So I have this irregular romance with yoga.
We meet intensely for a while, then… we drift apart. You know how it is – life gets busy, travel interferes, children fall sick, work takes over etc. And when I finally come back to the mat after a longer break, two things always greet me: the painful stretch in the back of my legs (ouch, ouch, ouch) and the struggle with balance.
The stretching part is expected, since tight hamstrings are my familiar companions. However, the balance struggle surprises me every single time. Especially in positions that look simple. Like The Tree. One foot grounded, the other pressing lightly against the rooted leg, spine tall, breath calm, gaze fixed. In theory, elegant and serene, in practice makes me wobble and perform a funny little dance on the mat. Arrrrgh, quiet frustration.
Last month in Kerala, during my first days back on the mat, the Tree tested me again. I was swaying and negotiating with gravity. The teacher noticed. He came closer, gently offering support with his hand. But I waved him off.
“I’ll try myself” – I said, a bit embarrassed.
He paused for a moment, smiled softly (you know, with that characteristic wiseman smile), and replied:
“Sometimes you need support to maintain balance.”
That was it. No philosophy lecture, no motivational speech. Just a simple sentence that landed far beyond the yoga mat and stayed with me long after the practice ended.
We live in a world that celebrates self-sufficiency. Self-reliance. Independence. Personal strength. Mental toughness. The ability to “figure it out on your own.” Technology reinforces this story even more: you don’t need people that much – just the right tools, apps, systems, AI. With that, you will be faster. More efficient. Less messy.
But don’t you feel that in reality, a real balance rarely happens in human isolation?
In yoga, support doesn’t mean you’re weak or you can’t do the pose. It means your nervous system needs a moment of safety, your body needs to learns the alignment, and at some point, maybe you won’t need the support anymore. But you needed it THEN.
For me it’s been so true also beyond the mat – in business, in leadership, in intercultural work. In life in general.
In business, leaders often lose balance not because they lack competence, but because they carry too much alone. The strongest leaders I work with don’t pretend they have all the answers; instead, they actively seek sparring partners, mentors, advisors, and teams who help them think more clearly, notice blind spots, and regain perspective when everything starts to wobble.
In intercultural work, balance is rarely achieved in isolation. Navigating different communication styles, expectations, values, and unspoken norms without feedback or support easily leads to frustration, misinterpretation, and unnecessary conflict. Here too, support doesn’t deny competence – it simply accelerates learning and prevents avoidable mistakes.
And then there is personal life, where the need for support sooner or later becomes undeniable, no matter how independent, strong, or self-reliant we believe ourselves to be. When we experience loss, heartbreak, illness, burnout, or major life transitions, balance is not something we simply “push through” (although some of us try…). When someone we love dies, when a relationship ends, when the body suddenly fails, or the ground under our feet shifts, standing alone is not necessarily a virtue – it is simply making it harder than it needs to be.
Psychologically, this is not a moral statement – it’s biology. We, humans, are wired for connection. Emotional regulation, learning, recovery, and meaning-making happen most effectively in a relationship with others. Autonomy matters, of course, but autonomy without connection quickly turns into overload and other, rather heavy and dreadful experiences.
We simply need our “village”, however small.
Support doesn’t remove effort. Instead, it makes the effort more sustainable. Just like in the Tree pose, where a steady hand of another human allowed me to find my center faster. Sometimes this hand prevents an unnecessary fall. And sometimes it simply reminds you that you’re not meant to balance everything by yourself.
Maybe it’s a good moment to pause and ask yourself a few simple, but important questions:
• Where in my life am I “wobbling” but still insisting on “doing it alone”?
• What kind of support am I quietly refusing, not because it’s unavailable, but because it challenges my self-image?
• What would change if I treated asking for support not as a failure, but as an important skill?
• If balance (vs. performance) is my goal, then what kind of support would actually serve me right now?