Welcome to our Inspirited Conversations series in which we are engaging all of our inspirited senses in the experience of meeting, talking, and listening to people.
This week, we are thinking about what happens when you go to a new school, new job, new class, new congregation, new group of people…
We Get To Choose How We Experience Meeting New People!
This is a topic that can trigger feelings of anxiety, especially when we’ve had icky interactions with new people in the past (and who hasn’t?) When we are in a new situation, away from home for the first time, or moving to a new area, meeting new people can be especially difficult. Everyone can feel a little unsure, nervous, anxious, or just simply excited and scared as the same time.
Inspirited Living’s Founder, Lynne Bryan Phipps’ compassionate thoughts for starting a new school are here:
The good news is that each one of us can help ourselves to choose how we experience meeting new people and find enjoyment!
Tune-In: Grounding and Self-Awareness about YOU
The good news is that each one of us can help ourselves to choose how we experience meeting new people and find enjoyment. From an Inspirited Living perspective, when you bring your awareness to how you are feeling, you can discover some habits that might surprise you. For example, did you know that you can choose how you experience meeting new people? It can be quite a surprise to know that when you shift perspective from “I have to meet people…” or “this is my opportunity to make friends,” all kinds of new possibilities open up for how to enjoy meeting new people.
The first place to start is simply with yourself. At Inspirited Living, we know that sounds counter-intuitive! You’ve just googled “getting along with my new roommate” or “how to talk to strangers” or “I want to hide in the corner and never come out….” (well, maybe you just thought about the last one). Those are great questions and the best place to start is by figuring out how YOU are doing, how YOU are feeling, and asking yourself, what your senses tell you about YOU.
Tune-In: Inspirited Living’s Grounding and Breathing
Start in a comfortable position, and a place you feel safe and secure. It might be in your room, in nature, or tucked away in a quiet part of the library with your headphones on.
Next, engage your senses. What can you smell? Coffee, tea, paper, or maybe perfume? Reach out and run your fingers along a surface—maybe it’s your clothes, maybe a soft blanket, maybe it’s a smooth table. What does that feel like to your fingertips? Smooth? Rough? Textured? Focus on the feel and the smells around you.
Then bring your awareness to the sounds around you. Maybe it’s your breathing with earbuds in. Maybe you can hear nature, birds chirping. Maybe it’s traffic, or people.
Take a deep breath and let it out; again, and again. Breathe deeply 3 times.
How does it feel to breathe deeply, listen, smell, touch, and then taste your drink in your mouth? What do you see and what can you choose to see that helps you stay here, in this moment?
Tune-In: Your Emotional Awareness and Your Expectations
Now that you’ve grounded, how are you doing? Are you really in the right mind-body-spirit place to meet new people? Often, if we aren’t ready, we skip this listening-in by feeling the urge to push through … we say things to ourselves like, “I don’t have a choice, I have to go.”
How would it feel if instead, we take those deep breaths and ask ourselves: “Do I want to go?” If the answer is a sick feeling in the tummy, or a sinking feeling in the chest, or a clear “no!” in the mind…. We can again, turn toward that still small voice and ask “Why?”
It’s a really brave and profound question to ponder.
Why do we socialize? Why do we meet people— in real life or even online?
Why do we push ourselves to do it when it makes us feel anxious and jumpy?
And how do learn to feel better about it?
We are designed to live together, not apart.
Our need to connect with each other, in communities, in friend groups, even to create families is hardwired into our systems when we are born. As helpless infants, we literally stay alive by staying connected. As we get older, we also find joy, companionship, new ideas, new fun experiences, a sense of belonging and purpose in these connections. Even when we find them difficult, we have so much to benefit from them.
Tune-In: Your Emotional Intelligence Starts with You
So now we have a sense of why we reach out to connect, we can frame social connection in an inspirited way. We can choose relationships that inspire, uplift, and support each other and seek out mindful and compassionate connections. Indeed, tuning in to your mind-body-soul awareness is starting to gain traction in mainstream job hiring techniques. When the Mayor of New York City advertised recently for new top-level leadership, he asked for “emotional intelligence” not just book smarts. And we already know that the first step in emotional intelligence is to understand the energy YOU bring into the room.
So, after you have tuned in and grounded yourself, you can ask: why am I going to this party and what do I want to experience?
- Notice what feels comfortable and easy, and what feels uncomfortable?
- Notice who are you drawn to and who feels uncomfortable to be around?
- Spend more time with the people you are drawn to and move away from the people who you’re just not interested in, or even make you uncomfortable.
- You have the power to choose who you spend time with and where you put your energy!
Tune-In: Keeping Track of Your Emotions and Expectations
A good way to keep track of your emotions and expectations is to ask yourself questions. Start with something like, “hmmm…I wonder who is interesting in this room?” and “I wonder if I’m drawn to this person, or that person” and even more fun “I wonder why I’m pulled toward this person?” and “I wonder why this conversation is hard work, but the other conversation is easy and fun?”
It can also be helpful to give yourself some boundaries and limits. If you know that being around loud groups or in loud spaces overwhelms you really quickly, then you can choose to socialize in a different place. Or maybe you can choose to join in part of the event—you go on the walk but choose to skip the rally; you have hot drinks after the game but don’t tailgate beforehand; you join a group at the event but not the carpooling?
Perhaps it’s been a while since you were in a large group and just going to the event is enough. If lingering feels like too much today, it’s ok to stop by and then go somewhere quieter. Next time you can do it differently if you want. You may discover that one of the people you’ve met would like to go someplace quieter, too!
Tune-In: Living Inspirited means Choosing to Inspire, Uplift, and Support Ourselves, too
Little steps are the key to keeping yourself grounded and connected to your sense of curiosity! And of course, be compassionate with yourself.
You can give yourself permission to figure it out by asking: Am I just testing the waters? How long am I comfortable in a new group? How am I most interested in making new connections that might one day, become people I trust, and even perhaps grow into friends? Is it in groups, or one-on-one meet ups? The most important thing to keep in mind is that only you know what feels right for you, right now.
You get to choose.
Living Inspirited—to inspire, uplift, and support– is about making conscious choices. When we give ourselves permission to choose what events, what parts of events, when, and how we participate in social interaction, we are being compassionate with ourselves and we are being authentic about what brings us joy.
