Who are your people?

How many people do you have good, close relationships with?

Someone in our group coaching session last week brought this up.  It’s a thought worth thinking about.  We need each other.  Not only for the possibility of an emergency though.  We just need close connections with each other.

But Why?

What if I prefer being by myself?

******************************************************* 

Well, we’re made to be social creatures.  We’re made for those relationships…to help each other…to care for each other…to communicate with each other.

We all have different things in our past, the good, bad or ugly, that makes us prone to want others around us—or not.  But we truly do better ourselves if we are social.  Not necessarily with a group, and not necessarily with a LOT of people.  But we do better if we’re “connected” with some other humans.

******************************************************

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, Functional Medicine Doctor, and Dr. Robert Waldinger, Neurologist and Psychiatrist, loneliness and isolation (along with negative thinking) are the biggest risk factors for death.

Their premise is that loneliness is subjective; that you can be lonely in a crowd of people, and you can be lonely in a home with your family. 

**************************************************** 

Dr. Waldinger was instrumental in working with a 85-year study of young boys, following them into adulthood, and following the generations.  One part of the group was the poorest and most under served, and the other part was a more privileged group.  They were tracking the health and happiness of these generations of people.

They did not expect to find the results that came from this study.  The findings of this progressive study, surprising the researchers and psychiatrists, showed that to have a happy life, thrive, and live a long time, that Relationships with other people seemed to make that happen.  Over and over again.

Loneliness and poor quality relationships proved to be as damaging to your health as cigarette smoking and obesity.

(Dr. Vivek Murthy wrote a book about this research, which is very interesting.)

**************************************************** 

The biology of it is: 

When you have an upset during the day, if there is someone you can talk to, at the end of the day, if there is someone you can talk to, you can actually feel your body calm down.  You can feel it return from fight or flight to equilibrium.

When you are in fight or flight mode, your body secretes stress hormones.  Inflammation goes up, cortisol goes up.  But then if you are met with understanding and care, your body calms back down, and all goes back to normal.

According to Dr. Hyman, “cuddling” actually changes your epigenome, your gene expression.

************************************************** 

Good relationships seem to be “stress regulators”.

So, what makes people thrive, and live a long time?  It looks like it’s A Happy Life.

And that comes in a large part from good relationships.

Does that mean we can eat whatever we want and not take care of ourselves?

No, for sure we can’t do that.  All these things go together.

In our present world, we are so “connected”, but are actually so separated and isolated from each other.  Social media seems to drive us into more stress than healing.

It’s the real connection with real people that we need.

We’ve lost our “tribal connection”.  We are forced to navigate in the bubbles of isolation and separation to cultivate a “normal” life; we have so many hurdles of career, overwork, high emphasis on childrens’ activities, single parent households (bless their hearts, for sure!) and you must really work at it to have great, nourishing and nurturing relationships at home.  And these things determine our health span and life span!

And as it was during this study, so it is today; the ones who are determined to make relationships a priority, no matter what, at home, at work, and out in the community, the ones who focused on “people” and helped out when it was needed, those were the people who thrived the best.

So, this question was posed to the original group in the study:  “if you were hurt, or sick, or afraid in the middle of the night— who could you call from your relationships—that you could count on, to help you?”

Some people in the study couldn’t name anyone.  Even among married people, some couldn’t name anyone.

Some people could list several people.

But it is definitely worth giving serious thought to.

When you feel there is someone in the world who “has your back”, that is what each of us needs in order to feel ok about our lives and to thrive.

*************************************************

So, “being ok”, how can we create that? 

If we have “friends”, but no one we feel we could truly count on if we needed someone, can we cultivate that?

Well, what do you think about your friends?

How often do you think about them?

What do you do for them? How often?

Friendships won’t “take care of themselves” and grow at the same time.

Did you know, there is such a thing as “Social Fitness” (as compared to Physical Fitness).

What in the world is “Social Fitness”?

It is a practice similar to “self-care” except it’s a self-care practice of tending to important relationships; actively maintaining the relationships you have, or that you would like to build.

If you’re isolated (in any way, not just physically), find ways to have contact with people.

Be Active in some way.  Go places.  Do something different.  They something you care ab out.  Strike up conversations with people you don’t know.  If you decide to take up a new activity, and you actually speak to people, you very possibly will find someone with a shared interest. 

And you just might hit it off with them, and gain a new friend.  If the activity is something you both care about, that shared interest gives you a place to start. 

There are all kinds of stories of people who have met a new lifelong friend in these very instances. 

Bring your curiosity with you, and ask someone about their life—again, if it’s in a setting of a shared interest, you’ll have a good place to begin, so it might be best to go where you have an interest.  Your curiosity will be a huge benefit to any conversation.  But you do have to be where people are; and you do have to actually talk.

Why don’t we have more quality friends?  Some of us are just shy.  So many of us are tired and burned out—no energy for these strangers!  Whatever the reason.  Stop.  Take a breath.  Get Curious. 

Also.  It may be an eye opening experience to get curious about the people who are already in your life… even if you feel like you know all about them!  There is very possibly something about people close to you, right now that you have never noticed before.

**************************************************

Another thing we deal with a lot, in general, today is, I don’t think we’re as tolerant of other people as we used to be—possibly with good reason.  But we need to go back to the realization that we’re all different, and that’s ok.  Those differences could be the very thing that could add to your life. 

Everyone isn’t going to please us all the time.  And we’re not going to please everyone else all the time.

So then I guess it comes to: OK, do I want to be right?  Or do I want a relationship?

We might need to cultivate some traits like forgiveness… compassion… letting go.

When something someone does goes against our grain, we have the power to slow down our thinking—in that moment.  We can make ourselves (with some practice) to be a blank screen, and actually decide what we want our next thought to be. 

We also need to realize, no relationship is going to be perfect.  Just recognize that.

And Conflict is inevitable.  We can develop ways to navigate this so both people can feel ok with how it ends up.

This is not to say that every relationship can work in the long run.  If your surroundings are continuously toxic and unhappy, being alone may be a better place.  But God gave us a brain, and a heart.  And it takes both of those working together to figure out our correct paths.  And valuable relationships can be saved.

Is it easy to consciously control our thoughts and words?  Harder than we might think.  The mind is great for problem solving, but the heart is greater for awareness.  Look to the heart to help you do this.

The heart has a brain of its own; it produces neurotransmitters, has its own pacemaker dictating when to slow down and when to speed up.

It beats constantly and moves blood through every part of our body without discernment.

It never stops to think, analyze or punish.

It has no limits.

We are built to practice heartfulness (over mindfulness).

So.  Who are the people in your life?

My husband and I celebrated Valentine’s Day, appreciating that we are blessed with each other, by going out for a nice dinner.  While we were there, we saw 3 couples eating together. 

These couples were plainly enjoying life, each others’ company, and dinner.  We see them together occasionally around town, but didn’t realize the background of them.

We discovered these three couples have been friends for 40 years, spending time and special occasions together all through the years. These couples are out enjoying life. 

I know they are very active, spending a good part of their summers at the lake; and my guess is that they are all relatively healthy as they enjoy their lives.  This is the value that this article is talking about. 

Let’s practice cultivating the people we have in our lives.  And let’s grow our heart great big, adding strong quality people into our heart space.

Hold hands; give hugs; give smiles and especially laughter; let your heart show through all the clutter of life.

Let’s make the world a better, more loving place.  And while we’re at it, we’ll be happier and healthier, and live longer with a sharper mind.  It’s all for a win!!

Thank you for reading.

If I can help you in any way, please let me know.

Sharon

P.S.

We had a really good session on Stress last week; what it really was, why we have it, what good and bad it is, and what to do with it.