All real living is meeting.
—MARTIN BUBER
• The need for social connection is hardwired into the human brain.
• The strength and type of social bond we form early in life has a lasting impact on our social bonds throughout life.
• Learning to create, grow, and maintain healthy social connections provides a protective health benefit, especially in the second half of life.
• Mental and physical health depend on how well our social connections provide us with meaning, purpose, and direction.
• The greatest measure of an individual’s self-development is her or his social connections to others in the family, community, and wider society.
Well into her late eighties, her husband long since gone, Bela was facing a move from the home in which she had raised her children and where she had lived alone for a number of years. She was going to an elder care facility in a new community, where she would be surrounded by people with similar backgrounds at a similar stage of life. She would have daily activities, aides, resources, and access to all manner of care. Yet as she considered the move, she made the poignant comment that she was “afraid to be alone there.” Objectively, there was no basis for such a fear. She would hardly be alone for a minute during the day thanks to the carefully structured daily routine that would put her in touch with others.
The reality is that she wasn’t talking about social isolation, which is the lack of actual physical contact with others. She was talking about loneliness, that psychological or existential sense of disconnection from others that is among the most primal and visceral fears we have. A psalm written more than twenty-five hundred years ago reflects this fear. The author, probably advanced in years, said, “Do not throw me away in my old age; do not abandon me when my strength fails.”
Bela expressed that fear too. Her fear of loneliness reflected how powerfully our sense of connection can be formed to physical places and objects filled with potent memories (as her home was). Still, to face the existential fear of being alone and forgotten, we need dynamic, living, breathing relationships with others.
There are powerful but hidden forces that influence our ability to form social bonds. For example, researchers led by Cristian Pasquaretta have shown that among social animals that are the “smartest” and most tolerant of one another (primates), you will also find brain networks within which information flows most efficiently. In other words, there is evidence from neuroscience that our social connections play a role in shaping our brains and enabling us to show more highly developed social behaviors.1
We are social animals. The smallest social group is the dyad, a group of two. The most basic dyad is a mother and child. A married or partnered pair of adults forms the elemental social unit around which larger social groups form. The strength of these bonds can last a lifetime, but they are tested by losses encountered in the second half of life. Thankfully, the bonds connecting us to others can be strengthened by developing the bonds that connect us more deeply to ourselves.
In one sense, the chemistry of our connection to others involves actual chemicals. Singer/songwriter Lou Reed’s “Love Is Chemical” got it right. When chemical receptors in the brain’s reward centers are flooded with tiny molecules called vasopressin and oxytocin, they generate strong urges to form lasting bonds.2 Humans and other mammals that give attention to the care and raising of their offspring are the only creatures who have receptors sensitive to these bonding chemicals. Without them, there would be no long-term pair bonding. Without high levels of oxytocin, there would be no active nurturance of offspring by consistent parents.
Of course, social bonding involves more than molecules finding their receptor targets. Every one of the five senses is also involved in shaping the social bond. Most of us have heard of pheromones, the scent molecules that arouse amorous feelings toward potential mates. But pheromones don’t act alone: all the senses get into the act of promoting social bonds.
Along the rocky shores of Antarctica, hundreds of thousands of Emperor penguins nest in communal rookeries. Each male-female pair lays one egg. While the females walk up to 120 miles to the ocean to feed and fatten up after laying their single egg, their male partners dutifully watch over their chicks in one of earth’s harshest climates, patiently waiting their turn to walk to the sea upon their partner’s return many weeks later. Loyal to a fault, these penguin pairs are able by their unique calls to recognize each other and their chicks from among the countless penguins walking about. For them, sound is the glue that cements their bonds.
Our right brain is designed for pattern recognition, which occurs largely outside of our awareness. These patterns nevertheless strongly influence how we form relationships and with whom we form them.3,4 The right brain notices what the conscious mind overlooks: voice patterns; habits of facial expression; arousal of emotions and which emotions tend to be dominant; expression of needs for love and intimacy. Ultimately, the right brain helps us learn what is safe and secure, guiding us so we can rapidly decide whether to approach or avoid a given encounter with others.
These are the fundamental elements of emotional attachment, and these patterns of attachment are set down quite early in life. Throughout the first years of life, the right brain is hard at work tracking and encoding these nonverbal, emotion-rich relationship patterns to learn what makes us feel safe and secure, what makes us feel wanted and loved, what encourages independence and confidence, and what signals threat and danger. Those early imprints stay with us over a lifetime, though they can be modified and shaped by our neuroplastic brain with mindful attention and persistent practice.
Social attachment patterns continue to play a central role in the second half of our lives. That doesn’t change. What does change is our ability to bring awareness to the unwritten rules of those patterns and how they influence our daily choices. Through increased awareness of the relationship rules we carry, we become capable of composing new rules by which we can live more fully. We can pursue more satisfying and fulfilling connections to others that imbue the individuals’ relationships with the capacity for richer emotional depth. And we can overcome any social limitations left over from early life experience.
Our relationships to others provide the social context within which we work out our relationship to ourselves. As David Wallin, a psychologist and expert in the field of attachment theory, says, relationships involve a “social biofeedback” system that enables us to learn to regulate our emotions.5 In the process, we become better able to have our various emotional needs successfully met.
Wallin’s research has focused on the importance of refashioning strong attachment bonds as a foundation for psychological health, but mounting evidence also shows the influences of social connection on physical health:6
• Our social connections shape the choices we make for how we maintain our health.7
• We tend to mimic the health behaviors (diet, weight control, exercise levels, smoking, and alcohol use patterns) of people in our social networks.8
• The shrinking of social networks results in health risks for aging.9
• Long-term caregiving of a chronically ill partner means a greater risk of illness for the caregiver.10
“The best thing we can do for our relationships with others, and with the transcendent, then, is to render our relationship to ourselves more conscious,” writes James Hollis.11
Becoming more “conscious” about our reactions, our emotions, and our choices involves an everyday kind of enlightenment that has more to do with mental alertness and awareness than with world-changing insights. When you use the simple practices we have emphasized related to sleep, nutrition, exercise, flexibility, curiosity, and optimism, you will feel a positive shift in your relationship to yourself. Such practices open the door to improved relationships with others as well. Since we exist in “social biofeedback” networks, as Wallin noted, more open and intimate relationships to others reward us with greater abilities to improve our own health and well-being.
The more we build resilient connections to others, the better prepared we are to be emotionally grounded within ourselves. Then, when we face the inevitable disruption or loss of those relationships, we can rebound from those wounds more effectively. The ebb and flow between individuals connected through open minds and hearts enriches both of them, even in the face of loss. When we strengthen our personal and social connections, we become more able to accept whatever life brings us, while simultaneously tapping into life’s joy. As C. J. Jung observed,
I always thought that when we accepted things they overpowered us in some way or other. This turns out not to be true at all. . . . So now I intend to play the game of life, being receptive to whatever comes to me, good and bad, sun and shadow forever alternating, and, in this way, also accepting my own nature with its positive and negative sides. Thus everything becomes more alive to me.12
Accepting things as they are does not mean accepting that they will remain unchanged forever. The paradox is that in accepting things as they are in any given moment, we actually increase our capacity to make positive change in the next moment. We become capable of evolutionary growth, reflecting the slow and steady, step-by-step practice of one small change building on another.
Learning to accept the feedback we receive via our social network enables us to respond to the feedback with greater sensitivity, less defensiveness, and more compassion. Building healthy social connections this way can lead to a large-scale transformation of each person touched by those connections. Richer and more joyful relationships can emerge, further strengthening the social bonds.
There are many health consequences that can occur from having insufficient social bonds. For example, as recently as 2003, it was estimated that of the $1.3 trillion dollars that were spent in the United States on health care that year, at least 75 percent of that cost arose from health problems stemming from people’s lifestyle choices.13 Those unhealthy choices gave rise to obesity, diabetes, asthma, heart disease, and smoking and alcohol-related disease. The enormity of the problem has only grown since then.
We are not suggesting that all health care problems are caused primarily by a lack of social connectedness. After all, governmental and cultural choices involving air and water quality, farming regulations, health insurance coverage policies, and housing and educational subsidies have a huge impact too. Still, individual behavioral choices strongly influenced by the quality of your social connections to others contribute to these health problems as well. But why do people continue to engage in health-threatening behaviors when they know better? Why can’t we change even when we want to?
We become more motivated to make behavioral changes when they are associated with deep personal meaning.14 Research has found that people were more likely to make the changes that improved their health and increased their sense of well-being only when internal variables (such as self-esteem) were linked to the presence of external variables of social connection (such as a feeling of being loved). Meaning matters most when we are connected with others.
Ask yourself how you fare in each of the areas below, all of which support your moving from having the desire for change into actively working to change. Each area offers two statements. The first in each pair relates to social connection, while the second describes an associated internal quality.
1. I feel loved. / I have positive self-esteem.
2. I do not feel alone when I am making important decisions. / I have clear goals and plans.
3. I feel respected and listened to. / I am aware of my fears and anxieties.
4. I feel supported. / I have personal autonomy.
5. I am part of an environment where new learning opportunities are available. / I am challenged by questions to which I seek answers.
6. I trust the people in my life who care about me. / I trust myself.
The more you identify with the first statement in each statement pair, the more likely you are to be a part of a strong social network and experience the youthful brain rewards that go with it. If that isn’t what you found, your answer can be a springboard to action to strengthen your connection to others.
The six paired statements in the list elevate our discussion by shifting the focus from an individual self to a self who is embedded in a network of social connections. The social self brings out the individual’s highest potential to realize the greatest rewards. Most often, those rewards come from actions taken for the benefit of others.
Specifically, studies show that when facing what are called social dilemmas, offering a choice between doing something to benefit oneself or risking something to benefit another, most people say that they would choose the riskier but more altruistic (other-directed) option.15 As we know, saying and doing are two different things. Therefore, this line of research was taken further. It explored, for example, what motivated people to donate a kidney to a stranger in need—a rather extreme form of altruism in action.
Initially, scientists were skeptical about what would motivate someone to undergo a serious operation to remove a healthy organ from their body and donate it to a total stranger. Psychologists were brought in to interview these potential donors to discover what must be wrong with them. The psychologists failed to find what they expected. They found something much more important instead. Their findings consistently showed that those individuals who actually donated a kidney were most likely to score highest on measures of self-esteem and reported feelings of overall well-being.16 A new conclusion emerged: individuals blossom under the influence of positive social connectedness. Then, when that individual experiences an opportunity to act from their sense of meaningful connectedness, their actions often benefit others. The world’s wisdom traditions have long advocated expressing our higher nature through service to others. Modern science provides solid evidence in support of this teaching.
The physician Victor Frankl was a towering figure. A practicing psychiatrist and researcher in Vienna prior to the outbreak of World War II, Dr. Frankl, his wife, father, mother, and brother were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps solely because they were Jews. Of that group, he was the only one to survive the war’s horrors. In a world where human kindness seemed absent, as did the chances of survival, Dr. Frankl toiled daily to instill hope and counter deadly despair among the inmates of the death camps.
After liberation came in 1945, he translated his observations and discoveries into new therapies for which he became world-renowned. At the core of his work was recognition of the central role of meaning and purpose in life. He proposed that not only do meaning and purpose enrich life, but the absence of meaning and purpose can actually shorten life. He recognized that life is about more than surviving. In his book The Unheard Cry for Meaning, he wrote, “The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”17
Among the greatest responsibilities of the second half of life is to answer Frankl’s call and challenge: What is the meaning and purpose for which you live? This question is being asked by an increasing number of aging baby boomers. The old paradigm assumed that when you reach a certain age, it is time to step off the stage of life. Like the waves lapping at the shore, each generation has its moment to make a splash before it recedes, its energy spent, to make room for the next wave coming up from behind.
The new paradigm is different. This paradigm suggests eighty is the new sixty. Increasing life expectancies support this. As Frankl observed, the means to live cannot substitute for the reasons to live. Aging boomers are heeding the call and, as author Marc Freedman outlined in his book Encore, they are discovering their personal second acts in life. Freedman’s research found that people entering their fifties share several things in common that are relevant to social connection as a path to spurring positive social action.18
• They view their lives as having an active career phase beyond traditional retirement age.
• They seek second careers at higher rates than ever before.
• What they seek is less driven by money and more focused on finding meaning and purpose.
• Becoming less interested in making more, they seek opportunities to make a difference.
Wayne Muller, a therapist and minister, focused on the call for meaning in a different way.19 Unlike Freedman’s focus on finding meaning through action, Muller looked at the emergence of mental and emotional clarity about who we are on the inside, a clarity that lets us better manifest that inner self in the outer world. He focused on four questions, which we invite you to ask yourself. Set aside some quiet, uninterrupted time to contemplate or meditate on them. Allow yourself to develop satisfying answers by revisiting the questions over time. The four questions are
• Who am I?
• What do I love?
• How shall I live, knowing I will die?
• What is my gift to the family of the earth?
Return to the four questions repeatedly. Each time, the response you discover can mature and become more heartfelt. The questions are not meant to be a pop quiz that you answer once, hand in, and move on to the next chapter. They are a blueprint for a solid foundation on which to build a life of meaning. The building requires ongoing and attentive refinement. As you can readily see, Muller’s questions, like Freedman’s, lead from inner self to outer world, from the individual to the larger social world of which each of us is an integral and essential part.
Most faith traditions have emphasized how precious our all-too-short lives can be. Most faith traditions have also emphasized that as individuals we are most alive when we are acting in service of others and the world we share with them. There seems to be a universal principle that is found in all the faith traditions and thereby transcends them. This philosophical perspective goes beyond the individual to see the individual as part of a larger (perhaps divine?) whole.
The Hindu greeting namaste means, “I bow to the divine in you.” To view one another through this lens immediately subdues our tendency to evaluate and judge one another when we meet. How do you look (compared to me)? Are you happy (compared to me)? Are you struggling with something upsetting (more than me)? Are you as successful, established, recognized, well-liked, etc. (compared to me)? By subordinating that tendency to judge, evaluate, and compare, and at the same time acknowledging that each of us is much more than the physical sum of our parts, we transform the way we meet one another. We become able to greet each other as equals who enrich one another through the encounter.
A key stepping stone to youthful aging is to refine who we are and how we function as socially connected beings. How do we do that? How do we transform our encounters with one another into meetings between two inspired beings eager to do with each other and do for others what we might be unable to do on our own? The next section outlines steps you can take. First, some necessary background.
In the late 1800s a young man was born in Vienna, Austria. His mother, without explanation or forewarning, abandoned him and the family when young Martin Buber was just three years old. His overworked and traumatized father sent young Martin to be raised by his grandparents. The connection to those loving grandparents may well have saved Martin’s life. His early attachment experiences—the positive and the negative—may also have served to fashion his lifelong interest in understanding the nature of relationships. The culmination of his life of study was published in his world-famous book I and Thou.20
For those unfamiliar with this work, here is a brief summary. Buber described two primary types of relationships: I-Thou and I-it. The ideal is the I-Thou relationship in which both parties are fully present to each other. Through the sharing of that fully attentive presence, both parties are elevated. Both parties acknowledge the namaste or divine spark in the other. Both parties come away feeling heard, validated, and affirmed. I-Thou translates the singular I into a plural interpersonal experience: “We exist, we matter, and our sharing of our lives makes sense!”
Buber wrote, “All real living is meeting.” He was referring to the deep level of connection that comes when people meet each other at the I-Thou level. We have all had the experience, no matter how fleeting, of interacting with someone who seemed to be attentively listening to us with an open heart, and how it generated stirrings within us to respond in kind. This is the kind of encounter that can happen as easily between intimate partners in fifty-year-long relationships as between strangers who interact with each other for those few short moments on a bus, a plane ride, or at the checkout line at the grocery store. What is required is the active effort of showing up as you are, with mind and heart open to influence, and being influenced by the encounter with the other. As we’ve seen, empathy allows us to read the other and to be read by the other. In an I-Thou encounter, empathy flows. When coupled with the mutual reading of each other’s inner states, the social bond is strengthened. The various health benefits of the social bond are activated. The door to individual and mutual joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction is opened.
I-it encounters, on the other hand, involve either no mutual presence or the experience of being alone in the physical presence of another. The I-it encounter isn’t about interacting with another person so much as standing back apart from them while acting toward them, seeking what they have to offer you. In an I-it encounter:
• The clerk should complete the transaction quickly so you can be quickly on your way to your important next appointment.
• The teller should complete the withdrawal quickly because what you have to do is important, you are important, and time is money.
• The friend on the phone is wasting your time by attempting to share something with you. Feelings of impatience arise in you as you wait for them to pause. They should recognize your needs. Then, you can start saying what you have been waiting to say, disregarding what they are saying so you can use them as your dumping ground for what you want to get off your chest.
The I-it encounter makes the other the object to you as the subject. When the shoe is on the other foot, we know how it feels. We sense when we have been the object. When treated as a physical object, we often describe the experience in physical language. “I felt small.” “I felt kicked aside.” “I felt like a piece of garbage.” As objects, we are no longer in a true two-way interaction, since I-it encounters are largely one-way streets. We have value only so long as the other is getting what they want from us. Then, like that piece of garbage, we are tossed aside and left saying, “I felt completely used!” These are all comments that reflect the failure of that encounter to rise to Buber’s level of an I-Thou meeting.
As mental health clinicians with more than fifty years of clinical practice between us, we have borne witness countless times to the transformative power of the I-Thou relationship to shape people’s lives. Many times, with tears in their eyes, our clients have said to us, “This is the first time I have really felt listened to.” That experience of real living as real meeting (paraphrasing Buber’s words) was a telling moment for these clients. Having their lives witnessed by a caring other was a key moment in the blossoming of their human potential. Social connectedness, particularly in life’s second half, helps us to get there in the face of the challenges of illness, retirement, losses of loved ones and friends, and most especially the awareness of our own mortality, which becomes more keenly felt.
Older adults with strong and active social networks have a 50 percent increase in survival.21 Isn’t that a strong motivator to learn how to build, sustain, or improve existing connections to others? For the 20 percent of older adults actively involved in caring for an ill spouse, it often becomes hard to remain connected to larger social networks. Isolation and loneliness rates skyrocket when people in long-term caring relationships become disconnected from their larger social lives.22 Brother William Geenen has said about these twin afflictions that “isolation and loneliness are the malnutrition of the aging.”23 A wide range of experts in many aging-related fields recognize this and agree that the challenges involved are not just about living longer but also living better. They have identified a number of important steps that support individuals’ efforts to stay connected.
Research undertaken by Emlet and Moceri24 addresses the physical challenges of aging by focusing on what it takes to build age-friendly communities. They found several key elements that support greater social connectedness:
• We need to build communities that attend to the kinds of physical challenges identified by the AGNES research (as we saw in chapter 10, AGNES involved wearing suits to mimic for young people the experience of getting about in an older body).
• We need to build in social roles that emphasize mutual benefit (creating I-Thou communities). In age-friendly communities, older adults are not seen simply as recipients of services and consumers of resources generated by the young. Older adults in age-friendly communities are highly valued as people who make important contributions to the community through active involvement in a range of activities that can include volunteerism, tutoring/teaching, and mentorship. They are valued as important positive role models of what younger people can grow up to become.
• The youthful older adult was found to be a lifelong learner. Satisfying the curiosity of older adult minds was associated with the maintenance of agile brains well into advanced age for all but those suffering from dementia. Whether the learning setting is a book group, a Bible-study group, an informal community education class, or a formal course offered through a recognized educational institution, the opportunity to engage in group-based learning is an important path to deeper connections to others.
• At the other end of the continuum is the importance of playtime. Study after study continues to rediscover the importance of play as we age.25 The cultivation of a number of ways to use leisure time, especially when leisure activities link us to others, clearly confers health benefits that go beyond raising your bowling score or lowering your eighteen-hole golf handicap. Take your playtime seriously! Enjoy it fully.
• Healthy aging and social connectedness also depend upon our developing effective plans to self-manage illness as much as possible. Self-management does not mean doing things entirely on your own. Instead, illness self-management involves doing what you can for yourself when feasible but also clearly understanding when and how to access various supportive resources to address your health needs. The self-management of health involves three steps: First, be proactive about your health. You will need the motivation to take appropriate steps to manage your health along with the self-esteem necessary to perceive that those efforts are worthwhile. Second, develop health literacy. Learn how an illness impacts you so you can minimize factors that worsen the condition while taking steps to maximize your return to optimal health. Third, create strong relationships with your health care team. The very idea of a “team” already implies social connection. You and your provider call the shots together. Together you set any action in motion and decide when additional resources are needed. As a team, you can take the time to decide together about what actions should be taken to impact your health. Actions taken together can account for your whole-person needs and not just focus narrowly on a particular body part. We recognize that finding someone who is able and willing to fulfill that partnership role is not always easy. The rewards of doing so should not be underestimated.
Each of us began our lives connected to someone else. The umbilical cord was literally the lifeline that sustained us until we were ready to enter the world. From the moment the cord was cut, we were launched in two directions simultaneously. None of us has ever stopped seeking ways to bring those two directions together again. None of us will ever fully succeed in those efforts.
On the one hand, the cutting of the cord heralds the precise moment when we begin our journey to individual autonomy and self-sufficiency. While we may rely on others at times, the drive for independence is strong and is intimately connected to how we grow a sense of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-direction. On the other hand, the cord cutting heralds the beginning of our never-ending search to connect to another in ways that provide the security and comfort that we once “knew” while we were ripening in the womb. We spend our lives searching for the ideal partner, a person who can perceive our needs and wants almost intuitively, without our having to ask. The ways in which the simultaneous searches for separateness and union are pursued are as numerous as the people undertaking this essential journey. There is no one right path. There is no ideal balance. Nevertheless, this chapter has highlighted core elements that you can combine to reach that balance in ways unique to you.
We have described how the urge to connect with others helps us to buffer primal fears of being cut off and alone in the world. That fear is often at its strongest in the second half of life, sometimes intensifying with each passing year. At the same time, developing our ability to connect with and listen to our most deeply felt personal passions helps to enliven the connections we ultimately form with others. The discovery of meaning and purpose is intimately tied to how well we can construct I-Thou encounters with others.
George Bernard Shaw conveyed the spirit of connection through service. Heeding his words takes you one step closer to the creation of a purpose-driven life:
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.
A Helpful Practice
An Exercise in Meaning Making
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation.
Everything is waiting for you.
—David Whyte26
Earlier in this chapter we presented the four questions developed by Wayne Muller. We close with a second set of four questions. The two sets may ultimately help you to reach the same place, to tap into your heart to access the elements from which your future life can be built.
When you sit down to contemplate these questions, the above words of poet David Whyte can help you to focus. Use your focused attention skills to tune in to your deeper wisdom and tune out extraneous distractions. Then, as the insights and answers gradually come into focus, take action. Take the steps to help transform your potential into your lived practice.
1. What do I most deeply want to experience?
2. What do I most deeply want to express?
3. What do I most deeply want to create?
4. What do I most deeply want to contribute?
Using the focused attention skills you have been developing throughout the book, ask yourself one question at a time, and then focus on the thoughts and feelings that arise for 2–5 minutes. Jot down the thoughts and go on to the next question, taking each one in turn until you have finished with all four questions. Repeat this several times a week over the next several weeks.