Ep. 18 Community

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We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers Connect us with our fellow men hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good for your podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christiansen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements in technologies that give you the tools for.

A life well lived, what new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophies.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated. Good morning, Amy. How are you this morning?

Hi. Good morning, Brian. And I'm great.

You have a good weekend?

Well, I have enjoyable days every day. It's been a working weekend this weekend.

Good.

Sometimes working hard is a good thing.

Now, now we have the countdown. I just realized this morning when I woke up we have a short week, not this week, but next week because the countdown is on for the holidays. So the gathering shall begin.

I can't believe it's already Christmas time.

I know, good time to reflect on all things. Good for you. Today's topic is about community and the importance of community and connection and the holidays bring us to that. And I'm super grateful to be able to connect with the people in my life and looking forward to that.

Nice. I mean, we had Thanksgiving obviously, is a big, big kickoff that brings people together and gathering. And I think we can make holidays really stressful and put so much weight into them that we forget what they're really meant for. And I think ultimately, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you think about it's wintertime and we're not all out doing adventures and playing outside. And I mean, obviously we have holidays throughout the year that we can get together. But Christmas, Thanksgiving is certainly more pointed to emphasize togetherness and connectivity, right?

Yeah, it's amazing. There's tons of like research and books that have been written on happiness and one of the common things that keep coming up is people that are most happiest have connection and community. And I know community, there's different meanings to it when you look up the. The word community. But I guess for me, in this reflection and looking at stuff, you know, you have obviously these different layers of people who you connect with and have different common interests and things like that. And there are different layers of richness to it. But it's really important, I think, to have a variety of people in your life that you can connect with on various things and to do that. So it's proven that that's critical and how important it is. And I think it's important that we all strive for that more too.

Yeah, yeah. Everything like from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I think that's the way it's said to. We've mentioned like Sean Archer, he wrote the book on happiness and he talks about there about three degrees of happiness. Like every person, you don't just affect your family or your friends or your co workers. Every time you are connecting with somebody and you create a moment of happiness or acceptance or understanding or deeper connection, that energy goes out threefold. So like three degrees, you're not just connecting with your person that you're talking to, it's their friend's friend or their parent or, you know, it's what we do with one person and what we connect with one person has a ripple effect and that all over the place. Right. You can do it with your family, your neighbors, but the person sitting on a bench next door to you, it's a total stranger, right?

Yep. I have two little quotes I found that kind of tap into both of those things that you said. The first quote is, we cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. Herman Melville. And so that exact point of what you said, you know, that ripple effect and another one you mentioned, the word depth. This is another quote that I like is some people think they are in community, but they are only in proximity. True community requires commitment and openness. It is a willingness to extend yourself, to encounter and know the other. David Spengler. And one of the things I've been working on and have had lots of conversation this past year is in the depth of our connection to community. So like, you know, obviously in the world of social media and stuff like that, there's a sense of community, but really what depth? You know, even with your parents, like, do they really know some of the key events in your life? Do they know your fears? Do they know what sparks Your joys do they know you know? So how well do you really know somebody and at what depth do you connect with them and they know you. And so I think that 2022 we should all strive for really asking deeper questions to the people in our lives.

Yeah, I think you know the so important like you're setting that depth And I think 2020 and all the fun we've had there and just with our world in general, we have these abilities to connect more than ever. And yeah, it seems to be a lot of superficial. Like there's so much research that's showing how young children, younger crowds of people who are growing up with social media, they're making lots of contact connection but not going deeper. They're not having those true tried tested relationships where they're vulnerable and real. We have to be able to have this time to spend with people but we have to be willing to be vulnerable and encourage that openness and honesty.

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Yeah, it's amazing. I wonder how we can encourage people to get more comfortable with becoming vulnerable. Unfortunately, my family's going through a very intense life situation right now and I gotta tell you, the tools that we've talked about in our podcast I use on a daily basis has been critical for helping me keep my mindset straight. And then the other big thing that's been critical is community and even you know, your yourself and being able to be vulnerable with the people that whether it's at work or you know, my neighbor friends or close friends in other ways and to be able to let the guard down and be able to have conversations has been pivotal and just super Important. And I can't, you know, I'm super grateful that I have that in my life. So I don't know, you know, again, just people being able to get comfortable and vulnerable, to be able to open up and connect. And so we need to strive for that and encourage that.

I will. First of all, all my heart and prayer and good energy is out to you and your family.

Thank you.

But you have to be willing. That's okay. You have to be willing. Like, you have to be as a person open enough to have connected and been vulnerable. But you built those relationships to begin with. You know, it's not like you're just not that there's a problem talking to a random stranger, but you've taken those times beforehand to make connections and have those deeper connections with people so that when you're in a trial time, it's not that you're shutting down and keeping people out. You have to be willing to let people help and be there for you. And it's not being needy, it's not being victimizing things. It's. You have a community of people that love you and your family and we want to be there, you know.

Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. But like, you know, just in general with. When people are building that, like I have three kids obviously, and you know, as they are developing and developing their own communities and stuff like that, even, you know, at younger ages to encourage. How do we encourage kids to do this? And like this is reaching a little bit maybe. But I even think sometimes there's a difference between even sexes as far as, like, I feel like most of my men friend are not like the ones to reach out and connect as much as my female friends. And you know, a lot of times I even have some of my female friends are like, will you call, you know, my husband and ask him to go do something? He wants to go do something. It's like, where is there like a fear of like rejection? Is there a fear of like, is it laziness? Is it, you know, like, what is it, you know, what are those roadblocks even within the sexes? If that is some, if there's some truth to that.

There is. I think there's a lot of research. Certainly in American culture, men are taught from a young age to handle their emotions and express things differently. I worked very hard with my son to encourage emotional understanding and dealing with feelings and having that space where he was safe to express it and that it was a good talking point on a regular basis. And sometimes it wasn't easy, but I do feel like, I mean, I've had his friends and people that have been in his life let me know that he's incredibly thoughtful and good at sharing his emotions and his feelings. And I don't know that I did anything magical or different. You know, I just think that when we create environments and examples through our own cells, just like that ripple effect that Sean Archer talks about in his research, it's like we can talk about things all day long with that's how we show our children, show our family and our friends how we do life. And when we show up that way, it opens doors for them to show up that way so that just, you know, how we perceive and what we do makes an impact. So when we talk about connective and community and these holiday traditions and gatherings, this is an opportunity for us to either make new traditions or hold old traditions. And old traditions are nice to have rituals in a way that bring connection and familiarity, but we don't have to have those like hard stops. You can always grow your own things. Like, I know a lot of people now talking about breaking some of the stress of our traditional behaviors and holidays because it's a lot. So. But setting an example, you know, how do you want again, we go to this all the time. Like how do you want to show up? What do you. What's important to you? And starting with connectedness, it's up to each one of us to be one open, understanding and vulnerable and we don't have to even. Yeah, I think people get worried and scared and I don't know why that's different with women more than men, but you get a little afraid to be judged or be open or. I think we have to reach a place where we're not afraid to feel what we feel.

Hey guys, it's Brian. I just wanted to take a pause for a moment in the middle of this podcast to thank our sponsors, Ouch, who's helping to make this podcast possible today. Ouch believes everyone should enjoy what life has to offer without enduring pain. They are a pain relief company. Listen guys, I use their products a lot. They're proprietary herbal formulas built on top of a 2000 year old formula. Giving it time, tested, effective results and I'm going to listen to that any day of the week. The combination of that with the founder having over 22 years of actual hands on experience treating patients for musculoskeletal pain makes Ouch a very special company. Ouch is made with the highest quality of certified herbs and cbd from organic hemp oil. Their ingredients are extracted with the utmost integrity to ensure the healing properties remain pure and concentrated to promote natural muscle pain relief and other benefits. I gotta tell you, I appreciate that so much. As a consumer, I want to know what I am getting is exactly what's being sold to me. So they take it a step further. They have a certificate of analysis for all their ingredients before it goes into production and after production to ensure that you're getting what you're paying for. Listen here, guys. Don't settle for a lesser version of your best self today. When you can feel your best today, check out Ouch. Shop. That's spelled O U T C H dot. Shop for a full line of their products. They're an amazing company. I use their products on a daily basis, so check them out. Yeah, I think it's vulnerability on both parts too, because it's vulnerable for a person to be able to open up and share in ways that they're not used to. But it's also, I think there's a vulnerability for the person that is opening, you know, with certain questions and being able to feel comfortable to ask certain questions. And it doesn't always have to be, like, around heavy stuff, but, like, what excites you these days? What's sparking your joy? What's like to not be afraid to step outside of some of the conditioned questions that we're kind of used to engaging and asking. And I think that that's an important piece to be able to step outside of your comfort zone. I think we have to all remember we all have the same things. We all have fear and we all have joy and we all have anger and we all have mostly the same life experiences as far as finances and jobs and careers and all these different things. So it doesn't matter really if somebody's, you know, in a total different career setting or whatever. It's. We all have the same kind of basic fundamentals that are operating at all times. And, you know, our brains operate pretty much the same way. And we have, going back to those four quadrants, we all have kind of character one, character two, character three, and character four operating at all times. And so be vulnerable to step outside of your lane and ask questions and be vulnerable to open up and connect with somebody, you know, with something maybe you haven't before.

Yep. And you would think, I mean, obviously 2020 put a lot of people in isolation and apparently the rates of loneliness and separation isolation has raised quite a bit. I think, like 28% of all US households are single. And I would even say during quarantine, even people who weren't single found that they're still a lot of isolation can create. Well, I guess the research supports it. There's isolation actually whether you're in an environment with somebody or not. Isolation is proven to create more disconnect, have more coldness and judgment and negativity about other people. Isn't that weird? I mean you would think being alone and being separated from people, maybe some people become more aware and appreciative, but apparently research shows that people become more focused on their own needs. They become more self attention seeking and they see competition and conflict in other people. So I think we have to be aware of that going forward and strive to make some efforts to create more closeness and more bonding and more understanding. You know, I always like the brain part of things in the neuroscience and there's two parts of our brain and two coupled. I mean obviously there are a lot more than two parts of our brain, but the parts we're going to talk about a little bit are not to mind.

Sometimes I feel like there's only two parts sometimes.

Right.

Men just have this morning, you know. Yeah.

But there's a part of your brain called, I don't know, rpc, the rostromedial prefrontal cortex. Right. So that's the part like the mirror neurons that we talk about a little bit. Like when you see somebody else and you're, you start to mimic them or if you see somebody and you they are similar to you, there's a connectiveness right away. They create safety and comfort. So that's part of the reason why we tend to, you know, birds of a feather flock together kind of a thing where you tend to like to be around people that are similar and have similar traditions or backgrounds. And there's just a comfort and a safety there. But there's another part of our brain that's lit up, the temporal parietal function. Right. So the TPJ that's activated when we share with other people that are different and you make a connection. So while we where we do like these parts of ourselves that are similar and you want to have that vulnerability with somebody that's safe, there's a deeper part of us that actually lights up and is connected to happiness and connected connectivity that is more significant when you connect with somebody who's different, somebody who thinks differently than you. So we have to come back to an understanding of people thinking and feeling and pursuing different focuses and be okay with that. Like accept people's differences, appreciate somebody else's differences. Hopefully we are working towards that as a society for real, not just shifting to different morphs of sameness. It's okay to people who think and feel and perceive things differently than you. It's actually a benefit to your life to sit with them and understand that and feel safe and comfort in that area.

Well, that goes back to kind of a common theme that we talk about. Whether it's my movement or mindset or whatever is variety is good, you know, because that also exercises our neuroplasticity. Right? So hearing other perspectives and seeing other mindsets or frameworks and challenging those and always knowing that, you know, when somebody's talking, there's, you know, a lot of opportunity to stretch your mental awareness and perspective as well. Even if, like you said, you agree or disagree. And the other thing is to, you know, when you're having that variety of friendships or connection, you know, sometimes it's great to again, be with somebody and hang out with somebody who's on another side of the fence, so to speak. But also people who you strive, that you look up to and strive to want to mirror, what personalities do they have that you really appreciate and value, that maybe you're working on developing those as strengths too. So that's another layer of connection and kind of conscious evolution of people in your lives. So I think variety is critical and really important. Again, whether it's movement or mindset or friendships or communication, just everything. I think variety, variety, variety and diversification is important.

Right? And I think diversification, I'm afraid not to go off in any other direction of what we want to talk about, community and connection. But I'm afraid that we're starting to be like, we have to accept everything so that we're all just starting to have no differences. And I don't want to lean that way. I think it's so important to have that safe place, is that we can think and feel and express ourselves differently and we don't have to have everybody else do it our way. And we don't have, I think when we're not afraid of, think about like that connection, that community connection comes from such a space of survival from the beginning, right? Like there's research about babies that if they don't have the right amount of touch and physical interaction right from the moment they're born, they thrive less. They don't have the same brain development, their hearts don't develop as well, they grow up with more illnesses. I mean, touch and acceptance is so important from the moment we're born, we're always seeking some level of that. I think that's why it's one of the fundamental belief patterns and understanding of society and psychology, is that it's connectedness and family. That's why it's so important. Like, we're always looking for that as a way to reaffirm our safety and awareness of growth potential. Right?

Yep. I totally agree.

Knowing that we have that exception, being accepted by another person doesn't mean we're going to have to change who we are where there's not a threat, where we have to we're wrong for what we're feeling or thinking. You have the freedom and the ability to make that decision on your own if you need to change something. But being in a place where we're accepted for who we are and what we're wanting and where we are is so important without the threat of somebody else wanting you to be just like me. Right. I don't know if I'm making that clear without stepping on anybody's toes. So I think when we go into vulnerability and openness with other people, we would have had more of that if we knew, one, we're not going to be afraid to be told that we're wrong. And two, there's just more compassion and empathy and understanding and acceptance for where we are and that we're not going to be forced to be something different than where we are. And I think that carries over into family holidays. Right. How many times do we talk about family holidays where there's a problem? Because the family conflict, you know, when.

You have to take inventory of those people in your life and relationship, because don't forget, you're the one driving the bus here and you get to pick who you have in your life. And I think sometimes we forget that we do have that control. And so you might have a friend that's been in your life for 15 years and they've never been open to anything you say, and there's conflict and all this stuff, and you have to at some point make a choice. If that's somebody who you want in your community, is there something there to where you both are benefiting and growing from it, or is it time to move on from those relationships? And so I think it's important to take inventory on your community because your community should really be diverse but loving. And it should be, of course, challenging in many ways in good ways to help us grow. But if it's unhealthy and if it's sucking the energy out of your Life. And there's nothing, you know, that person's not open and they are judging and they're going down that other path, if you will, feeding that. Going back to our last podcast, the Other Wolf, right. The one that's negative and all that stuff, then we need to make a choice to not have them in our community anymore. So I think this holiday season, if everybody. A little homework as we wrap up here, could really think about the depth of your community and your relationships and. And who is in your community and be vulnerable to connect with them at a different level and obviously have some fun. But let's dig a little deeper in our community and have connection, because it's so important.

I agree. And healthy, happy boundaries, you know, of recognizing the good people. And it doesn't have to be happy, like you said, bubbly all the time. Like, you can grow from a little bit of pressure and a little bit of change. So there's nothing wrong with that. But, you know, just starting off with creating healthy boundaries, knowing who you are and what you want, what makes you happy, and finding that solid balance within yourself so that you're in a good place, that's going to ripple out to other people. You know, they say joy connects people more powerfully than any other human experience. I would like to look at the research on that because I think sometimes there's a balance of that, of hard time and joy. Like, I feel I'm just going through something very hard with somebody actually creates a deeper bond. But maybe it's the balance of those two things. Like, maybe it's because you went through something hard and you overcame it, that you then were able to see joy and appreciation. Maybe it's the combination. It's the Yin Yang. How do you say it? The yin Yang.

Yin and Yang. And again, that goes back to diversification. It's not all roses, right? Like, yes. You know, there should be fun and loving and joy. And then it's just like any other relationships, those true community and deeper connections are there for the harder stuff, too. So just like any other relationship. So, you know, and that's where sometimes relationships are tested. Right. When things are under stress and you. Sometimes you really see the true colors of somebody and what that relationship's really like when it's under duress.

Yeah. Recognizing that we're all in that space occasionally. So having a little empathy and compassion for people. And when you go through your holidays, everybody has a story. Everybody has some fears and anxieties and struggles that we're going through, but being able to love people and love yourself. You know, accept where people are and accept where you are and find that ability to just be open and vulnerable so that you can have those connections, whether it's with family or friends or at work or the just strangers on the street. Like, let's look at our people on the street as community and try to find a little openness and kindness and connection to the random strangers that we brush across every day. I think that's my goal going forward this year.

Yep, I love it. Well, Amy, I am super grateful for my community and I'm grateful for you that you are in my community. So I appreciate you and I hope everybody has an amazing happy holiday and reach a little bit deeper to connect with your community.

Yes, absolutely. And when in doubt, give free hugs.

Free hugs are good.

Free hugs are good. I appreciate you so much, Brian. You guys have happy holiday and we'll see you for the next podcast.

Awesome. Bye guys.

Bye. Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for your podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying All Things Good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you're inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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