling blame or anger because you were let down? Are you able to see beyond these feelings?

Can you take on the mind-set of a learner—someone curious enough to want to know more in order to create more capacity for healing? Or are you in judging mode, willing to jump to conclusions without testing your assumptions?

Are you open to challenging some of your own assumptions regarding the situation? It is important that you do not bring in your own baggage; doing so will compromise the situation.

Are you clear that your “job” is supporting the other person in working through his or her feelings? You are not there to “fix” or solve the problem. Your job is to allow him to do his work.

Listen

“I know my boss, Nigel, cares because he really listens to me. He hears me, sees my vulnerability. Being in this place helps me to accomplish A LOT! Being able to talk issues through with him has helped me to get through the worst year of my life because of my painful divorce.”

Listening is a powerful source of support. When people are in pain they need to tell their story and be heard. Earlier, we wrote about how you can support your own healing by being still and present to yourself through meditation, journaling, and exercise. You can also extend your calm presence to those you want to help. Sometimes support can be as simple as sitting down over a beverage with a colleague who is going through a tough time and being present to her story. You support others as you listen while they share their concerns, fears, and anxieties. Create or seize informal opportunities to have them talk through their concerns.

Help Solutions Rise to the Surface

To best help others, support them in coming up with their own solutions instead of providing the solutions. The Golden Rule here: Ask, don’t tell. The power is asking the right questions to help them discover solutions for themselves.

Ask, don’t tell

As you help someone move through the next four Steps of the healing process, try supportive questions such as these:

“Tell me what you think would help the situation.”

“If you were the other person, how might you see the situation?”

“What do you think the person you hurt might need you to understand and acknowledge most? How can you do that?”

“In what ways can you demonstrate that you understand the impact of your behavior?”

“What is stopping you from reaching out to the other person?”

Through the deliberate acts of giving support, you express your own trustworthiness, and you participate in trust begetting trust. You amplify your own healing—whether that healing was last week or ten years ago, and whether it was at work or home, for the benefit of others, your teams, or your organization. You help create a workplace where trust can be rebuilt again and again.