10_04_2021

What Can We Learn From The Questions We Ask Ourselves?

I’m reading Dr. Vivek Hl Murthy’s book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.  Murthy does an excellent job laying out some of the reasons that we experience loneliness as well as what we can learn from it.  He also presents a healthy contrast between solitude and extended loneliness.

In one section, he calls attention to our proclivity to creating stories to make sense of our lives.  Our stories help us make sense of our world.  We can spend much time revisiting stories that don’t make sense to us.   We’ve evolved to rely on social connections in order to feel comfortable in our world.  Versions of our stories that help us experience positive social connections serve as a buffer to loneliness.

We owe this obvious insight to many research projects that focused on feelings of belonging.  The combined work of the late Dr. John Cacioppo and Dr. Gary Benson founded the field of “social neuroscience” that led to extensive research on how our brains function with respect to supporting our need to connect with others.

Connecting in groups allows us to learn from each other, we can share how we’re feeling, and we can come together to solve problems that exceed the ability of any one individual to tackle.  One of the findings that surprised me is that we don’t seem to be realize that “we are thinking about our social connections more time than we are aware.”

Researchers were able to identify that we humans “rely on two separate networks to process social and non-social thinking.  When we’re working on things like our taxes or doing chemistry homework, our nonsocial pathways are active.  When we’re meeting friends for lunch or helping our children on a project, the action shifts to the social network.”

This research led the scientists to question “what happens when we finish some kind of project that involves non-social thinking?  The answer was a surprise.  In an open space, the network for social thinking comes back on like a reflex, almost instantly.”  This conclusion confirmed the belief that “we are built to be social creatures.”

I maintain that given that we’ve learned that our mental processes default to our social networks, it is worth paying attention to the conversations that we have with ourselves, especially those that focus on our relationship  with ourselves and with others.  Hence, I find it worth looking at the questions that continue to show up in our private conversations.  What can we learn from these recurring questions?

I became more aware of the number of conversations I have with myself as I read Murthy’s work.  There are a host of topics that have a reserved parking spot in my awareness.  One of the most frequently visiting questions has to do with my relationships with others.  These relationships include family members, close friends, colleagues, and occasionally interactions with others with whom I feel less comfortable.

We pay attention to our conversations as they are a major way we access our social connections.  As I explore my conversations,  I am frequently focusing on the feelings stirred by those conversations.  If the conversation lifted my spirits, my curiosity sparks a series of questions that potentially lead to a heightened awareness about some part of myself.   

Questions that come to mind include, “What was it about her comment that increased my confidence in myself?”  “Am I looking to others to boost my self-confidence, and if so, am I letting those bursts of support sink in so that I can feel more comfortable in claiming my voice?” 

On a similar note, if someone says something to me when we’re together that I find negative or judgmental, it can be more challenging for me to pose a question about that experience.  There are many questions that I could pose in this situation.  Perhaps the most important question that I should be sitting with is, “Why do I stay in a relationship in which these types of things occur on a regular basis?”   “Knowing how some of her comments feel like putdowns, are there nonaggressive ways in which I could ask her why she feels it important to say those things to me?”

While as a general practice, I don’t find it wise to spend too much time anticipating how future conversations might evolve, I think it is helpful to be clear on things you might want to say.  Giving thought to how to best convey comments on a sensitive issue may prepare me to be heard without being combative.

The value of listening more closely to conversations with ourselves is that doing so offers us a path to gaining more insight about ourselves.  Here’s a comment from neuroscientist, Dr. Matthew Liberman, that is worth thinking about.  “Evolution has placed a bet that the best thing for our brain to do in any spare moment is to get ready to see the world socially…We are built to be social creatures.”