How do I get more connection in my life?

A man came into one of these groups for the first time and got the question we open with. Where in your life are you really happy, and how would you like your sense of connection to be different? Work, friendships, intimacy, any area of it.

He took it seriously, and then said the question was hard to get started on, because there was no single area to point at.

It's difficult to even start to unwind this question, because I feel like there's connection missing in all aspects.
a man in one of these groups, answering the question in his first session

Then he went through them. His work is solitary by nature, so getting any connection into it is a fight. He lives abroad with a language barrier in the way, and it's hard to get started there. And at home, years into a relationship, he said that doesn't mean intimacy is on the table automatically all day every day.

Three areas, each with a reason attached. Good reasons, too, the kind we can't disagree with.

Why does it feel like it's missing everywhere at once?

Connection running short in three directions at the same time can appear as a shortage of people. Not enough of them nearby, wrong city, wrong line of work, everyone at home busy with their thing. So the fix looks like supply, and you go after more of it, join something, move somewhere better, get a few more names in the phone. And some of that is worth doing.

But what those three areas had in common was that no one had been asking for what they were really wanting.

Where did the connection you already have come from?

He and I had crossed paths years earlier and then lost touch for a long time. We bumped into each other again at an event, and he said he needed a brotherhood. I said come along. And then I was slow getting back to him, which I apologised for in front of the group.

I want to say thank you for chasing me up and saying, how do I get in, I want to be here. And so now you're here.
Daniel Lawson

So in the session where he said connection was missing in all aspects, he was sitting in the place where he had some, and he got it by asking twice. He didn't find it. He asked, and when the answer was slow he came back and asked again.

Whatever connection you have, you asked for it. Somebody invited you, or you invited them, or you chased something until you were in it. The areas that feel empty are the ones where that hasn't happened yet.

What does the ask look like in each area?

It's the same shape in all three. Being specific is what makes it an ask rather than a wish.

Where it feels short	What you tell yourself	What there is to ask for
Work	solitary by nature, no one here to talk to	somebody you already work near, a coffee, a day and a time in the calendar
Friendships	you don't know anyone here, the language is in the way	somebody you have met once, a specific thing at a specific time
Home	you're in the same house and not close	the evening you want with your partner, said as what you want and an invitation to come with you

What I found when I looked at mine

I had a version of this myself and it took me far too long to consciously notice it. I'd got to the life I said I wanted, living on a tropical island, doing what I wanted when I wanted. And I was lonely. No one invited me to their parties or to hang out, and I didn't have any real deep friendships.

When I went looking for the reason, I found it in me.

I wasn't a good friend. I didn't think about others, I didn't invite others, I didn't initiate friendships. I waited for everyone to come to me.
Daniel Lawson

And when I did get to things, it was a performance to impress people so I could fit in. The opposite of belonging is fitting in, and fitting in was what I was good at.

Why is asking so difficult?

Two things sit in front of it, and I have both.

The first is that I don't ask for what I want because I forgot what I want. I had wanted things for so long without asking that I wasn't able to ask for them anymore, and I didn't even know that I had to ask.

The second is that I decide in advance how the other person is going to feel about being asked, and then I don't ask, to save them from it. You do it to be kind, right? And then nobody gets asked, but it was never mine to decide in the first place.

And the closest person is the hardest ask of the lot.

when it's really about love or intimacy and something I'm craving, sometimes it's the hardest thing for me. It's the first thing I want to reject. But I'm like, that's what I'm craving the most, so I've got to go and ask for it.
Daniel Lawson

Oftentimes when we step into our deepest fears, the way it's received is quite different to what we imagine.

What about at home?

Telling somebody your plan is a different thing from asking them to come with you. The plan arrives as something for them to do. The invitation says what you want and then asks for them in it, which is the harder half, because they can say no to it.

"I'd really like to dedicate some time to just us. How can we create this together?" That's an ask, and it can be declined, and that's why it means something when they say yes.

What to do this week

Try this: who would you want more of in your life, and what would you ask them for?

Then three steps, and they're the same three for every area:

Figure out what you want from them as an experience rather than a task. Not more contact. The feeling of the time you'd want with them.
Ask for it, specifically, with a day and a time in the calendar.
Notice what happens, and respond to what they say rather than to what you imagined they'd say.

I've watched these three come up over and over for about six months now, for men and for women in different ways, and the fundamentals of it don't change.

Common questions

What if there is genuinely no one around me?

Some walls are real. Solitary work, a language you don't have, a family that takes the rest of the week. Where that's the situation, more initiative inside those walls won't do it, and anybody telling you to connect more hasn't understood the week you're in. What stays available is asking to be let into something that already exists, and then chasing it when the answer's slow.

Doesn't connection start with yourself?

It does, and he said that himself at the end of his answer, that connection comes with getting connected to yourself first and then opens out to everyone else. What tends to catch people is treating it as a sequence where nothing happens on the outside until the inside is finished. Figuring out what you want is the inside part of it, and it takes a conversation or two rather than a few years.

What if I ask and they say no?

Then you've got an answer instead of an imagination, and an answer is something you can respond to. You also planted the seed, which is more than you had the day before. Whatever you're imagining and believing is driving your actions anyway, so you may as well pick the version where they're pleased you asked.

Isn't this just networking?

Networking asks for access, and nearly no one feels closer afterwards. This asks someone for something you want from them, where they can see that you wanted it. The second one can be turned down, and that's the difference.

If this resonates

Many of us have this pattern somewhere within us in our lives. Something we want, that we keep back, that we don't ask for, and sometimes don't even ask of ourselves.

Asking goes much better when it isn't the first time you've said it. And the first ask is usually aimed at the person who matters most to you, which is the hardest place to start from. What changes that is a few others in the same week talking about what they want and what they're passionate about, so by the time you ask at home you've already heard yourself say it.

The Reconnected Man and The Reconnected Woman are the group where we have these conversations together.

Written by Daniel Lawson, Reconnection Coach. Why do I feel empty after achieving a goal I worked years for? More on getting what you wanted and feeling nothing The Reconnected Man The Reconnected Woman