First of all… wow! It’s hard to believe we’re already at week 4, but here we are. And the Inner Circle is continuing to blow our minds like we never expected.

Yesterday’s call saw a bunch of us open up and show up with our hearts on our sleeves. There was a recurring theme with everyone who shared, which was the idea of supporting the people in our lives authentically and effectively when they’re going through their own tough stuff. Turns out the Inner Circle peeps are a compassionate bunch! But how do we go about supporting the people we love when they’re not necessarily open to what we’ve got to say?

If you wanna dive into the call and soak it up at your leisure, you can do so with the MP3 recording.

Here are our favorite ideas from yesterday’s call :o)

Talking Point #1: Hold space rather than pointing fingers

When we think we’ve found our path, it can be all too easy to wanna share the love. We wanna shout from the rooftops, “Don’t eat that. You should be doing this. Why are you hanging out with those people?” This is especially true when it comes to our families and friends. We see them freaking out and (in our eyes) making mistakes, and we feel the need to set them straight.

But if we think about a time when things were going pear-shaped for us and we reached out to offload with a loved one, did we want that person to wag their finger and point out all the ways we were going wrong? Probably not!

Our pesky egos can get in the way sometimes, and getting everyone around to our way of thinking can even be a way of getting validation for our own paths, but often the most effective way to help someone is to hold space for them and be a subtle example. If they wanna offload with us, we need to love them for who they are and try to understand where they’re coming from. Sympathy is “I feel *for* you,” while empathy is “I feel *with* you.” The latter’s usually what people are seeking.

Talking Point #2: Be prepared to step back and set boundaries

This is where our intuition comes into play. How much energy does it take to hold space for someone? Answer: Usually a lot! And we can only expend so much energy before we need to recharge. But when we’re responding to someone’s need for support, we can allow our gut to guide us to show up at our best.

It might feel like we need to compromise what we really believe if we want to commiserate with someone, or give our whole selves as we listen for longer than we’d like. There’s nothing wrong with being a sounding board and a shoulder to cry on, but it can become draining, and there are only so many times we can cover the same ground. There’s gonna come a point when we need to step back and set some personal boundaries so we can keep showing up for that person in the most effective way (and so that person can make progress rather than staying stuck on the same record).

Talking Point #3: You can still love someone without them getting you

People care about us and want the best for us, but that doesn’t mean they’re always gonna understand why we do what we do. And they might make this pretty obvious. If there’s someone whose disapproval is sucking our soul, it’s gonna hurt. But we don’t have to completely cut them out of our lives. Just make the interactions about *them* instead. We can ask what they’re up to, while reassuring them that we’re good. We might be tempted to share our excitement about certain things, but being shot down isn’t gonna be helpful for our growth.

HW + Action Steps!

This was such an amazing call. We’re getting so inspired over here by the openness and willingness to share. But what was *your* favorite takeaway from this chat? We’d love to hear from you in the Facebook group.

We don’t want the connections to end with the call, so remember that you can always reach out and chat by using the hashtag #Sensophy on Twitter.