The Walls You Didn't Know You Were Building

On my recent plane travels, I came across a podcast by Sonja Lyubomirsky, a happiness scientist and a psychology professor at UC Riverside, USA. It was an interview tied to her book How to Feel Loved (co-authored with Harry Reis.) She’s researched how to make ourselves happier.

As a Life Coach, it's the sort of thing that I’m really drawn to and stops me in my tracks, because I see the desire in so many women I coach to be happier and more connected.

Sonja wondered whether we could make ourselves happier through these sorts of actions:

• Writing gratitude journals

• Acts of Kindness

• Acting extroverted to engage with others

• Smiling more often

What Sonja found was that almost all those interventions did work and made people feel more connected. For example, writing a gratitude letter to her mum made her happier.

But her lightbulb discovery was that the key to happiness is

“Feeling connected AND loved.”

The combination of both was important.

Why It's Hard to Feel Connected

The next question she wanted to answer was: how do we connect?

Is it through touch, dance, eye contact and conversation?

Yes, those things help, but what can get in the way is the invisible walls we put up around ourselves. Walls that protect us from those who we think might hurt us.

I’m certainly familiar with putting up walls to not let anyone in. I had a great mask on when I was younger that conveyed I was confident and self-assured, but inside, quite the opposite.

So what are some signs that we might be pushing people away:

• Being distant or appearing cold

• Avoiding deeper chats

• Keeping our feelings hidden

• Staying busy

• Leaving early to avoid any deeper bonds forming

• Using humour so that we don’t show our pain

Connection would certainly be difficult with just some of these behaviours.

Where did they come from?

These patterns might have developed from being hurt in a past relationship, fear of rejection so we hide our true selves or a need to feel safe so we prefer to be alone rather than trust others.  These are just some examples of why you might feel disconnected from people. Some of these would have been learned from a young age.

How to feel more connected

So, to gain more happiness -

take down the walls, and you’ll feel more known and loved

And therefore more connected. But how do I do that, I hear you ask.

Firstly, consider the behaviours you use to put up the wall. You might have put them up when you were a lot younger, and now those behaviours don’t serve you. Dig in and reflect on how and why they are there. It would be useful to chat to someone you trust to ask if they see any of those behaviours in you.

Secondly, with your next conversation, approach it differently. Try it with someone close to you first, then try it with someone a little less close to you.

Think about speaking from the heart and begin to share a little more deeply. Be brave enough to let others see the real you.

Try some of these to begin:

• Share something about yourself that you know the other person doesn’t know. Could be simply something you love doing.

• Pace yourself. Start small. In the beginning, start with I’ve had a rough day rather than I’m fine.

• Listen to learn – Quiet your head voice so theirs can be heard. So next time, instead of thinking ahead of what you want to say, “listen like there will be a quiz tomorrow”: And ask one more question, e.g. How did that go for you or How did that feel?

This isn’t easy, I know, but to be happier means we need to feel loved and connected and to do that we might have to change some patterns that don’t serve us anymore.

If you would like to explore why you feel disconnected from people, let’s chat during my free 15-minute discovery session. Book here