Need Compassionate Connection?

I’ve been struggling to write for the past week.  A combination of events both personal and worldwide have sapped my own energy to the point that each time I sat down to write, I felt like a fake trying to talk about inspiration when I couldn’t even inspire myself out of my own funk.

Thankfully three things have come together to help me in the past days and I wanted to share them with you, in case you might be feeling some of the same funk and need some ideas:

1. Honest Connections

2. Reading and Learning

3. Revisiting Purpose

For the first, I had been trying to act like everything was fine, flying around between various work tasks and building a maelstrom of anger and resentment.  It blew up on Saturday, with my family to be frank in a way I’m not proud of.  As I soaked in my sullen solitude, hiding in my office and knocking off my to-do list, I reminded myself that I do ultimately have a choice in each and every interaction, to push people away or to make steps to bring in closer.  I knew I was pushing my loved ones away.  I knew I was avoiding connections.  I also know the research, I know that sincerely connecting to another person is one of the best things we can do to fight depression, loneliness, and polarization, in our homes or in our community.  Even though my fight-or-flight response was to dig into my anger and resentment, I chose (thanks to real help from my husband who knows me enough to reach out in gentle ways when I’m hurting) to stop pushing away and open up.  I shared my thoughts, my fears, all of my angst.  Some of it he acknowledged, some of it he pushed back, but more than anything, he listened.  He provided the safe space to see me (pretty much at my worst) and show love, acceptance, and compassion.  He didn’t fix anything, but by not fixing, it healed part of the pain inside me.   A hug helped a lot too.

I read to learn.  I read to escape.  I read to experience other worlds, lives, and experiences.  Thankfully on Sunday, I picked up a book that I bought at Chicago O’Hare a few weeks ago on the way home as I thought it would be helpful in my work, both with adults (through Nspir) and children (through ‘ittle Bear):  Hope for Cynics The Surprising Science of Human Goodness by Jamil Zaki.  Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab.  I loved his book The War for Kindness, so of course I picked up this latest book, hoping it might help me with my growing cynicism and perceived helplessness.  

It turned out to be exactly the book that I need right now.  I need hope.  I need some optimism.  I need small things that I can do to maintain hope, for me and to inspire and share with others.  Especially when it feels like everywhere I look, the world is going to hell.  There are so many great insights and quotes in the book, but I wanted to focus on one today:

“When people affirm what matters most to them, they are reminded of their highest purpose, which makes everyday social threats less dire.  … Values-affirmation also increases kindness toward others and trust. … By connecting us to ourselves, affirmations calm cynicism.”

This brought me back to my Mission Statement, my purpose, “To positively impact our world, our planet, and my fellow humans and leave the world slightly better because I existed.”  In the mission statement, I continue to outline the various roles and ways that I do that.  Taking time to revisit and re-affirm my purpose, along with the insights from Hope for Cynics that building community is one of the greatest ways we can heal society’s ills, and ourselves in the process, I realized what I want to do.  I’ve struggled since moving back to Sweden to find ways to build community, but would like to offer something that has helped me in the past as well as helped heal teams that I have coached.  

For the month of October, I’m going to combine the Swedish tradition of fika (meeting with friends for coffee/tea and conversation) with an online compassionate connection, open to anyone who would like to join.  Each Friday at 15:00 Swedish time (9:00 US Eastern), you are welcome to join for a Nspir Compassionate Community Connection.  We will start with a simple grounding exercise, break into 1-1 discussions, and come back together to share in the larger community.  I plan to have a short summary after the 1-1’s, so if you are time-pressed, you can drop off around 30-35 minutes in, or choose to stay and discuss further.   No charge, no expectations, just a way to come together as humans, share a connection, tap into our human instinct for compassion, and hopefully bring a warm healing glow out in ourselves.  If there is interest and attendance, I’ll continue running the sessions going forward.  I hope that it will help you, as in Zaki’s words “Our species is intertwined, such that helping others is a kindness to ourselves, and watching over ourselves supports others.”

I hope to see you on a Friday soon. Here is the Teams link to join!