Excerpt
The Joy of Connections
Dr. Ruth’s Menu for ConnectionSimilar to the colorful plate the USDA uses to recommend which food groups should be consumed for a healthy lifestyle, my Menu for Connection represents the parts of our life that require the most care and attention for building and nurturing meaningful relationships. I created this simple framework to translate decades of scholarly research on human connections and happiness into guidance that you can use right now.
Instead of fruits, grains, vegetables, protein, and a small serving of dairy, I’ve developed one hundred empowering ideas and strategies and divided eighty-eight of them into five parts: “Self,” “Family,” “Friends and Lovers,” “Community,” and a small portion of “Technology.” Each is an essential element of the Menu for Connection. The final twelve strategies are presented in “Your Monthly Calendar” because there are times of the year that offer specific opportunities for building joy and relationships.
While I will explain each portion of the Menu for Connection at the opening of each section, it is important to note that the largest piece, the one that purposefully contains the most opportunities, is “Self.” If you are struggling with loneliness and are ready to make positive changes in how you interact with others, you must first determine what it is about your outlook or behavior that has made you retreat into yourself or push people away. This is not easy to do, but your relationships are more likely to flourish once you put in the work.
Loneliness is an individual experience, and I recognize that each and every page may not resonate, as what’s obvious to you might be illuminating and life-changing to someone else. Some concepts are for those who need help finding and making connections; others are for individuals who already have connections but want help deepening them. My hope is that you’ll take away what you need and transform your relationships based on the cumulative nature of the Menu for Connection.
Let’s get to work!
SelfWhile it may seem that everyone around you is fulfilled by their relationships, the truth is that most people experience loneliness at some point in their lives. Let that sink in. It’s likely that most everyone you know, everyone in your neighborhood, everyone you walk by on the street, has felt the pangs of loneliness. A recent Meta-Gallup survey shows that nearly one in four adults around the world—more than one billion people—don’t feel fully connected to others.
Ever since U.S. surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy proclaimed loneliness an epidemic in the United States, there’s been a flurry of activity to help people feel less alone. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to establish an Office of Social Connection Policy to advise the president. The World Health Organization launched the Commission on Social Connection. Mayors across the country have demanded funding to support more mental health programs in their cities and the staff to run them. And New York State governor Kathy Hochul appointed me Ambassador to Loneliness!
I lost my family in the Holocaust, and I could not have felt any lonelier because of that. While eventually I created a family in the typical sense, finding a life partner and having children and grandchildren, I never stopped pulling together a wider “chosen” family. I curated these bonds with absolute purpose. I went out of my way to find these friends and knit them together. And in doing so I became less lonely.
But getting to that point was hard. I grew up in an orphanage and was surrounded every minute of every day by other children. There was no privacy whatsoever! Yet on July 12, 1945, I confessed in my diary:
Above all, I’m longing for a friend.
And the next day, I wrote:
I live with 150 people—and am alone.
I now know what my seventeen-year-old self didn’t yet understand. Loneliness has nothing to do with the number of people around you. If you’re not meaningfully connected, if there’s no substance to your interactions, you will likely feel insignificant and unseen. But you can bring loneliness to its knees. Unlike a fatal disease, loneliness, I’ve learned, is curable.
In my view, the key to ridding your life of loneliness resides inside you. As a therapist, I’ve sat across from many clients who faced very real hardships and disabilities, and I was able to help most of them. But I could never make the kinds of changes they needed for them; I could only guide them. Therapists are expert advisers. It’s the individual seeking a new road who must take action.
But changing patterns of behavior takes effort. And this is why “Self” is the most important component of the Menu for Connection. You must pay attention to your thoughts, feelings, and actions, the ones that are holding you back from making the types of connections you most want. Self-awareness leads to coping strategies and solutions, builds self-esteem and confidence, and smooths communication with others so that you can nurture and maintain healthy relationships. With reflection, you’re able to identify areas for improvement and follow through with your aspirations.
So let’s begin by focusing our attention where it’s likely the hardest and most uncomfortable, but also where success is solely within your power: on yourself.
Look in the MirrorThe first step to fixing any problem is to admit that it exists. If loneliness is what is affecting you, then what better way to face your problem than to stand in front of a mirror and say it out loud? You may feel silly, you may cry, but having the problem out in the open is your first step toward making the necessary changes to become less lonely. Reading this book is proof to me that you’re aware of what’s causing you pain and you’re open to solutions. I have no doubt you’re on your way to building the kinds of connections you most want!
I’ve faced many difficult challenges in my life, as you’ll come to see as you read on. During a visit to Paris, where I had studied psychology at the Sorbonne in the early 1950s, I saw in a shop a ruby-red decorative sign for sale that immediately caught my eye. The words “It CAN be done” were emblazoned in English across the front in bright gold lettering. I didn’t buy it, but the owner of the store later sent it to me as a gift. He had noticed how much I admired it. The sign has been my treasure ever since, for more than forty years. I look at it whenever I feel discouraged.
What’s the difference between complaining to yourself that you’re lonely and saying it out loud? I’ve been a therapist throughout my career and can tell you that my clients began to heal the moment they admitted to having a problem. The road ahead will be hard, but just keep going. You are getting closer to feeling less alone and isolated. It CAN be done.
Make Peace with YourselfYou will not be able to sustain healthy relationships if you don’t love yourself first. No friend or sexual partner can do all that emotional heavy lifting for you, and worse, you might build walls around yourself that are so high that you’ll prevent anyone from scaling them.
I am not suggesting you brainwash yourself into thinking that you’re a gorgeous model if you’re not, and I am not asking you to ignore physical or mental disabilities that make your life more difficult. Brushing off hardship is not what I’m saying to do. My advice is to gradually accept what makes you different and begin relationship-building from there. To do this—and I realize that I am biased as a lifelong therapist—you might consider professional counseling.
As I write these words, I do, in fact, love myself, but I had a very hard time being OK with who I was when I was young. When I was seventeen years old, in 1945, I started the diary I mentioned earlier. I was exceptionally lonely back then, in part because I felt utterly unattractive. I’m so short, dumb, and ugly, I brooded. If I were normally grown, everything, everything would be much simpler. Being four foot seven put me so far outside the realm of normal that I was shocked to learn many years later that I was able to become pregnant. I thought carrying a child would be biologically impossible. (After having two children, and now four grandchildren, I’m still overjoyed that my fear was misplaced!)
If you struggle with a disability, loving yourself will be easier if you recognize the obstacles society puts in the way of your efforts to deepen friendships and have sex. If you’re a young woman and your friends are getting dressed together before heading to a party, you likely can’t join them in the same taxi or Uber if you’re confined to a wheelchair. (Or maybe you won’t even go because you worry you won’t be able to maneuver around the crowd.) Similarly, if you live in a group home, it’s likely there are no locks on your door and it’s impossible to have the kind of privacy that’s conducive to intimacy.
You must accept your reality. Focus instead on what makes you exceptional. Mental and physical differences don’t diminish your value. Only after I began to appreciate how smart I was and how advanced I was in school did I recognize that regardless of my height, I was worthy of love. I want the same for you.
