Want to feel better? This will help.

Busy weekend. Working on a late deadline. Shuttling the kid to play practice, feeding kids and dogs and cats,  folding laundry, working out,  scraping that goo off the shelf of the fridge — what is that anyhow? I got it all done, but there wasn’t much downtime and I felt depleted, unsettled.

By the time Monday circled back I wanted to quietly cocoon. But, I had a date with a friend. And though I was tired, I know the value of that kind of connection. Those moments sustain me.

Still, I’m an introvert, preferring to stay home, tucked in a corner of the couch, reading. I mostly work alone too. And my family doesn’t charge in until late afternoon. And, after awhile, life gets a little narrow and gray-colored. I become limited by my own ideas and jokes. And I become increasingly curious about what all those other people are up to.

I was waiting for her when she walked in. So glad I was.

When We Connect We Do Better

Texts and emails have become the communication habit for most of us. Even when we do share space with breathing human beings – the kid’s teacher, the checker at the grocery store, the guy at the gym – we hardly notice. We’re keeping our heads down, looking our phone, listening on earbuds,  moving quickly to the car and the office and back again. We are getting it done, this life thing, without even noticing the others who are doing it with us.  We don’t make eye contact, rarely look up and around to pass on a greeting or a smile. We don’t see each other.

And this makes it easier to judge the other. The other guy becomes the problem. It becomes easy to feel angry at the guy who steps in your way, instead of recognizing he’s a first-time dad, trying to find the right medicine to help his sick baby son. Right? He is stressed out of his gourd, and we are just pissed he cut in front.

We judge the lunch woman as being gruff or brusque in her dealings when we are the ones who don’t even say “thank you” or bother to learn her name. We write the check. Move on.

When we don’t lift up our heads and see one another it becomes much easier to become afraid and wary and isolated and isolating. Gotta stop that stuff. That is not where life is. Hope is in the compassion and kindness and intelligence and humor that others can offer. Sure people do crackpot things. But, they are also the solution to the crackpot problems of our day. We need to notice. Listen to one another. Teach and talk to one another.

When we do, when we really pause long enough to see each other, look each other in the eye and connect, we do better.

Whether it’s during a long conversation with a friend at the coffee shop (I had one of those Saturday and it filled me up) or a glance and greeting in passing with the cafeteria woman when we notice each other, we share a moment and that moment becomes better. The personal connection enlivens and enlightens us. Keeps us engaged in the world and with each other and reminds us of our humanity and compassion. Then we separate, go on and off about our lives, but we are more likely to do it with patience and kindness — which spreads others — and because we took a moment to see each other, we save the world a little bit at a time. Make it a little bit better. And we save ourselves.

Research, a ton of it, shows that connecting with others buffers us against depression, illness, and other tough stuff. It also prompts well-being and uplifts mood. It builds empathy for others and resilience for us. When we pause to look another in the eye, we see the truth in each other, that everybody is just trying to get by. That we’ve all got loves and lives and struggles and fears and that we are just trying to figure it all out. In the moments of connection, we recognize that we aren’t alone, not really and we help others remember that too. It’s a gentler, more fun way to live.

It’s easy to pick a fight on Facebook. Easy to forget the people behind the posts. Easy to comment without connecting to the fears or sadness or worries. With social media we can keep life at a distance. Substitute emojis for real emotion.

Over coffee with a friend, not so much.  I listen better. I give my attention. I carefully weigh what she shares rather than scrolling on to kitten pictures. I’m all in.

And in the end, I’m the one who benefits. I’m the one who feels more creative and engaged and connected and alive.