What is human connection? What is this term, so often thrown around, but seemingly intangible?
It is so much easier to explain why we need it than what it is. From my conversations with digitally reared teens, I think knowing how to define human connection may be vital for Gen Z, who emerged as the loneliest of all generations in the Cigna Loneliness Index. How do we know when we’re making, or are in the presence of, a genuine human connection?
We have all experienced that moment where, when we meet someone for the first time, we’re on the exact same wavelength. Our opinions, morals, values, and worldviews are in sync. We see so much of ourselves in the other person that energy starts to spark off as the conversation flows and flows, and by the end of the meeting, we’re inspired to hug, shake hands, or, in some way, physically touch our new friend.
The connection feels right in our gut. It feels almost safe for us to disclose our vulnerabilities to this new person because we see so much of them in ourselves.
Let’s look at the five types of connection we need, based on the studies by some of the field’s best researchers:
1. Micro-connections
Every morning, when I lived in a small village in Switzerland called Eschlikon, I’d walk about six minutes to the train station to get the train to school in a larger city. On the way, I’d walk past other students, or the elderly getting their daily dose of fresh air. As we neared one another, looking me in the eye, they would say ‘grüezi’ to me. I’d say this back. It literally means ‘hello’ in Swiss dialect.
This would happen over and over again with anyone I’d meet in the village, a literal acknowledgement that you’re part of the tribe. You are seen. What a wonderful gift to a foreigner who spoke Swiss very badly. Physiologically, both parties would get some mood-boosting oxytocin from making eye contact and some stress-reducing dopamine, too.
Those everyday interactions we missed so much during the pandemic have value in reducing our stress by staving off loneliness – they’re not some uncanny accident. Don’t take for granted the nod to your neighbour or the pat on the back of your barista when getting your morning coffee.
2. Self-connection
Self-connection is ‘the process of being in touch with the worthiness and wholeness of your Self regardless of the form of experience you are having.’
You need great self-connection to connect well with others – it’s actually the baseline for emotional intelligence. You can grow your self-connection at any time – it’s never too late. You can do this through meditation, therapy, exercise, silence, breathwork, and your own spiritual practice.
I delayed so much of the work with the relationship with myself for years by being busy, by filling my days to the brim so as not to have to sit with myself. The lesson I learnt: You can’t run away from yourself. It has been in sitting in silence and listening to myself, feeling every micro-movement of my body in relation to a thought that I’m having, leaning into the discomfort of the pain this stillness may yield that I’ve come to understand myself better.
It is with this new understanding of myself that I’ve been able to connect better with others. If there’s one thing you can do to shift the needle in your life to move you in leaps and bounds toward the best version of you, then it’s doing work around self-connection. What action plan can you mark in your calendar to begin your self-connection work? An hour aside to search for a therapist? Time to attend a meditation class? The choice is yours.
3. Intimate connection
We need intimate connection – what you can think of as people you can truly be vulnerable with and who love you, warts and all. This is a rung of connection you really need; it trumps all others. Many people find this form of connection in their romantic partner, but I have also cultivated sets of deep friendships in all the countries I’ve lived in that would fall into this category.
Your intimate connections are the people who you’re closest to in the whole world and who provide you with the most emotional support. According to the work of evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, most people have around five close friends or family in this orbit of connection. These may often be people you live with.
What we don’t want is for people to rely solely on other forms of connection without cultivating any intimate ones. Lack of intimate connection then leads to feelings of being unanchored and adrift. I think we’ve all felt this way, this feeling of being ‘unseen’ at one point or the other.
4. Relational connection
This is belonging to a social fabric that you know you have access to when you need to call on it. These are deeper than micro-connections. Many people find relational connections in their family and kin. The person you can call when you need the kids babysat or to be taken to the emergency room.
It’s a sad fact of the way we live now that many people feel that they can’t call on people that will be there for them. According to Professor Robin Dunbar’s work, this group comprises around 15 people, and these are often people who make up your identity in some way. They could include extended family.
5. Collective connection
This category of connection is about belonging and affiliation, and knowing that you’re in tune with the people around you. You don’t have to be best buddies with this rung of connection, but you do have to have commonalities which thread you together.
You can find collective connection easily in your life by looking at the hobbies and interests you have and joining groups that augment those interests. I created a public speaking online membership during the pandemic for this very reason. I wanted people to come together connected by their love for self-improvement, and the Courageous Speaking Community was born.
Now that we know the kinds of connections we need, here’s the key takeaway: there are different types of connections that we’ve been blessed with, and reducing them to just one type and forsaking the rest is making us lonelier. We should still be focusing on quality over quantity in each of these rungs, but my point is, we shouldn’t cut off the friends in our cycling group because they can’t empathize with our existential crisis. Nor should we expect our barista serving us coffee to collect us from the airport after a trip.
Condensed and extracted from Let’s Talk About Loneliness: The Search for Connection in a Lonely World by Simone Heng (Hay House, £12.99).
