Getting closer to the people we truly care about
When we want to form deeper and more meaningful relationships, we have to focus on creating honest and authentic connection.
by: E.B. Johnson
Modern society is a funny thing. While we are more connected than ever, we are also more divided than we have been in centuries. Each second, we are becoming more connected to chaotic shifts around the globe, but we are also growing further apart from the people sitting right next to us. It’s more important than ever to connect with those we love, but it’s never seemed like more of an uphill struggle.
There are many different reasons for this social drift, and the distance we are feeling from the people that we should feel closest to. Some of those reasons we are only starting to understanding, but some are known and familiar. One glaring truth — however — stands out above the rest. We have to learn how to reconnect and reengage with those that matter most, and we have to do it now; for our own mental and physical wellbeing.
Getting close to other people matters.
It’s easy to take life for granted when you’re racing at breakneck speed to get everything done on your to-do list. Life chews us up and spits us out on the other side, feeling exhausted, numb and often terribly, terribly isolated if we’re not careful. Connecting with the important people in our life is one of the best ways to combat the side-effects of modern day living, but it’s one skill we feel least able to master.
Getting close to other people matters. The people in our lives offer us perspective, and they offer us a different way of seeing ourselves and the world around us. They can support us in our time of need, and they can be the mirror by which we recognize the true strength and beauty of our own person.
Any relationship — be it a close friendship, marriage or any other close partnership — takes effort, compromise, and a lot of communication. The benefits of such a relationship are almost countless, however, and one of the best ways you can tap into finding your own mental, physical and emotional peace and wellbeing. When we align these things, we find the true value and meaninging to connecting deeply and authentically. It’s a process, but one that can help us thrive on a number of unexpected planes.
Bonding has multiple benefits.
Getting close to others and sharing yourself on an authentic level has several surprising benefits, the least of them being an overall boost in confidence and self-esteem. When we get close to others, we allow them to see us as we are, and that has untold benefits for our health and the way we see ourselves in the world.
Sense of security
There’s a deep, primal need in many of us to have the safety and security of other human beings around us. This remnant of our distance-pasts harks back to a time when our ancestors relied on safety in numbers, and (in many places and societies) it’s still a sentiment that rings true. We like to have the company of others and the security that’s attached to that. Humans have always been safer in numbers, and getting close to those we care about can provide that sense of security.
Internalizing a better view
When we allow ourselves to love and be loved in return, we also allow ourselves to internalize the positive judgements and assessments of our partners. This results in the little self-esteem boost you feel after having a deep conversation, or soul-affirming moment with someone you care about. When we love someone, we allow ourselves (even just from time-to-time) to see ourselves for the more compassionate and forgiving eyes of our partners and confidantes.
Physical health boost
While it’s not entirely understood, those who find themselves in close, healthy partnerships find that they have better overall physical health. Many doctors chalk this up to the health behavior concordance, or the belief that when one partner is healthy, the other partner follows. Whatever the reason, those who deep, stable relationships have been shownto have fewer doctor’s visits than those without.
Decreased depression and anxiety
It’s no surprise that social isolation contributes to depression and anxiety, so it should therefore come as no surprise that connecting and bonding with others is an aid in combating those conditions. The key is connecting in a safe way, in safe spaces, with people you know you can trust. Feeling better often starts with opening up, but that’s not always easy when you’re suffering with the darkness of depression and anxiety.
Increased longevity
Connection has several surprising benefits, and among those is he benefit of elongated life. Research has shown that those in deep, committed and stable relationships with open connections are more like to live longer than those without. These results come off the back of the findings that those of us who learn how to meaningfully connect with others also have lower rates of substance abuse and even lower blood pressure.
The best ways to get closer to the people we love.
So what? Just knowing how a connection can benefit you isn’t enough. To incorporate deep, lasting connections with those you love — you have to put in work. Getting to know someone on a personal level takes time, and it takes opening yourself up in ways that can be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable. Start slowly and work your way up. Connecting with others is one of the most natural skills we possess. You just have to tap back into it again.
1. Get closer to yourself
It’s hard to open up, love and respect someone when you don’t love and respect yourself. If you really want to get close to another person, get close to yourself first; coming to understand who you are at your authentic core and what you want from this life. Getting close to the strong, beautiful soul is at our core is key when getting close to other people. Before you can venture into the waters of their souls, venture into your own by practicing a little self-love and compassion.
Take a second to assess yourself and how you spend your time and your energy. Are you looking for connection so you can meet some personal desire or so you can check a box off of a list? Figure out where you’re coming from and pay special attention to how you attach yourself to people and where his pattern of attachment comes from.
Practice some radical self-acceptance and start embracing yourself and the struggles you’ve overcome to bring you to this point in your life. Try to view your mistakes and missteps through the lens of someone who cares for you and try to extend a little of that compassion that they have for you to yourself. Get close to you, and all those ugly bumps, bruises and scrapes that make you the imperfect person who you are today. If you want to get close to others, get close to yourself first.
2. Get to know them through questions
In our social media world, it’s easy to get caught up on the bad habit of talking about ourselves. The problem, however, is that it comes at the cost of further isolating us, and pulling us further away from the people that really matter. If you want to get close to someone, start with the simplest method in the book: ask them questions.
Asking questions shows interest, and it’s a stimulating way in which to enrich our own experience. Questions can vary from deep to shallow, but what’s important is that you ask them and you ask them with no motive other than learning more about the person and what makes them tick.
When you ask someone questions, you ask about their life. Listen to what they have to say and engage with them using both your eyes and your ears. Truly getting to know someone is more than just knowing some trivia; it’s absorbing what they’re saying, how they’re saying it, and even the body language that accompanies it. If you really want to bond with someone, start listening to them, rather than speaking at them.
3. Follow through on promises
Our friends and our loved ones count on us for several things, both big and small. Whether we think something is major or minor, it’s important to show and be reliable for those we care about. Connection is a lot about getting to know the other person, but it’s also about just being there when you say you will.
We found the strongest relationships on trust, something that is generated over time and through shared experiences. To establish that trust, show up and be reliable, even if it’s not the most convenient thing in the world to do. Show your friend or partner that you care about them by giving action to your words, and this most often happens by just being there when you’re supposed to be there.
Showing up for your friend doesn’t mean you have to accept every invitation or be at every social event. It means being honest and making yourself present when it counts. Don’t avoid the tough conversations, and don’t be afraid to say no, but do have the ability to put your ego aside from time-to-time. Be there for your friends if you want to get close and show up when it really counts.
4. Start sharing yourself earnestly
Because social media encourages us to inform the world of our most mundane thoughts and acts, we’ve forgotten how to communicate the things that really matter — like any emotion besides anger, and the unpleasant aspects of life that can be difficult or hard to manage. If you truly want to get close to someone, learn how to talk about yourself again and learn how to do it in an honest and insightful way that doesn’t dampen or shut out the light of others.
Learning how to talk about yourself on a deeper and more meaningful level starts with learning how to recognize those things in your life.Spot your feelings for what they are and let them out through a mindful journalling practice that can help you pinpoint the issues and get better at identifying them. We struggle in our relationships most often because we’re struggling within.
If you want to learn how to talk about yourself constructively, learn how to recognize the constructive topics and forces in your life. Stop focusing on what others think of you and stop fixating on finding the perfect way to present yourself. Pick out your emotions for what they are and identify what it is you need to connect with the purest and most authentic form of your joy. If you feel judged, criticized or otherwise discounted for sharing yourself in any way — it’s a critical red flag that you’re getting too close to the wrong people.
5. Practice a little acceptance
Getting close to other people takes a lot of things, but it takes acceptance before and after everything else. Just because we love someone doesn’t mean they are perfect, and just because someone is a close friend does not mean they won’t slip up from time to time. Digging into the meat of who someone is means finding things that don’t always sit well. If you truly want to open up to someone and you really want them to open up to you, accept these things, and accept who the person is today because of it.
True partnership is like any relationship because it takes open and honest acceptance to thrive. As humans, we are imperfect creatures struggling against our own hubris to make something of ourselves. We all stumble and fall. The greatest gift we can give to ourselves and those we care about is accepting that truth and extending our natural compassion to them when and where we can.
Likewise, accept the truth of other people’s actions. Believe them, when they show you through their deeds, that they don’t value your time, your effort or your energy. Notice if you have to be excessively thoughtful around them and take notice if you’re compromising more of yourself than you should be. Partnerships are a give and take, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept abuse or dismissal. Accept what you can’t change and let actions speak louder than words.After all, words are wind.
6. Drop allow yourself to feel invisible
Those who make you feel less-than or discounted are not people with whom you should share your confidences, let alone the deepest parts of your being. If you’ve got close to someone who dismisses your feelings, ideas or points of views, or if you’ve reached out to someone who doesn’t seem to care what’s going on in your life — run, don’t walk, the other way.
Get rid of people who make you feel invisible and the people who make you feel as though your time and personage is less valuable than their own. Likewise, reconsider those who only see you as a commodity, or as a piece of the puzzle they’ve worked out for their own ends.
Life is entirely too short to spend it engaging with those who do not challenge us to be better, who cannot be there for you (alongside themselves) even when it asks everything; or nothing at all. Look for those who ask you questions, who inquire into the state of your life. These are the people worth getting close to, but they’re not always the people that we expect. You’ve got to drop the people who make you feel invisible in order to leave room for those who can help you grow.
Putting it all together…
It’s easy to lose touch with the people we care about in this increasingly digital world. Though we seem more connected than ever, the divisions that keep us feeling lonely are stronger than ever and they show no signs of stopping. If you want to tap back into that authentic sense of joy and happiness again, you can start by getting close with the people who really matter — a process that takes time, commitment and a huge dose of radical self-acceptance.
Spend some time getting to know yourself first before you reach out to anyone else. Learn how to identify your emotions and the things that inspire you and do it in a way that allows you to expand the compassion you have for others. Getting close to other people is good for our health and our wellbeing, but we have to put ourselves out there, ask questions and show up when it matters. Drop the people who make you feel invisible and learn how to talk about yourself while accepting both yourself and others for who and what they are. We’re all doing the best we can to make it through this thing called life. Why not sweeten the deal by getting through it together?
