Decode Isolation, Align Your Connections, And Thrive With A Resilient Support Network
Cipherline - Open Edition - 12 Oct. 2025
Finding Your Support Network
Welcome back.
With so many people around us every day it often escapes us to consider a formal support network. At least I found it a bit of a mind bender. I have a loving family and I thought that was all I needed. But no, we need a hand selected team.
The way I looked at it back when I was putting my heart disease team together was like a football team. Sure anyone can play backyard football but will they win the premiership?
I doubt it, and that’s how I formulated my team and in fact, that’s when I coined the phrase “Titan”. That moment I stopped thinking of myself as a patient and started thinking like an elite athlete, and with that mindset the rest came easily and I continue to add valuable coaches and support network members with this perspective in mind.
The most recent addition was an exercise physiologist, not a gym instructor but a degree trained physiologist to look at my current resistance training routine to see how we could improve it.
I treat these chronic conditions as if they were competitors in a championship and select my support team accordingly.
DECODE
Why Support Feels So Hard to Ask For
Let’s be honest, many Titans were raised to grit their teeth and get on with it. When chronic illness enters the scene, that wiring can backfire. We try to hold the weight ourselves, tell ourselves we’re fine, or that no one else would understand.
The truth? Healing was never meant to be a solo act. Whether it’s cultural norms, fear of burdening others, or past letdowns, we each carry reasons we’ve avoided asking for help. But identifying those reasons is the first step to decoding the loneliness that often travels with diagnosis.
ALIGN
Shifting from Isolation to Integration
You don’t need a crowd, you need the right people, and “right” doesn’t mean perfect. It means present, aligned, and real. For me, that started with my wife—her quiet presence often said more than any advice ever could. Then came my decoding team: a cardiologist, a naturopath who became my Functional Integration Coach, a Chinese medicine practitioner, even a friend from yoga who just gets it. Your network should reflect your values and your direction.
Use the tools in this chapter; your Support Map, Connection Audit, and Alignment Reflection, to spot where you’re carried, and where you’re still carrying too much alone.
THRIVE
Relationships That Restore You
Support that fuels your resilience isn’t just emotional. It’s strategic. It’s spiritual. It’s practical. That one friend who drops off soup? They matter. So does the practitioner who helps you make sense of ten overlapping treatments. Or the Titan across the country who texts you after every specialist appointment just to say, “I see you.”
These aren’t luxuries, they’re essential for your recovery. As your resilience deepens, your network evolves with you. Keep aligning your relationships to your decoding path, and you’ll discover something profound: connection is part of the cure.
Fama’s Nudge
You’re not a burden. You’re a bridge.
Every time you ask for support with honesty, you create space for someone else to be brave too. Start with one conversation. Then watch what opens.