Human connection is universal
Facial hair is definitely not a gift of mine but this month during the month of Movember I have been joining thousands of others around the world in growing a moustache all in the name of men’s health.
A few years ago when I was working with The Man Cave I spearheaded a project partnering with Movember to redevelop their SpeakEasy product. An interactive workshop designed to give people the tools to have deeper conversations.
I am happy to say that 3 years on this workshop has now been delivered in Ireland, UK, Europe, Canada, the US, New Zealand and Australia. This year I was invited back to deliver some of these workshops around Australia.
Here’s what I noticed…
No matter the location in this vast country of ours, from Mining Sites in South Australia to small regional communities in Queensland people are longing for opportunities to connect on a deeper level. There is a yearning to just be held, heard and validated in their human experience.
The common answer to the question “why aren’t we having these deeper conversations?” is time. How have we become to busy, so caught up in the fast pace of life that we don’t have “time” to slow down and really connect with another human being. In my opinion, we have the gift of being able to feel emotions and think deeply about many things, we also have the gift of speech that enables us to communicate these.
When was the last time you asked your mates, “How are you really doing at the moment?” When was the last time you got past the perfunctory “How’s it going? Good thanks” and scratched the surface to see what lies beneath?
The pace only seems to be getting faster so in my mind, the time is now to create some habits that are going to serve us as we move forward. So here are a few things that you can do to connect more deeply with the humans in your life.
Make time for connection and conversation - Sounds simple but even if we diarise it of put it into our calendar we need to carve out time for connection.
Dig a little deeper - Don’t just ask “How are you?”, perhaps ask “How are you really going at the moment?”
Give some space - Allow some silence and space for others to formulate and communicate their response.
Listen - Sounds simple, but how often do we listen while formulating a response, what if we just gave our full attention to what was being said.
Human connection is something that technology cannot replace but if we’re not careful we will deskill and lose the art of communication. So now is the time to practice and hone our skills so we can lift each other up and support each other to live a full and happy life.
So the question I leave you with is…how are you really going at the moment? Perhaps it’s time to make time to share with someone.