This Is How To Make Emotionally Intelligent Friendships: 6 Secrets – Eric Barker
If you follow any of Brené Brown’s research, you have heard her lament over and over again that Americans are in a crisis of disconnection, that the polarization of society has led to like-minded groups hunkering down together into ideological bunkers, and that this form of connection is not authentic. Common enemy intimacy…hating the same people…is LONLEY.
Humans are hardwired for connection, and we’re getting less and less of it. We are a lonely society and yet we deny our loneliness. Why? We feel shame around being lonely (as if feeling lonely means there’s something wrong with us). This isn’t just sad–it’s actually dangerous. We’ve evolved to react to the feeling of being pushed to the social perimeter by going into self-preservation mode: when we feel isolated, disconnected, and lonely, we try to protect ourselves. That means less empathy, more defensiveness, more numbing, and less sleeping. In this state, the brain ramps up the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening–narratives that often aren’t true and exaggerate our worst fears and insecurities. This creates a valiancy for more of the joining into ideological bunkers, and the pit deepens.
Thus, Eric Barker’s blog, “This is How to Make Emotionally Intelligent Friendships” is a timely piece, citing frequently from two books: Breaking the Male Code: Unlocking the Power of Friendship and Buddy System.
The bottom line, we as individuals, are behooved to bring our loneliness, our longing to share life intimately connected to a few good friends, to the surface and to work with it purposefully. Barker’s piece offers some useful strategies