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Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

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Feeling: Observations related to feelings

#126: Purring our way to strength

I woke up today in a deeply satisfying cat hug. My cat had installed herself on my pillow overnight, and I hugged her as I slept. As I woke up to this realization, I couldn’t help but move my hands through her silky smooth fur. Her softness is quite addictive and I have to make an effort to tone it down and not escalate the pressure, especially in response to that cute purring. So she purred and I cuddled…and the purrs became louder and consistent, like the engine of an idling SUV.

Then a forgotten fact popped into my head: cats purr for many reasons, including contentment, communication, and even to self-soothe during stressful moments. The frequencies at which they purr (25-150 hertz) are similar to the frequencies used to treat bone fractures, pain, and joint flexibility issues in humans. The thinking is that purring helps cats self-heal in similar ways.

So does this mean the more I love and cuddle with my cat, the better she can heal herself? My hugs, kisses, snuggles and squeezes make her stronger? It’s not so hard to believe, because it’s certainly true for humans.*

Another thing I notice with her: she only purrs when I give her high quality attention. It doesn’t happen when I’m multitasking. If I try to read or watch something while playing with her, her initial reactions are more muted and then she completely tunes me out. She only responds when my words, play and touch are in lockstep with her.

When I miss her subtle cues, she realizes that I’m not with her and in turn loses interest. Again, not so different from humans.

“Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.” ― Voltaire, French philosopher and writer

*People with healthy relationships and strong social connections tend to live longer and healthier lives; more here.

**Happy love day, to my Tim ― co-purrer, co-cuddler, and co-imagineer

#123: Moving from habitual internal stories to deliberate metaphors

Learnings from momentum, failure, and recovery
(Read the first one of this series here)

Stories are how we metabolize life situations. When we try to understand why something happened, the first thing that sprouts inside our head is an internal talk track. One internal story layers on top of another and—over time—they crystalize into mental models, or the default lens with which we view the world. Our brains are designed for survival and favor efficiency, so this process of solidifying repetitive thoughts into permanent shorthands is simply what our brains do. That’s how we learn and file away events for future reference.

Sometimes these stories and mental models can be adaptive and make us more resilient, but they can also be maladaptive and create psychological burdens that get in the way of thriving. Either way, all internal stories and mental models are subjective and never the complete picture.

Why habitual internal stories get in the way
It’s hard to know when our mind has become littered with maladaptive stories. We face three big challenges in clear seeing:

  • We don’t realize we have a talk track. Because we’re so used to living with this incessant sound, it camouflages as if it’s a part of our insides.
  • We wholeheartedly believe our stories. They are ever-present inside our head and we mistake this presence as the truth. 
  • Our stories act as psychological balms in our time of loss, so it’s even harder to disassociate from them when we’re in pain.

How metaphors can assist
Metaphors are when we refer to one thing by painting a picture of another. They help us bypass the habitual internal chatter and stories because:

  • Image first, words later. With metaphors, we don’t get lost in words right away. We experience the experience we’re having in that moment and then create a mental image to capture how we feel. Only after we have an image, we use words.
  • Words describe the image and not the event. When we finally use words, we describe the image of our experience and not the potentially charged event we’re dealing with.
  • Nuanced, yet not exhaustive. Metaphors don’t try to slice, dice and explain every little thing. They can help us zoom in or out and extract a key flavor of the situation without getting lost in unhelpful details or spurring rumination. We try to get to the core of “what is” going on inside us. Also, we can be more nuanced with images because sometimes words fail us.
  • The process is deliberate. The metaphorical images we create are deliberate (vs. habitual internal thoughts) and if one metaphor doesn’t resonate, we can adjust it till it does. This process itself offers clarity because we try to accurately see the experience we’re having.

My metaphor during this last round of injury was an ant working at the base of a massive tree, and believing that the world was entirely made of dirt. Through this metaphor I realized that there’s a lot I can’t know and will never know, so my stories and judgments about why I was dealt this blow will always be incomplete. There was comfort in simply letting go of the need to know definitively. Paradoxically, reminding myself of my profound smallness helped me move through this harsh experience faster. 

I know I’ll keep using stories as healing balms to adapt to a new realities. I also know that I’ll keep another eye on the imperfection of those stories, and use deliberate metaphors to hold complexity and nuance, and pierce through my internal chatter.

“Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.”— B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga pioneer and teacher

#112: What do you see?

I was speaking with my mom on video a few days ago, and she kept looking away from me. We live on different continents and sometimes our calls conflict with a TV show she likes to watch. She looks forward to it and I like that this show brings her joy. I also like that she feels comfortable expressing her eagerness to watch this show. It signals to me that my mom is secure in our relationship and, while she misses me, she feels connected enough that she can hang up and go about her day with ease.

So knowing this, I see my mom looking away repeatedly during a particularly connective conversation. I felt our loving bond and I wanted her eyes to return my gaze…but she kept looking away. We’ve done our almost-daily calls for years and this time it was my turn to comfortably express my need, so I asked her.

Me: “Ma, where are you looking?”

Mom: “Oh, there is something on the iPad screen. I’m trying to clean it…so I can see clearly.”

How many times do we think that someone we want to connect with is, metaphorically speaking, “watching TV” while all they are actually doing is “cleaning their screen”? We may perceive disconnection and get stuck in hurt but we rarely know what’s happening on the other side. If something is bothering us so much, could we just reach out and express our need instead? With sincerity, curiosity and without accusation.

Trying to see what they are seeing might just open the door to moments of real connection we seek.

“Words are the most powerful thing in the universe… Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind.”— Charles Capps, American preacher

P.S. I hope my writing pauses aren’t coming across as a loss of zest. I participated in this mind-opening incubator over the last two months (link to our cohort page). My writing will be a life-long pursuit and a loving search for truth, and sometimes I’ll need to pause for sustainability. This was just one of those moments.

#110: Communication is an act of trust

Communication training is now a cottage industry. We’re no longer limited to places like Toastmasters that promote public speaking through practice. We now have many nuanced options; we can learn how to become an impressive Tedx speaker or get voice training from the guy who coached Bradley Cooper for his singing role. I’m sure we can all benefit from these skills. After all, most of us speak to communicate for a majority of our lives.

I’ve communicated across contexts and cultures and I imagine like everyone reading this, I have been successful at times and failed miserably at others. I’ve been called both charismatic and a wallflower. I’ve wanted to step onstage and also hide. I’ve been complimented on my strong voice and I’ve also noticed a tendency to suppress/muffle it when I feel unsafe. I’ve felt a hoarseness and physical constriction of a sore throat just by not speaking up in my normal volume and timbre. The kicker is that all this happened within the same year without me changing anything about myself. I had different experiences in different spaces populated by different sub-cultures and norms. 

My personal experiences point to a missing piece in all this talk about communicating well. My ability to communicate fully without holding back in content or tone was impacted by my emotional state and the receptiveness of others. Here are the combinations of inputs I experienced and the resulting outcomes:

  • I was in my element in front of a receptive audience: things went swimmingly.
  • I had my internal reserves and faced a difficult audience: I spoke well enough and powered through. This powering through felt like a one-sided attempt at communicating and didn’t feel good inside. After many iterations of this, I started feeling a burnout and lack of psychological safety.
  • I was navigating a difficult life event (I’ll call it event 1) and was faced with uncaring and combative listeners: I found it much harder to get the words out and just wanted to be invisible so I could recover.
  • I was navigating an even more difficult life event  (event 1 above + event 2 shortly after) and found a kind space and an audience primed for listening: I found my voice and confidence again.

I’ve given myself fully to a space, a team and a message with courage even when I felt an internal trembling. I noted that the trembling would disappear as soon as I found my voice. And it was often in response to the faces that looked back with an openness and a commitment to listen and engage. I’ve held back when I felt unsafe. No one was coming after my life but I couldn’t help but turn inwards.

So, yeah, I’m sure all these communication tools will help me speak better, hold an audience’s attention, command a physical space, and deliver a powerful message to change minds and hearts. But what I fundamentally crave is spaces of trust where I don’t always have to be perfect and self-assured to share the messages I need to share.

Not everyone has the time or money to get these communication trainings but we all have the ability to deepen our listening. Because naturally powerful speaking, that we all are capable of, is because of other people’s ability to listen and not the other way around.

So I’d like to offer this framing to capture the underlying dynamic we miss― communicating well is an outcome of trust. Trust that you will listen and create a safe space for me to find my voice rather than squashing me at the first wobble.

“Giving does not only precede receiving; it is the reason for it. It is in giving that we receive.”― Israelmore Ayivor, Ghanian youth leader, author and speaker

A couple of practices that have taught me how to listen better. Listening better will be a lifelong practice but I’m learning. 

  • Non Violent Communication (NVC): Developed by clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, NVC is a communication approach based on principles of nonviolence. It is a method designed to increase empathy and improve quality of life. It is not a technique to end disagreements.
  • Theory U: Developed by Otto Scharmer and his colleagues at MIT, Theory U is an awareness-based method for changing systems. It’s designed to break through unproductive patterns of behavior that prevent from empathizing with other perspectives, which often lock us into ineffective decision making. One of the tools they offer is a listening assessment.
  • My meditation practice: Even though I am learning and applying these new tools as best as I can, the dots connected when I sat in silence.

#104: Touch (India Diaries)

My primary sources of touch when I’m in the States are my husband and cat. I instinctively hug people but there aren’t as many opportunities to hug during workdays. When I see my friends, the main moments of touch are hellos and goodbyes. If someone I know is having a hard time, then I may touch their upper back as a mark of support and, if we are close, linger my hand there so they feel connected and safe. I do this because in my darkest moments, simple and genuine touch helps me metabolize difficult emotion like nothing else.

When I was in India, I touched humans a lot more. There were more loved ones to touch, more ways in which I could touch them, and it was ok to stay in physical contact a bit longer. I touched my mom, brother, sister-in-law, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. I could hug and kiss them freely, touch their face with love, massage their scalp, put lotion on my mom’s feet, hold my aunt’s hand as long as we both wanted, and sleep with my mom in the same bed. I felt hydrated and nourished by so much loving touch. 

Touch is our very first sense to develop in utero, with development starting at around 8-weeks, before the senses of smell, taste, sight and hearing. Skin is our largest organ, at 22 square feet for an average adult. We can see, hear and smell from afar but taste and touch are the two senses that invite closeness. And how we touch, like other expressions of care, is personal but also very cultural. For instance, it’s a common sight in India to see men from a specific social strata walking down the street holding hands or with an arm wrapped around another’s shoulder. I didn’t see these behaviors in the more educated or affluent Indian men. It’s also a common sight to see groups of children in their uniforms after school holding hands, doing shenanigans, laughing and joking freely on their way home.

I have not experienced this level of physical closeness in the west. Despite the many well-researched and documented benefits of touch, our general lack of touch makes me wonder if we have oversexualized the act of touching another human? What would happen if we had the freedom to express love in platonic relationships through consensual physical touch? How would it change lives?*

“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”― Mother Teresa, Albanian-Indian Catholic nun

*Touch has been shown to have physiological, psychological and social benefits. Supportive touch releases feel good hormones and chemicals in the brain (oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine and serotonin), lowers the stress hormone (cortisol), and increases the production of white blood cells in the body. These biological reactions combined help lower the heart rate and blood pressure, lessen depression and anxiety, boost the immune system and even relieve pain.