Being back in the classroom after a year of self-study was a reconfirming of sorts that I still love to learn and still love to have my brain question and churn over ideas, theories, concepts, the world as it was and as it is now. The culmination of our week in Positive Relationships is to produce a reflective log of which you will find laid out below. I have chosen to focus on sentences that triggered something within me about my own journey through life and the connections that the week provided me.
Our brains are wired for social connection
I first heard the above heading while watching a Brené Brown TED Talk (2010) in 2013. It spurred my need to look at my behaviour, my actions, and delve into my social connections or propensity to struggle with them. However, it was not Brené Brown’s talk that the classroom based their discussions and learning around but that of Lieberman’s book Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect (2013).
Evolutionary psychology tells us that social connection is necessary for survival: social exclusion results in feeling pain and to avoid that pain, on a fundamental level, we must keep ourselves close to our social circles (Lieberman, 2013). Many years ago, the social exclusion would not have just resulted in feelings of pain from separation, but exclusion would have most likely resulted in the death of those excluded (Lieberman, 2013). Intellectually, it is a simple equation — social connection equals living. Ryan and Deci (2000) also highlight, alongside competence and autonomy, relatedness as being integral to fulfilling basic psychological needs within every person. Going on to write that social deprivation means one cannot thrive as all basic psychological needs have not been satisfied (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Yet, here we are, a Western world that praises individuality. Individuality or as Tocqueville termed it ‘individualism’, a relatively new phrase within the evolution of man, ‘…each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow creatures…he willingly leaves society at large to itself’ (Tocqueville, 1840, p203).
Elliott and Lemert (2009) suggest we live in a paradoxical world where we are globally connected like never before yet the seduction of the culture of individualism is overwhelmingly practised in every facet of our day-to-day lives. This paradox led me to spend most of my week and onwards, reflecting on what was learned during that day, that week in fact, and my struggle with connection. Questions arose: why do I struggle with connection? What is the root cause of that struggle? Where has my ‘I’ll do it myself’ mantra born from? Why am I wilfully blind to some of the answers I think I already have?
So perhaps, the final question above is what many people battle with — being wilfully blind — because without the understanding and awareness of that, undoubtedly the other questions remain unanswered? A judicial concept, ‘wilful blindness’ states that you are responsible if you could or should have known something that of which you chose not to see (Merriam-Webster.com). This description has transferred to many philosophical situations where we have chosen to ignore in order to carry on. Heffernan (2011) delved into wilful blindness and found that choosing to be blind can feel like we are keeping ourselves safe, minimising shame or anxiety (Freud, 2011), but what is happening is this defence mechanism cripples us and leaves us powerless to our fears. In my case, choosing to ignore my, sometimes crippling, feelings of aloneness and separateness for fear of confronting my overwhelming shame and anxiety felt by my thoughts of inadequacy.
So what propagates inadequacy in a global network that should satisfy our need for social connection and relatedness? A question that cannot be surmised so succinctly in one reflective log, I concede.
Social experience is integral to connection
This sentence triggered my need to understand further myself and, perhaps, others whom connection does not come easy. It led me to reflect on my evolution and the social experiences littered throughout. Lieberman (2013) writes that social connectedness is fundamental during infancy in order to prevail in social settings later in life which led me to the writings of Gabor Maté. In When the Body Says No (2011) Maté writes that we understand, love, and care for ourselves as we have perceived the understanding, love, and care we received during childhood. To connect Lieberman and Maté, if the social experiences were filled with emotional deprivation or rejection during childhood, connection would be faulty into adulthood. The mantra ‘I’ll do it myself’ plays into the mechanism of coping to compensate for the potential social and or emotional deprivation experienced in the early years (Maté, 2011). Furthermore, rejection experienced when younger can lead to intense feelings of inadequacy whereby inappropriate self-criticism will also take hold (Bowlby, 2009).
Another coping mechanism that I found within myself which played out throughout the week is the appearance of being busy. Yes, I did, in fact, have things to get done, but it is also an automatic response to avoid or minimise potential connection rejection. Brown (2013) wrote that staying busy is a way to avoid the ‘truth of our lives catching up with us’ — in my case the truth about my need to avoid connection, again, the inadequacy of my being.
As cliché as it would seem, research is proving that childhood is crucial when building the foundations for stable social connection throughout the evolution of one’s life. So, if Lieberman (2013) and Brené Brown (2010) are to be followed, we are wired for connection, but it leaves me wanting. In a world of global networks, how do we ask those that have faced rejection time and time again to reach out once more? I certainly do it filled with fear and anxiousness. This connected yet intimately disconnected world is in dire need of more authentic positive relationships. An example of an exercise which we did at the very end of our week was welcomed with hints of anxiousness — we were asked to attach words to each person that had been in the class, how we had perceived them. When you feel inadequate, you can shy away from putting yourself out there like that, but this exercise let me know that I was seen, that I did connect with people.
However, even throughout this reflective log, I am unable to build a true connection to the reader. By withholding descriptions of lived experiences, I protect myself from potential judgement and social rejection, severing the tenuous connection that may have begun to build through my words. I believe that the majority of children are not taught the emotional skills or practices needed to lean into discomfort, to deconstructing how they feel and their reactions, meaning that when connections become faulty, they don’t always know how not to internalise that loss or even understand it, taking it with them into adulthood, such as my own actions. Perhaps Positive psychology will fill a glaring gap in emotional skills and practices that could tamper down the internalisation of inadequacy, giving children and adults the much-needed lifeline for connections to thrive.
To end, it is truly incredible how one or two sentences can spark the reflections of the human mind. Indeed, we are wired for connection, but I am left with the question — how do we realign already faulty experiences in one’s mind?
References
Anna. Freud. (2011). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. London: Karnac Books.
Anthony. Elliott. (2009). The new individualism: the emotional costs of globalization(Rev. ed..). London: Routledge.
Bowlby, J. (2009). Loss — Sadness and Depress Kindle. Random House.
Brown, B. (2010). Transcript of ‘The power of vulnerability’. Retrieved 24 November 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability/transcript
Brown, B. (2013). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Penguin UK.
Heffernan, M. (2011). Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious. Simon and Schuster.
John-Bowlby-Loss-Sadness-And-Depression-Attachment-and-Loss-1982.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.abebe.org.br/files/John-Bowlby-Loss-Sadness-And-Depression-Attachment-and-Loss-1982.pdf
Legal Definition of WILLFUL BLINDNESS. (n.d.). Retrieved 25 November 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/willful+blindness
Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Oxford: Oxford University Press USA — OSO.
M.D, G. M. (2011). When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress. Knopf Canada.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
Tocqueville, A. de. (1840). Democracy in America. Saunders and Otley.
