This is a YouTube video titled "Relationships With Depth" containing a conversation from October 2010. The discussion features Robert J. Strock responding to another speaker about the possibility and value of creating deeper, more meaningful friendships. Robert offers advice on how to approach conversations to deepen relationships and emphasizes the importance of experimenting with openness and selecting nurturing friendships.
So, Robert, I have friend relationships, some that feel really fulfilling to me and others that feel stuck on the surface where we never really talk about the depth. We don't talk, we don't ever express who we really are, what's really going on with us and with those friends. I'm wondering, is it possible to create more depth in the relationship or is it a waste of energy? Should I be looking to keep relationships that help honor that death?
I mean, my overall view is every relationship is worthy of trying at least, at least three times the cutting edge conversation that you think may or may not go. So as you scan inside yourself and just let yourself scan, is it talking about your relative emptiness at work and how you'd like to be more fulfilled? Or is it talking about the world condition? Or is it talking about your love relationship and how do you make it deeper and richer? Or is it talking about some of the pain and difficulties and challenges in your family life, in how you were raised and how you're dealing with some of those? Is it talking about meditation? Is it talking about spiritual life? Whichever of those are the ones or others that are your cutting edge? Giving all of your close friends a chance to ratchet it up one notch, and usually the socially acceptable one is, how you doing at work? Or how is it at home if you're talking to a mom or somebody that's not working and you ask that question a few times in different ways and you see if you can't find a way. And maybe you take the risk of saying, gosh, I've asked you that question a couple times. I can't quite get a feel for it. Now. Whenever anybody asks me a question like this, I always ask them, are you the kind of person who is afraid to reveal things yourself? Well, I don't have to ask you that question because I know you're not. I know you will be willing to reveal some of who you are. Are you afraid of offending somebody? Are you afraid that they're going to feel like you're too invasive? And I think for you that might be the case, that you would feel so sensitive to the other person that you're afraid you would overstep your bounds. And I think that for the benefit of you and your relationships, you owe it to yourself to kindly experiment at least three times with that. And then once you've done that, then you say, you know what? Well, this is my buddy that I go to movies with, but he's not somebody, or she's not somebody that really wants to talk about their inner life, at least as far as I can see. And there's something beautiful about looking at all your relationships in life and recognizing that you're trying to, at least a few times, give them the benefit of the doubt that they might be interested in sharing something. My experience is once in a while you're really surprised, and it's worth going for that just to find those people that have that extra potential. Then it's also important that if you end up having more friends than you want, that you have the courage to be able to narrow the scope so that it's nurturing to you, and so that you're choosing friends that really are the ones that you can have that deeper, richer connection with.
