"We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice." - Pema Chodron
Even if you describe yourself as a hermit who would rather avoid all human contact, you will most likely suffer the health consequences of your self-imposed isolation. Research shows a lack of social connection is just as bad for your health as smoking, drinking, a lack of exercise, and poor nutrition. We need look no further than the pandemic lockdowns to see how a lack of human interaction takes a serious toll on our physical and mental health. However, as much as we need contact with people, our relationships can be a significant source of stress. For some, the lockdowns offered a welcome reprieve from the grind of daily interactions with difficult coworkers or family members. The pandemic gave those who preferred solitude a convenient excuse to avoid the irritations of an extroverted, outgoing world. Social connections—from the inconsequential to the intimate--can, at times, be a source of stress, but long-term isolation is deadly. Since our need for human contact is essential, we are better served to learn strategies that can help us navigate our interactions with others more skillfully.
Navigating the social landscape can be difficult, even for those who consider themselves outgoing and friendly. There are times when we feel overwhelmed by the difficulty in dealing with certain people in our lives and unsure of how to move forward. We have all experienced the strife of an unhealthy relationship that just doesn’t seem to change or evolve. Sometimes we can simply avoid interacting with certain people, but many times it is the ones we love with whom we struggle the most. Perhaps we can turn to nature for lessons on how to shift the trajectory of these difficult relationships. One place we may find clues is in the flying techniques of a large migratory bird, the Wandering Albatross. If this connection seems to be a bit of a stretch, I encourage you to read on.
Flying is an activity with an incredible energy cost. Migratory birds can keep their bodies in the sky for months at a time, but doing so takes a tremendous amount of energy. Smaller birds are lightweight and can stay up by flapping their wings at a face pace. For heavier birds with wider wing spans, flapping is slow, cumbersome, and inefficient. To keep their bodies up in the sky for hours and days at a time, larger birds rely heavily on soaring and gliding. These flying techniques enable them to gain altitude and travel forward by catching a ride on air currents, eliminating the need to continuously flap their wings.
Wandering Albatrosses are one of the largest birds in the world with a wingspan stretching 11 to 12 feet. They have no known predator as they spend most of their lives in flight. They are experts at utilizing wind currents, taking advantage of their different speeds and directions. The wingspan of the Wandering Albatross makes their initial take off from the ocean’s surface slow and energy dependent. They start by flapping their huge wings, moving slowly until they find a thermal, a pocket of warm air that rises from the ocean’s surface. The thermal gives them a lift that allows them to stop flapping and soar, continuing to be lifted by the updraft. They move with the thermal to higher altitudes where the wind moves faster. Once they encounter the faster currents they begin to glide in the direction of the wind, moving at a relatively fast speed, picking up momentum that allows them to change the direction in which they want to travel. During long flights these birds spend only between 1 to 14 percent of their flight time flapping their wings; most of their flight is spent with their wings splayed wide to catch the updrafts, which helps them overcome the heavy load of their body.
Like the Wandering Albatross, we can navigate the arduous ebbs and flows of relationships by creating our own type of thermal energy, an updraft consisting of warm, upbeat emotions, good health, and positive social connections. Numerous studies over the past 25 years demonstrate the role these three factors play in keeping us healthy. People who express higher ratios of positive emotions such as compassion, gratitude, and joy have fewer colds and headaches, less inflammation, and a lower likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease. Interestingly, data suggests this correlation may be bidirectional, as physical health appears to make us more likely to engage in positive emotions. Those who demonstrate a greater capacity to regulate their heart rate and breathing show a higher capacity to regulate their emotions, demonstrating more resilience and an ability to generate more positivity than those whose regulatory mechanisms are impaired.
The reciprocity between positive emotions and physical health creates a force that is greater than the sum of its parts. There is a separate factor that strengthens this reciprocity: positive social connections. Positive emotions and improved health do not exist in a vacuum. Positive emotions increase our desire to develop nurturing social connections, compelling us to reach out to others in ways that foster healthy relationships. People who express higher levels of positive emotions such as gratitude, joy, and hope have more diverse social connections, are more trusting, and show more genuine interest in the welfare of others. These higher quality social connections create a ripple effect that forecasts a person’s future health, as they experience greater longevity and report higher levels of well-being. The influence of social integration on mortality is comparable to other known risk factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, and lack of physical activity. It seems this triad of positivity, well-being, and connectedness creates an upward spiral, acting as a type of updraft or pocket of thermal energy that allows us to soar above the potential messiness and stress of relationships.
A Wandering Albatross can’t stay afloat forever. It needs to return to the surface so it can eat, rest, and reproduce. It does so seamlessly by using the downdraft, a pocket of cold, dense air, that creates a pull that will help it return safely to the ocean’s surface. Like the Albatross, humans cannot stay permanently afloat on an updraft of positivity, otherwise we lose touch with reality. We need the density of negative emotions to stay grounded. In relationships, negative emotions can serve as signals that something is not right, announcing that we’ve gone off course and need to make necessary modifications. Provided that we keep it in check, negativity can be a teacher that helps us learn about ourselves, spurring us on to make changes that can help establish stronger bonds with others.
Negative emotions have a heavy, sticky, constricting quality. They are denser than positive emotions, which have a lightness that makes them more fleeting. Positive emotions gain strength in numbers, but a single negative emotion can send us crashing to earth. Whereas positive emotions are hard to grow, requiring cultivation and encouragement, negative emotions are loud and intrusive—important qualities when we are in danger but toxic when they linger. Negativity can get us caught in a downward spiral in which we try to “fix” the situation, believing that “thinking things through” and finding a solution will resolve the issue. But all the thinking morphs into rumination that spirals into endless and unproductive analysis: Why did he say that? What did she mean? How did this happen? This endless questioning traps us in a rut of negative thinking that simply generates more negative emotions that form an exhausting loop of judging, criticizing, anger, and contempt.
The key to ending this cycle is to shift the focus, interrupt the flow, change the perspective. One simple way to stop the downward spiral is to step away, find a distraction, go for a walk, immerse yourself in a neutral activity. The key is to find a healthy diversion that will either stabilize or lighten your mood. The intention is to step off the slippery slope of the downward cycle so you can revisit the situation from a place of equilibrium. Mindfulness is a valuable tool as it allows you to examine your experience with a detached, open-minded perspective. This is not to say we should ignore our negative emotions, but to dampen their charge so that we don’t get stuck in unproductive ruts of negative thoughts and feelings.
Positivity creates an expansive feeling that arises slowly within us, creating a sensation of lightness, calm, and equanimity. Our heart rate and breathing start to slow down as the nervous system downshifts into a more relaxed state. Positivity doesn’t just feel good, it has a direct impact on our physiology, starting with changing how our senses operate. As we relax, our visual field broadens—our eyes actually see more—and we experience improvements in our hearing acuity. Our attentional field broadens as we become more attuned to our surroundings. Cognitively, positivity triggers the centers in the brain related to creativity, activating more neural connections, which enables us to consider more diverse concepts and novel ideas. This type of expansive thinking is associated with a deepened awareness of our connection to others and makes us more likely to engage in a wide diversity of social interactions. Positive emotions help shift our attention from a narrow self-focus, increasing our awareness of the needs of others and inspiring us to be more compassionate.
How do we cultivate positive emotions such as joy, awe, gratitude, and hope? Positive emotions, just like negative ones, arise from what we pay attention to. If we focus on what goes wrong in our social interactions, we are sure to find plenty of faults. We cultivate positivity by focusing on what works in our relationships, searching for those imaginary pockets of thermal energy that lift us up and help us overcome the heaviness of life. Developing positive emotions takes time, intention, and a great deal of effort. It is a skill that, for some, does not come naturally. As such, it needs to be practiced regularly. We can build positivity with intentional practices such as keeping gratitude journals or engaging in loving-kindness meditation. Or we can take a much simpler route by just pausing in our day to notice our surroundings, viewing the world with interest and curiosity, seeing the beauty of a tree outside your window, finding delight in the way a child sings, or savoring the sound of your cat’s purring.
Relationships will always be challenging, but they need not thrust us into a rut of life draining negativity. Isolation is not a solution, as our need for social connection is hardwired and essential to our longevity and health. The key to overcoming the stress of being with people is to learn to navigate the social landscape, building an upward spiral with positivity and skillfully managing negativity when it brings us back to earth. Perhaps we can learn lessons from the Wandering Albatross and skillfully overcome the heaviness of life by catching the updraft. We can create our own thermals with the lightness and expansive properties of positivity. Learn to cultivate the warmth and expansiveness of positive emotions and you may experience a lift, soaring and gliding, moving effortlessly forward. Where will positivity take you?
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