Tweet

How to Connect with Others

Guest post by: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Article Overview: Are you mystified about how to create meaningful emotional connection with others?

How to Connect with Others

We are inherently social beings, and feeling emotionally connected with another is one of the great joys in life. Yet, all too often, we feel lonely around another or others, wanting to connect and not knowing how. We may have learned numerous dysfunctional or unsatisfying ways of connecting, and wonder why we still feel lonely around someone when we are trying so hard to connect.

Emotional connection is an experience of the heart, not of the head. While you may feel a certain kind of connection when you are in your head, this form of connection may leave you feeling unsatisfied.

Do you try to create connection by:

• Gossiping
• Storytelling about things that don’t relate to the person you are talking to
• Going on and on about yourself
• Discussing details about mundane subjects
• Discussing superficial topics, such as the weather
• Complaining, whining
• Attacking, blaming
• Interrogating – asking combative questions
• Pulling for attention in various other ways

Satisfying emotional connection occurs when you talk and act from your heart, such as when you:

• Listen attentively and empathically
• Ask kind questions about meaningful things
• Speak your truth from your heart
• Let the other in on your learning and healing process
• Share in a creative process
• Do fun things together, laugh together
• Do kind and caring things for each other
• Want to understand, when things may be difficult between you and another person - stay open to learning with them, even when it is challenging
• Support each other in things that are important to each of you
• Experience joy for another’s joy and pain for their pain
• Show caring for the other’s feelings
• Care about how your words and behavior affect the other person

I find that I can engage in many of these behaviors even in more casual encounters, such as when I’m at a social gathering. There is a huge difference for me between talking about the weather or complaining about something, and being truly interested in another person. Being aware of whether I’m coming from my head or my heart is what makes all the difference between a superficial connection and a meaningful connection.

I grew up hearing, “Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve.” The message was, “Protect yourself from getting hurt, by staying in your head. If you share your heart with people, you will get hurt.” I learned this lesson so well that I ended up being completely disconnected from my body and my feelings, wondering why I could never feel connected with anyone.

Staying in my head disconnected me from my own heart and soul, and disconnected me from others’ hearts and souls. In order to reconnect with myself and my own truth and feelings, and feel the joy of connection with others, I needed to be willing to feel the deep loneliness of disconnection – which I had staved off my whole life. I also needed to be willing to feel the loneliness and heartache of experiencing others’ unwillingness to come from their open hearts.

I’d far rather experience the loneliness and heartache of experiencing others not connecting with me, than the emptiness and aloneness of my own disconnection from myself. It’s only in staying connected with my own feelings that I can experience the joy of connection with another, when that person is open hearted. The joy of connection with another is so fulfilling that I’m willing to risk getting hurt if they are closed to connection with me. The joy far outweighs the pain that might occur, when I come from my heart rather than my head.

Related Articles
  Connecting a Wireless Home Network
  10 Best Opening Lines to Make a Connection
  Article #42 How To Do {Social Media Marketing}
  Legal Marketing: Best practices for connecting on LinkedIn
  Addiction to Gossip
  Tell Your Small Business Story
  Feeling Disconnected From Your Partner?
  You Have to Connect to Sell
  The Six Pillars of Energy-Aware Entrepreneuring
  Delegate Today!
  Digging Yourself Out Of A Deep Hole Of Fear, Lack and Struggle
  Little Black Book of Connections by Jeffrey Gitomer
  Your Most Precious Treasure
  What Everybody Ought To Know -- About How To Talk With Customers!
  The Power of Connecting
  How Well Are You LinkedIn?
  Creating Your Value Based Network – A 3-Step Process
  Twitter Business
  Great Story Tellers
  Discover the Secret Multiplier

Article Tags: connection, emotional connection, heartache, heartbreak, Inner Bonding, loneliness, Margaret Paul, relationships



Related Forum Posts
standing out - Hi Sara, I have always felt that just being a capable women in business automatically helps us stand out and have an advantage in a male dominated industry. If you want to impress a man in his business you must exude confidence about your ability to meet his company's needs. As far as standing out, I would seek as much media attention as possible to the fact that you succeeding in a male dominated business and highlight why your uniqueness is special. How your perspective for handling clients is fresh and competitive. I would walk into functions full of men and make sure I got to know everyone. Connect yourself with something identifiable that relates to the industry. Create a personal brand with a theme that resonates with the organization and the men in it. A theme of power, efficiency, attention to detail etc.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

9 tips to increase ROI in PPC Campaigns

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.