Lifeletter 99: This Human Thing

A few years ago, a beautiful young woman came to do a session with me. She was young, vibrant, intelligent and quite pissed off. “There is no-one to talk to in this town,” she said.  “I have lots of friends, but all they talk about is sports, and movies, and sex, and the news. It’s driving me crazy.”

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked her.

“Well,” she replied, “it’s not so much the ‘what.’ It’s the ‘how.’ I’d like to have friends I can really be wide open with, so I can feel the connection, in my heart and in my body—y’know what I mean? Something that is real, and deep and alive.”

“I certainly do know what you mean,” I said, “and I’m willing to be bet you are not the only person in this town who is feeling this way.”

“Where are these people then?” she asked me. “How do I find them?”

“That’s a good question,” I told her. “I think the first step is to really honour this longing for deeper connection. Give it a lot more space and time each day. Let yourself feel that it’s not a luxury. We human beings need this kind of connection. True intimacy nourishes us on many levels and dimensions. We don’t really do well without it. Just begin to explore possible ways of finding these people. Make a commitment to stay with this, to find some new friends—and don’t give up on it.”

“Okay,” she said, “That’s a big thing to commit to, and I will. What have I got to lose? No-one ever gave me the permission to do this—to make this a priority in my life.”

A few days later, another young woman came to see me. She sat down, took a deep breath, and said, “I feel so frustrated.”

“Okay, just as a little experiment, before you go any further,” I said to her, “Let me guess what’s going on.”

“Okay,” she said, “have at it.”

“Thanks,” I told her, “I just have this hunch. Are you feeling totally fed up with the kind of conversations you are having, over and over again, with your friends?”

She gasped, “You are psychic!”

“No,” I told her. “But I think I’m noticing something that is happening with a lot of people right now. We are evolving, transforming, moving beyond who we have been. And so we outgrow some of our friends, and our social networks. It’s inevitable, and it’s difficult. We still love these people, but we cannot have a genuine, nourishing conversation with them.”

“That’s it!” she said. “I feel stuck. What do I do? Do you know anyone who is interested in a whole different way of connecting?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I do,” I replied, “and here is her phone number.”

That happened about five years ago. Since then, the number of people who have called me, emailed me, spoken to me about this longing is quite staggering. I want to broadcast this news, I want to send it out on a satellite, so that anyone who feels they are living all alone with this desire, will find out it’s not true. There is a huge wave in our collective consciousness right now, building power with every passing day. More and more people are no longer willing to live without fulfilling this fundamental human need for true connection. They are realizing that this part of their life cannot be ignored, or bypassed, without a lot of suffering and unease. It’s an essential aspect of this human thing we are all a part of.

Someone in one of my coaching groups recently was exploring this desire in herself. “I want people to play with, to learn with, to explore with…” Then she said, “And I want people who will challenge me, invite me out beyond my safe places.”

“Oh,” she told us, with a surprised look on her face, “I didn’t really know until this moment, that I want to be challenged like that. But it’s true!”

“What you are speaking of right now,” I replied, “is what I call an ‘evolutionary friend.’ It could be an intimate partner too, or a colleague, or an uncle. An evolutionary friend loves us in a different way. They are not so interested in making us feel comfortable and secure. They love who we are, they see who we are, and they are willing to challenge us too, to call us to adventure, to the next step in our evolution. They are not invested in having us stay the same. Predictability is not what interests a friend like that. They are okay with things when they feel uncomfortable, and edgy and raw.”

I’ve noticed such an interesting thing about this depth of connection. Often, at the end of a workshop I have facilitated, where people have been meeting each other in this way for days, almost everyone will end up in a state that feels like deep meditation. “I feel so peaceful,” they will say, “so complete, so present, so grounded in my body.”

I’ve seen this again and again: when we connect like this, even though it can be risky and quite challenging, we fulfill something at a core level of our being. And so our nervous system, our heart, and our energy begin to relax and let go. We are able to settle down inside ourselves, and just be, exactly as we are. And that’s a great blessing. Completely ordinary, and rare as diamonds, at the same time.

 

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only in this meeting that a new world is born. (Anaïs Nin)

with love

Shayla