I have boiled down the research I am aware of about the science of relational connection, interpersonal neurobiology, etc into 3 key relational skills: Attention (full attention), Resonance, and Rest. If you like acronyms to help you remember things, just think of these as as 3 skills that will take you FARR in your most important relationships.
List of Phase 1 Relational Skills
When appropriate use the following:
- Full Attention: Give the person your full attention. Make appropriate eye contact.
- Resonance: Fine tune in to what they are feeling until you start to feel it as well. Match their energy levels and expressions.
- Rest: Take short rests periodically whenever one or the other person feels maxed out or tired. (Every couple minutes, look away, catch your breath, relax tense muscles, then re-engage.)
When to use these skills
While these skills can be applied in helpful ways to almost every relationship in our lives, we are not able to give everyone our full attention all the time. Nor should we. These skills should be applied most often to strengthening the most important relationships in our lives, such as those with our spouse, children, family, and closest friends. These skills are very powerful and should be used with appropriate care and caution in relationships with people who may not be safe or appropriate to develop too close of a relationship with. That being said, there are moments, when it is right to give our full attention, resonance to a stranger or an acquaintance. From the description in the narratives about Jesus, he seems to have been a person whose ability to build upon these skills was unparalleled. Over and over we read people coming to him and he seems to give each one a depth of attention, resonance, and life transforming power. Many people seemed to have their lives turned around or transformed from a single encounter with him so great was the power of his undivided attention and resonance. For example, see Luke 8 and his ability to notice and give his full attention in turn to a scared religious leader, a bleeding woman, mourning parents, a little girl. He seemed to have an ability to give full attention for the time and encounter that was needed, and then to shift it to the next encounter that needed his full attention.
Explanation of each skill
Full Attention:
Giving full attention to anyone or anything has become a unique challenge in the modern western world. It is painful to watch children making bids for our attention as parents and repeatedly losing it as we turn our faces down and gaze instead at our ‘smart’ phones. The skill of deliberately focusing our full attention on one person or one thing is so essential that it can be absolutely life changing both for the giver and the receiver of the attention. Have you ever talked with someone who gave you their absolute undivided attention? How did you feel to be in their presence? Did you feel like your life mattered? I had a philosophy and theology professor in college who has a remarkable capacity to devote his full attention to the person or the small group of people he is with in the moment. When I speak to him or ask him a question, he answers in a profound way that communicates that he not only hears my words, but he hears the deeper feelings, questions and concerns beneath my words. One day he came over and had a very meaningful visit with my wife and I. When it was time for him to go, my young son came running by. My professor stood up called my son by name, established eye contact with him, and said, “It’s good to see you today. I want you to know you have wonderful parents.” Something struck me about a person like this with a lot of demands on his time and attention taking the time to deliberately focused his full attention and establish a real connection with a simple child with the same respect and attention he gives to the adults in his life.
Resonance:
We all like to “feel felt” Resonance involves tuning in and allowing yourself to feel some measure of what the other person is feeling and then expressing that back to them especially through your non-verbal expressions, tone of voice, and communication.
Pain example: For example, a friend comes to you who has just had an embarrassing An attuned mother looks at the child with a similar expression of pain and sadness in her face. Her brain is literally feeling some measure of the same pain that her child is feeling, just in a more controlled and regulated way that allows her to remain adequately calm and connected to her values and core identity.
Fear example: In another example, a young child nervously takes on a new challenge like walking across a high piece of playground equipment. When they get to the other side, instead of erupting with cheers, which would be a mismatch of the emotional state of the child feels, the parent quietly smiles, puts a hand on the child’s shoulder and quietly affirms, “that was kind of scary but you stuck with it and got all the way across.”
Joy example: You see a friend you have not seen for a long time walking toward you on the sidewalk. Your eyes meet. Suddenly you see a smile on their face. A smile spreads across your face. Their smile grows, so does you smile. As you get closer, you each begin to laugh. Joy levels are literally building as they resonate back and forth between you. This same phenomenon occurs in babies and young children as they look into the eyes of loving caregivers. According to research from people like Allan Schore, joy levels actually flow back and forth between each person’s brain multiple times a second amplifying with each cycle until it gets high enough that one of the brain’s needs to take a rest to quiet down for a few seconds before re-engaging.
Rest:
Recognizing when our brain needs a little rest and giving it to ourselves is an absolutely critical relational brain skill. Ideally this skill is learned as infants through practice building joy with an attuned caregivers. If you’ve ever watched babies especially between 9-12 months make eye contact and light up when they see someone they love. They will hold the connection and smile and laugh for a little while, then they will instinctively look away. This is because the joy levels resonating in their brain have reached such an intensity that they need to take a break so their brain can cool down. Under ideal conditions practicing this rhythm of joy and rest over and over sometimes up to 8 hours a day allows children to develop a high capacity tolerate intense levels not only of joy but also of other emotions. It also allows them to develop the skill of stopping to rest when needed. However, if we did not get much practice with joy and rest as children, or our cues that we needed to rest were not recognized and respected, we may have some difficulty in this area. Fortunately these skills of joy and rest can be built up later in life through practice with safe relational people. For starters, I recommend practicing the skill of noticing when you need to rest and stopping to take a quick brain break.
Silly metaphor of a radio.
For those of you who have used an FM radio with a twist knob to surf the channels, you know the feeling of turning the knob until you hear a station you want to tune into. Imagine you’re scanning the radio with large twists of the knob and you suddenly hear a station playing music that catches your attention. You stop twisting and tune in to hear what is playing but the sound is still crackly. You make fine adjustments to the knob until your radio is perfectly tuned into the frequency being put out by this particular station and you can hear the music perfectly clearly. As you listen, you begin to resonate with the music. It has a catchy beat and you find yourself moving your body and nodding your head along with the rhythm. The more fully you resonate with the music the more you move and dance and sing along with the tune. After listening to the station for a while you realize that the music is starting to feel a little grating and loud, and it feels like a of a strain on your ears and nervous system. You realize this is a cue your nervous system is giving you that you need to rest. You turn off the radio and soak in the beautiful silence for several minutes. Before long you feel restored and you start to feel interested again in what might be playing now. You tune back into the radio and start the process of tuning in and resonating all over again.
Serious application for a joyful life.
While the above metaphor may seem a little silly, I find it has remarkable parallels for how to tune into and resonate with the emotional frequency another person is sending our way. Imagine a middle aged father coming home from a busy day at work. His 6 year old child meets him at the door and before even saying, “hello,” the child launches into the middle of an excited story about a game she played with her friends in first grade. The dad has a choice. He could just give a brief hello and walk right past his excited child seeking a more personally interesting channel to tune into, or he could stop, give the child his full attention, kneel down to the child’s level, make eye contact and fine tune his emotional radio to get a clearer signal so that he can have the opportunity to fully resonate with what his child is thinking and feeling.
As the father comes down to his child’s level, he smiles, matching his child’s smiling face. He makes eye contact, and nods his head along with the rhythm of the child’s excited story. He says, “Wow, that story sounds super exciting. Could you start back at the beginning so that I can hear the whole thing?” As the child restarts her story, the father engages his full attention on the child’s facial expressions, body language, words and tone of voice. He pictures himself in her story so that he can feel the emotions along with his child. He opens his eyes wide at the exciting parts of the story and makes a sad face at the disappointing parts. As the child notices her father’s resonance, she also feels the emotions in a stronger way, but in a secure way because she feels like someone is really glad to be with her in her big feelings of excitement and disappointment. The feeling that someone is truly glad to be with me in what I am feeling is what many neuroscientists call ‘joy’. This father is resonating with his child’s emotional frequency every bit as much as he would resonate with a moving piece of music on the radio that made him want to dance. He is resonating with her as if he was bringing his tuning fork toward hers until his matched the frequency hers was emitting. They are building joy together.
Along the way the father asks clarifying questions to make sure he fully understands the story and especially how the child feels. Finally, as the child’s story draws toward a conclusion the father feels tired and knows he needs a short rest to recharge. He smiles and hugs the child and says, “Thanks so much for sharing this exciting story with me. I really love to hear about your day. I want to hear more and play a game together in a few minutes but right now I need to go wash my face, say hello to mommy, and get a drink of water.” After taking the time he needs to care for his own needs and connect to his spouse, true to his word the father is back to connect with his daughter for another time of joy building through a 20 minute game of go fish before he goes to take care of some urgently needed tasks around the house.
Practicing Phase 1 Skills:
Attention: To practice giving attention. I would like you to start with the most important people in your life. Imagine the next moment when you will get to see one of them. Imagine giving them your undivided attention. You may ask them a simple question, such as what was your favorite thing about today. Make eye contact and listen carefully to their response.
Resonance: Once you feel adequately comfortable with the skill of offering full attention. I would encourage you to move to the skill of resonance. For this skill, practice putting yourself into their shoes and feeling what they are feeling as they talk with you. Make subtle facial expressions that match their feelings. Reflect back what you are hearing with words like, “It sounds like you felt ____”
Rest: Practice noticing when you start to feel the feel maxed out. Do you find yourself wanting to step away from a conversation, or go get some fresh air. Instead of fighting this, simply go with it whenever appropriate. Some breathers can be as short as a few seconds to pause and look out the window before returning to the conversation. Others may be longer requiring a comment like, “Excuse me for a moment I’m going to step outside for a breath of fresh air and I’ll be right back in a moment.”