Connecting with Others: How Do You Actually Do It?

It sounds so beautiful: connecting with others. Everyone wants that, right? So why does it so often not work? Why do we so often feel alone? Why do we label ourselves as different from others?

Do you know that struggle for connection? The struggle to belong. To be seen. To not feel different. To be accepted by family members. To fit in at school. To be heard and valued during gatherings. To be fully seen, heard and embraced by a partner… The need for connection is fundamental, and the lack of connection is remarkably similar to physical pain.

At the same time, we grow up with the idea that if something doesn’t work out, we simply need to try harder. Most of us know all about working hard for something. It’s often been drilled into us from an early age: you have to put in the effort, because things don’t just happen on their own. Life can’t always be fun. What you want doesn’t just fall into your lap.

Connecting from openness

Do you also try really hard? And does it still not work, that deep connection with others? That doesn’t surprise me, because that’s precisely where it goes wrong: trying too hard. It actually makes you shut down. You put up a kind of armour, you’re no longer open to what’s happening around you. You’re focused on the goal and therefore no longer open to what the moment has to offer. You’re trying to connect from results-driven energy. While connection arises from receptivity and softness. So how do you connect from receptivity and softness?

Connect with your body

Keep going back to the place within yourself where you experience calm, space and receptivity. Explore where that place is for you. You can do this by closing your eyes, taking a few deep breaths in and out, and finding that place in your body. By doing this regularly when you’re alone, you’ll also find it easier to connect with that place when you’re with others. Then you’re connecting from calm, space and openness.

Be open and vulnerable, show your true self

What are your desires? What are your questions? What touches you? By showing yourself, you invite others to do the same. They’re no longer confronted with your struggle, which would evoke struggle energy in them too. Others feel the space that you take up in a soft, natural way, while simultaneously giving it. In that space, deep connection can arise!

Seek out situations in your daily life where you can easily connect

For instance with your children, your partner, friends. Dancing together, laughing together, being silly and lots of cuddles. Or having a drink with friends, going for a walk and having an open conversation. The more often you consciously connect with ease, the more naturally it will happen when you’re less conscious of it.

Stop gossiping

When people gossip, division arises, a feeling of insecurity and distrust. The opposite of connection. But you can put a stop to the gossiping yourself. Let people know you don’t want to talk about absent people in that way, but want to focus on what matters here and now with the people around you.

Rewrite your life story

Is your life a chain of events that prove you don’t belong? That you’ve never experienced the connection you long for so much? Good. Go ahead and write that story out. And when you’re done, you can write a second story. A story in which those same events have actually led to you being able to connect with others now.

Stop looking for connection where you can’t find it

You can bang hard on a closed door because you want connection. Or you can sit very receptively in front of that same closed door. But sometimes you’ll just have to accept that someone won’t connect with you. Why doesn’t matter. We’re all going through our own processes. Accept that and direct your energy towards the door that’s wide open for you.

Realise that you were born with the capacity to connect and to create

Throughout history, people learned to survive through connection and cooperation. We’re equipped with a body that knows how to appreciate connection: connection is an important factor in feeling happy. In difficult times, it’s good to remember that we can tap into this capacity for connection to create a world together where it’s good to live.

This text is based on the article by Marleen Bosch in Vrouw & Passie.