Better Connections

We have multiple different types of connections in our lives across our home, family, work/professional colleagues, friends and wider community. These vary in term of significance, impact and frequency of contact. These social connections can be positive (help to strengthen our resilience and flourish) or negative.

Key elements to build and maintain connections

There are key elements that help build and maintain robust positive connections.

Emotional intelligence (EI)

Understanding our own emotions, being aware of the unhelpful ones (stress and anxiety) and knowing how to manage these to reduce their impact on ourselves and those we interact with are core to EI. See Self-awareness/Self-regulation for further resources.

Being able to read the emotions of others is also important. But it is harder to do that if we can’t first identify our own emotions. Interestingly, it is also harder to read the emotions of others (and to regulate our own emotions) when we are in sleep debt. So getting 7 hours of quality Sleep is important for our emotional intelligence.

Empathy

This is also part of EI but important enough to emphasise on its own. Empathy is the ability to see something from another’s perspective. To be empathetic requires us to put aside our own feelings/thoughts for a time so that we can clearly listen to, understand and appreciate the thoughts, feelings and perspective of the other person. Empathy requires self-regulation (when we have a strong emotional response) and a willingness to see things from another perspective (Mental Agility/openness).

Kindness/respect

These go hand in hand. If you respect the humanity of the other individual and their right to be treated as well as you would like yourself to be treated in the same circumstance, then kindness will be a natural outcome of that attitude.

Positive communication

Expressing gratitude for, or appreciation of, a person helps to build positive relationships, as does having fun together. For further resources, see Positive Emotions.

Positive listening

Providing support and a listening ear in times of adversity is important. But perhaps even more so is how we listen to and respond to another in our day-to-day conversations. These everyday conversations occur more commonly and have the power to build up or erode the strength of a connection.

I am sorry

These are one of the most important 3-word combinations in the language of connections. The ability to recognise and acknowledge when we have hurt another, even if inadvertently, is the first step towards bridging the fissure lines and healing the wounds that can appear in even the best of relationships. Forgiveness goes hand in hand with this. See the Positive Emotions section.

And if all of that seems like a lot of detail to remember, just focus on the unpinning foundation of treating others as you would like to be treated.