Normally, I spend a couple of minutes at the start of an Authentic Relating event talking about why I do it. Other facilitators I encounter and co-facilitate with do this as well. Why would I voluntarily sit in a circle with a bunch of people I do not know well, or even all, to play “games” that feel kind of strange, uncomfortable, and awkward? Why do I choose to share things with these people? Why do I tell them things they could judge harshly, make fun of, or even use against me later? Why would I do that?
I usually say, “For me, it’s self care”.
I do it because something about this practice doesn’t result in judgement, mocking, or manipulation. It results in feeling understood (different from agreed with). It’s a shared experience that is bonding. We acknowledge each other for the beings we are rather than rejecting each other for the beings we fear each other to be.
I’ve realized through life experience — it took a long damn time! — that quality, satisfying, enlivening connection with others is crucial to my sense of wellbeing and happiness. It’s pretty straightforward; more quality connection leads to feeling better, less leads to feeling crappier.
I attribute this to being humxn, straight up. I’m pretty sure it’s got to do simply with that aspect - not beliefs, not ethnicity, not culture, not race, not gender, sexual orientation, wealth, intelligence, health, ability… none of that. Just being humxn means you are wired for connection. (You are also, BTW, wired for pleasure.) I recognize and accept that. I embrace it rather than believe I can figure out how to be ok without it.
The risks that come with being vulnerable, a cornerstone of connection, are not risks that justify efforts to isolate for protection. The fear of being hurt, of experiencing negative emotions is a real fear, but giving in to it, thinking you can reason or distract your way out of a fundamental aspect of being humxn… well, it just doesn’t work, and the consequences are all around us.
Certain aspects of our culture make things even harder. It’s not fair or correct to assume people who lack connection are simply afraid of it. It’s perhaps more common and feels even worse to me, more insidious, to think about how many people just don’t know what satisfying connection is, how it feels, and what the positive results are. I wasn’t taught this stuff. Were you?
And so, I was not even a tiny bit surprised when my colleague, Dakota, made me aware of the Advisory recently published by Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A., Surgeon General of the United States.
Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation
Here are a couple quotes from the opening letter:
The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
If we fail to do so [“build more connected lives and a more connected society”], we will pay an ever-increasing price in the form of our individual and collective health and well-being. And we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. Instead of coming together to take on the great challenges before us, we will further retreat to our corners—angry, sick, and alone.
Huh.
Among the suggestions offered in that opening letter: “Express yourself authentically.”
Find an event. Now. Learn some games. Run them with your family. Invite your neighbors. <Ryan admits feeling too scared to invite that neighbors, one more bit of data indicating it’s important to do it!>
Get in here. You need this. Not because I say so. Because you are humxn.