Why We Need Reminders of Connectedness
The Science of Happiness
PRX and Greater Good Science Center
4.4 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How can we feel more connected to our loved ones, even when they're not around? Our guest tries a practice shown to make us feel less lonely and more socially connected.
Episode summary:
Mónica Guzmán describes herself as a raging extrovert, but she still feels less connected to others than she’d like to. Working from home, she often finds herself alone, or worse — feeling alone because she’s still in work mode when her family is around. She tried a Reminders of Connectedness practice by making subtle changes to the interior of her home – like decorating with more family photos and rearranging the living room – and found that these seemingly small changes made a big difference in how she felt throughout her day. We also hear from clinical psychologist Tegan Cruwys about the powerful influence our sense of connectedness can have on our mental health.
Practice: Reminders of Connectedness
Look around your home, office, or classroom and notice what things around you remind you of being connected to others – words, photographs, memorabilia.
As you move through your day, keep an eye out for things that evoke a feeling of connection. See where you can use them to add more reminders of connection to your space by adding them in or replacing existing objects.
Finally, consider how the furniture is arranged. Are chairs facing toward or away from each other? Find any changes you can make to common spaces so that they’re more conducive to spontaneous interactions.
Learn more about this practice at Greater Good In Action:
https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/reminders_of_connectedness
Today’s guests:
Mónica Guzmán is Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world. She’s also the author of I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.
You can check out the book here: https://boook.link/I-Never-Thought-of-It-That-Way
Visit Mónica’s website:https://www.moniguzman.com/
Follow Mónica on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moniguzman/?hl=en
Follow Mónica on Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/3k4pn4c4
Follow Mónica on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moniguzman
Tegan Cruwys is a professor and clinical psychologist at Australian National University.
Learn more about Tegan and her work: https://tinyurl.com/ykepk5r4
Resources from The Greater Good Science Center:
11 Things to Do When You Feel Lonely: https://tinyurl.com/b8m86fhy
What the Longest Happiness Study Reveals About Finding Fulfillment: https://tinyurl.com/2s3b59fn
What Psychedelics Can Teach Us About Human Connection: https://tinyurl.com/5buyydw7
Skills You Need for Happier Relationships with Family: https://tinyurl.com/weeusepn
More Resources
The Atlantic - What Makes Us Happy: https://tinyurl.com/2nxpbhsd
NYT - I Love You But I Don’t Want To Sleep With You: https://tinyurl.com/tjnxbdtt
Scientific American - Why We Are Wired To Connect: https://tinyurl.com/59u4ffua
Tell us about your experiences of connectedness. Email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
Help us share The Science of Happiness!
Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I love my work and I love my family and so it's hard to keep telling myself that I am |
| 0:08.3 | actually with them when I'm with my phone. |
| 0:13.2 | You're in work mode, you've got tons of tabs open, you're looking at social media and then |
| 0:17.4 | you go upstairs and then you go out like in the car with your family and it's still spinning |
| 0:22.3 | in your head, it's still there. |
| 0:24.1 | And so what do you do? |
| 0:25.1 | You take out your phone. |
| 0:26.1 | I'll just check. |
| 0:27.1 | One more time. |
| 0:28.1 | How's that video doing? |
| 0:29.1 | What's going on? |
| 0:30.1 | Has that person responded to my email yet? |
| 0:36.0 | One of the moments that repeated itself too often for me was me being upstairs in our main |
| 0:41.7 | floor and being in some break from my work day, you know, maybe I'm coming to get a snack |
| 0:48.2 | or a glass of water or what have you, I'm just between meetings and then my kids who |
| 0:53.5 | come home from school before I'm finished my work, maybe want to tell me something, maybe |
| 0:58.1 | you want to show me something, but I'm still on my phone. |
| 1:03.0 | I'm responding to Slack messages, emails, I'm looking at Twitter, you know, wondering vanity, |
| 1:08.0 | how many likes this thing got or whatever. |
| 1:11.2 | So I spend all that time when I'm with my family, not with my family and it's awful. |
| 1:24.4 | Welcome to The Science of Happiness, I'm Dacker Kelner. |
| 1:27.5 | Before guest this week, Monica Goosman is a journalist and author and has devoted years |
... |
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