woman in the room, she had me say a few words about resilience. For obvious reasons, I chose to emphasize friends and support and helping each other through rough times. I talked about this group and how we were an embodiment of a spontaneous support group, how every one of us was connected to this amazing woman, every one of us called her a friend and meant it from the heart.
I then asked the women in the room to share their thoughts about why Cindy was their friend. (This was not on Cindy's agenda; she told me later how stunned she was—and how much she surprised herself by not putting a stop to it!)
One of the first people to get up was Cindy's daughter Kathy, who told a story about standing in the receiving line at her wedding, when her new husband leaned over and whispered, “Everyone your mother introduces me to says they are her very best friend!” Kathy then looked around the room and said the same thing to us that she had said to her new husband that day. “They are!”
Jeannine, Cindy's daughter-in-law, stood and said, “Cindy, I will never forget one of our first heart-to-heart talks when I joined your family. You told me that if Aaron and I had an argument and he came to you with his complaints you would not automatically take his side. You would give me the respect to include my point of view as well. That has meant the world to me because I knew then that I could trust you.”
The stories went on, leaving us all crying, laughing, ooohing and aaahing. Eight hours later, the police called looking for an elderly woman who was attending the party. “She is never out this late,” her husband had told the police when he called, worried that something had happened to her. We all went home with tremendous smiles on our faces and warmth in our hearts.
Cindy still talks about how the evening was the single most important healing experience of her life:
Ever since that night I feel okay in a way I have not felt before. I don't have to measure up; I am okay as I am. I sincerely believe I could not have accepted the teacher of the year award with such dignity and confidence if I did not have the reminder of my dear friends' love and respect.
I have always been quick to turn the attention and care to others; if I had not been forced to do otherwise that night I would not have heard and felt how much people cared for me. Seventy-five people cannot be wrong. I know how deeply I feel for everyone who was in my home that night; hearing and believing how much they care for me was profoundly and lastingly healing.
The power of that connection for Cindy allowed her to stand tall and resilient when she next had to face, for her, the awkward and difficult situation of accepting the teacher of the year award. Rather than convincing herself she did not deserve such recognition, she could rely on the genuine response she had received from her “closest” friends.
our health depends on it
It turns out that having the support of a group doesn't just feel good; it is, empirically, good for us, especially during stressful times. As we learn more and more about the connection between mind and body, we are also becoming aware of the link between illness and social isolation. When people in stressful situations do not have someone in whom to confide, their immune response apparently weakens. In James Pennebaker's study of 2,000 people who had suffered trauma, including physical abuse, rape, or the death of a loved one, those who managed to confide in someone about the event were found to be healthier. Those who hadn't discussed their experiences developed more illness of various sorts—from headaches to lung disease.
We have discovered that when stress is high, people without psychological support suffer as much as ten times the incidence of physical and emotional illness as do those who are able to get such support. As I was preparing this chapter, in fact, a new study from Yale came to the public's attention. Lisa Berkman, a public health specialist from Yale, monitored 200 older men and women who had suffered heart attacks. She found that those with the most support from others lived the longest after the attack. Dr. Berkman explains that emotional support contributes to healing for physical reasons, “If you feel like you have emotional support, you may be less stressed. Your blood pressure doesn't shoot up, and your heart doesn't race.” The comfort and solace of connection makes a difference.
Whether our connection is to lots of people, to family members, to a very special person, to nature and all her gifts, to the deepest part of ourselves through meditation and prayer, or to the divine on a mountaintop as we exclude ourselves from the rest of humanity, there is no doubt that we need to be in contact.
Whether we are introverted and savor those few meaningful meetings of like kind, or extroverted and thrive from the stimulating interactions of lots and lots of people in a small room; whether we like to be around other people all the time or whether we need time alone with infrequent, but comfortable and intimate, shared time with someone else; we all share the essential need of healthy connection and contact.
a skill worth mastering
Being connected, of course, is a two-way street. We need not only to be willing to be seen and known in deeper and deeper ways but to know and see the other person and be as open to them as we can, too.
Since most of us are conditioned, from an early age, to protect and guard ourselves, this requires taking risks, being flexible (resilient!), trying on different beliefs, and not giving up when communication gets messy, painful, and possibly raw. This kind of sophisticated communication is a skill, an art; it can (and must) be learned, practiced, and mastered. The rest of this chapter is devoted to the skills of communication.
Overall, practice observing and listening with keen attention. As you interact with others, try to watch and listen to what they respond to and what makes them defensive. Observe when you become defensive.Watch for those instances of masterful timing where an exchange between people approaches a well-choreographed ballet. What communication skills do you observe? What can you take away and practice as you cultivate your own connections?
befriending your imagination
One of the keys to this kind of sophisticated communication is imagination, the ability to construct internal images of situations and see through various possible outcomes in “our mind's eye.” It has been found that people who show natural resilience in difficult situations use precisely this imaginative function in order to structure and sequence the event and adapt accordingly.
Sports psychologists confirm this further in their reporting of the effectiveness of imagining the perfect golf swing or foul shot. We know that with practice, imagined practice, athletes show marked improvement because mental practice turns on most of the brain circuits that would be used in swinging or shooting for real.
Now, let's put this together with neurobiology's reports of the differences between a peak performance and a mental collapse. Whether we respond to a situation or failure by panicking and saying “I don't know if I can do this” or by embracing the challenge with “I've been preparing for this all my life” determines which chemical will course through our systems. In the challenge response, the body is flushed with adrenaline and sugar, creating a heightened awareness and the flow people mention about a peak performance. The fearful response produces hormones laced with cortisol, which not only impairs performance but also does damage to the arteries and liver and can lead to depression.
Imagination allows us to see all the views of the situation, the varying pieces of the puzzle, and gives us the opportunity to arrange and rearrange to our heart's content. We can imagine the possible consequences of “If you say this or do that” as we include the potential responses you will receive. We can imagine how we might feel if the deal goes one way or another, gauging the levels of comfort we have with the different scenarios. If Tina had been able to use her imagination regarding a possible conversation
