Connect

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love,
and to let it come in."Morrie Schwartz

The beautiful thing about any relationship (friendship, intimate partnership, acquaintance, etc.) is that it provides a context for you to get to know yourself better. You might say it is like a mirror; in that, it shows you yourself. Are the benefits of friendship solely selfish? Ponder this: to the degree that you don’t be yourself, know yourself, and love yourself may be the degree that there will be friction and sizeable opportunities for learning in the relationship (a.k.a. challenges!).

Building a network of healthy relationships (through small, frequent actions over time) is the ultimate support. When your life moves through a chaotic patch, or your roots are shaken by a storm, it most likely won’t be your work that supports you through it! At the end of the day, all you have is yourself, family/friends, food and the earth. ‘Prune’ and ‘grow’ these things regularly. Otherwise, in time you may find yourself in dense over-growth (if you haven’t ‘pruned’ enough), or a desert! (if you haven’t spread around enough manure and watered enough).

Of course to build a healthy ‘social network’ that lasts and that is solid you need to have ‘love in your heart’. What that means is to feel love and connection for yourself, other people, and our natural world, our home – the earth (these are what I’ve simply summated over the years as your three houses – 1. body, 2. home/community, and 3. Earth). To have love in your heart is attractive to other people (if you think this is hocus pocus, I encourage you to look into much of the peer-reviewed scientific research particularly by the HeartMath Institute www.heartmath.org, or ask me for some direction on where to get more detailed info.)

Now for this to happen, it comes to that ol’ central point of change and health in all areas – attitude. In this case, the attitude that will gear you towards a healthier social scene. Here are a few quick reality checks that could help:

1. Getting off your isolating ‘high-horse’ that in some way you are better than everyone else (this is a generalisation – dangerous!) and that if everyone understood you there wouldn’t be a problem.
2. Stop projecting your values onto other people expecting that they should be doing what you’d like them to.
3. Be strong enough to know that for you to get what you want, you might need to try giving what the other would like to receive, and how they’d like to receive it.
4. Do you actually know the person, or do you merely know the idea that you have about them? What if that idea that you have of them, that ‘picture’ is ‘incomplete’ or ‘distorted’?

Here’s a specific skill that you can practice that is a stepping stone to building healthier relationships and filtering the ones that may not be good for you at this time: 

Asking quality questions 

Whilst keeping the proportion of questions balanced in interaction, and also taking into account that direct statements certainly have their place, asking quality questions can greatly improve your relationships. What would be more effective in learning — telling ‟John‟ the answer, or asking guiding questions that will actually help lead himself to his answer? (Which option would encourage him to experience responsibility and power over his realisation?). 

Which option would incline someone with a challenge to express themselves more — “If something’s the matter just tell me ”, or if you get the impression that ‘something is up’ and you asked, “What’re you unsure of at the moment?”. Leave it open for them to reply how they choose to. If they don’t openly share what is really going, maybe that’s okay because maybe you’re not asking the question for you to get an answer. It might just be for the receiver to ponder the question in their own time. Ahh, the beautiful dance we play in each other's life .a

Remember how you ask the question is just as important as the actual words. Make sure you have a compassionate, understanding and genuine tone of voice, and have the body language that says “I care, am ready to listen, and prepared to stay a little while‟. How do you do this? Forget about thinking about it, and 'BE' it.  Notice you can’t “do” these things, you can only “be” them. Be true to yourself and speak from your heart, and in the long run, you’ll always be okay The feeling and confidence you experience in connecting with an individual is a beautiful thing. There are some very interesting studies in children’s developmental psychology on how social interaction is vital in developing intelligence too. 

Get a scrap piece of paper (eg. back of an envelope) and note some of the key points above that stand out for you and keep it where you can see them (out of sight, out of mind ).