People show emotional support for others by offering genuine encouragement, reassurance, and compassion. This might include things like verbal expressions of sympathy or physical gestures of affection. Whatever form it takes, this support can improve anyone’s outlook and general wellness.
Some people have a knack for being emotionally supportive, but this skill doesn’t come naturally to everyone.
Below are some things to make you a master at expressing emotional support and cultivating mindful and profound relationships:
Mindful Listening
Lending our full attention without judgment or interruption may be one of the most profound immaterial gifts we can give. Asking what kind of response would be preferred is more respectful than immediately responding with your own assumptions.
Assumptions can often be incomplete and make your friend feel like you were not listening. Asking more profound questions about the truth behind the surface answer is not only revealing but validating that you care enough to ask.
Mindful Vault
Close friends will share personal stories. We are not always taught that it is not our right to share an experience that isn't our own. It's tempting to share stories that don't belong to you within a group of friends that you imagine might already know the story or have permission to hear it. Only the person to whom the story belongs has the right to the telling. Being mindful of your friend's sharing means keeping that story secure in the shared vault that makes your connection sacred.
Mindful Reliability
Being mindfully reliable means you’ve taken the time to find out what kind of reliability your friends want and honor that. If you are struggling to be reliable, perhaps you are operating at a mental or energetic health loss you are unaware of. This affects short-term memory, energy levels, mental clarity, and decision-making, making it impossible to keep your word.
Mindful Sovereignty
Claiming mindful sovereignty means you are in the process of transmuting the fall out of codependency (being a child, being a chronic over-giver) into sustainable skills of creating new ways of living. We build upon the poor habits of previous generations and learn indirectly from others' mistakes as much as our own. We are capable of transmuting the bad into good.
Personal mindful sovereignty means accepting your power to do this. Mindful sovereignty allows one to create their dream work and their dream relationships from a space of claiming how they wish to be in the world
Mindful Integrity
Mindful integrity is a superpower. A personal commitment to doing the right thing means you are capable of developing reliability, accountability, non-judgemental thinking, protecting confidences, and being generous with assumptions. It means you are capable of being trustworthy.
With enough mindful integrity, we can build a more functional world together. Mindful integrity means you’re willing to remain receptive, keep your word, and give your best effort. High integrity people usually save their energy for supporting positive outcomes that serve all parties.
Mindful Boundaries
Welcoming, setting, and honoring boundaries is a unifying form of communication. Others can’t always see or know about these without helpful communication. A warning about past abuse lets you know that a minefield of emotional triggers may exist; it’s easier to understand boundaries - than to cross them. It's an honor anytime someone trusts you enough to share their vulnerable truths.
