Episode 13 · 43:25
How To Belong
Belonging is more than being present in a group; it is the feeling that your real experience can enter the room. Dan and Tom compare how people respond to bad news, how shared stories create connection and how clothing, space and behaviour can signal either openness or withdrawal.
The episode asks how to create belonging without forcing everyone to communicate in the same way.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Belonging grows when people do not have to perform a version of themselves to stay included.
- Advice, silence and shared experience can all be caring responses when they match what is needed.
- Small signals in a room can tell someone whether conversation is welcome.
- Ask how a person wants support instead of assuming your preferred style is universal.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
So this winter weather has made me younger than Tom yeah yeah it looks like you traveled back in time well that's what happens I thought I would try and give you a view of the of the snow so we can remember the 13th of December or in December um that it that it snowed so it's probably gonna happen more and more isn't it anyway yeah it's only icy here but now it's zero I think all the ice is.
Melted so it's just cold all right yeah they're still there's still snow about mainly because like this area here nobody walks along this pit here and and so forth so which is good but the trouble is my window frame is just bang in the middle so I can't like get it to be correct and interesting but um it's better than a you know a pale wall that I usually give you or uh basically it's sorry just have to stand outside there's like.
Yeah do live reporting from outside slapped in the face by some like sign that's blowing in the window however it goes so my hot take today is I'm gonna have to buy a new cattle because when my back was hurting I was using a hot water bottle and basically to conserve water usage I had poured water into a hot water bottle then when it got cold I'd pour that water back into the kettle to warm it up and then basically do that.
Right so then obviously the water does evaporate a little but you're reusing the same water because all you need is warm water right you're not gonna taste it so now I think because I've done that I probably did that three four maybe five times now I feel like my Kettle just smells like a hot water bottle and like the coffees that I make kind of just add a little bit of tastes like what what tastes like an inside of a hot water.
Bottle because you can smell that globally I'm sure someone will want to send it to their sort of mate as a uh stocking filler a cattle that gives them the smell of a hot water bottle which then makes all my hot drinks kind of off unless it's just that it's a placebo thing and I think that it is but it's yeah yeah I was like um just so long as I don't put it in the dishwasher right so.
Yeah yeah I'll have to clean it out somehow to get it um to taste right because I was thinking you know you don't want to eat anything that you kind of like taste you don't want to do anything too uh severe so for example you don't want to put for example fairy liquid inside of a kettle potentially because then it will taste like fairy liquid so it's like how do I neutralize the potential or my perception of a hot.
Water bottle taste in my hot drinks there's this link yeah so your topic of today no I'm just like okay so then I was basically going to do it yeah it's not an analogy I'm not going to turn the hot water bottle and therefore don't reuse the same you know water go and get fresh water that's the uh that's the message right for now my the real topic that I want to talk about is um what does it mean to belong so let me.
Just set the scene a little bit so back when um the kind of like the black lives matter movement was at its peak off the back of George Floyd's murder there was an influx of um energy and opportunity and um kind of like wanting to do something better um more than any other time previous to that so there was lots of discussion about inclusion or much more in intentional discussion about inclusion and diversity and what that meant now.
What happens is like there's this urgency to it high energy lots of conversations and then naturally over time people lose the energy for it all there's a numbness to the topic because it gets just distilled down to dni even the letters right a dni is a is the the latter diversion diversion diversity and inclusion so it kind of gets distilled down to you know something that um it is just kind of like a culture blurb as it were and I think really what.
I've been thinking about more is um we were chatting in our small group last week and we're talking about how do we be more like family and I said really I didn't use the word belong but I was kind of saying like rather than saying oh our group should be diverse and it should be um and we should be inclusive um it's actually the way that I phrased it is I want people to bring the sing in the shower version of yourself.
To the group and what I mean by that is a lot of the time you will have some sort of context switching or code switching or you'll act a different person around a certain group of people so for example if you're at work you might slightly push up your accent for example right or you might not say things in the conventional way that you would say it with your mates and you change your language you might change your appearance.
You um you might do a a lot of things to give a particular impression and that just requires energy and you might feel comfortable not requiring to do that and it's a two-way thing one create the environment so people don't have to put on an appearance and two kind of that person has to be comfortable enough and confident enough to decrease that appearance um or that like particular Persona to be more normalized and ultimately then provides that sense of comfort that.
We're not over stretching we're not having to act a particular way so for example it reminds me of like um I I think accidentally have passioned up when I speak on the phone or something right or when I speak to older people I would like personal I remember as a kid we were in 36 right which is the building opposite our church in like youth group right and some guy asked me like oh how much is this and I didn't.
Think of saying I thought 50p was like a cheap way of saying 50p right so I was like oh it's half a pound sir or like I said it in such a weird way and it really annoys me because like obviously this wasn't last year this is like years ago right this is me as a kid but it annoys me that I somehow felt pressure to change how I was speaking to come across as uh more learned or more intelligent or something.
In like just a silly way now I know that's a silly example but think of that like 10x with everything um you know with every um interaction you're wanting to give off a particular Persona so yeah really to me I want to shift the conversation not necessarily I think um the diversity diversity of thought like all that stuff opinions mixture of opinions of different backgrounds it's super important and actually businesses that have that are more profitable and then the second thing of like the.
Inclusion I think inclusion can go across board so not only a male female gender inclusion but also the accessibility of disabilities and alternative ways of thinking right we've already spoken about um dyslexia and and kind of how that um can be a challenge but if you Empower them with the right tools then it's not a challenge and actually that is a is a great um kind of like angle as it were so really those are important but really.
What we should be talking about is belonging and then last thing I'll talk about let me finish this final thing and then we can talk about it all right so keep writing your notes the final thing is like belonging I think is important because in lockdown what we found is uh community centers and and I'll specifically talk about churches right churches um closed and a lot of people felt disconnected yeah we had Zoom calls and all that stuff but it just wasn't the.
Same and more than anything people Miss they would probably say connection it wasn't the preachers it wasn't the worship potentially it was the connection right so again how do you um kind of like the word connection is like oh as in b around people well actually let's go further like how do you belong to something and feel um that sense of belonging in any group um relationship uh partnership family whatever that Dynamic is so yeah that's that's what I want to talk about.
Belonging and the importance of that and what's that look like and how do we make it happen um unseen because I was listening to a podcast um last week and it's basically two guys talking about I don't know just a bit about guy culture and and how they do Retreat for guys and and how they all sort of grew together oh I gotta get a package this is intense well thankfully you've got airpods monologue now all right I I was thinking today I was.
Going to get the package as well but obviously not maybe it'll come later on yeah so ultimately belonging what does that look like there are um identities associated with that so Tom was talking about uh a men's group um because ultimately I think each uh gender has a kind of like different pressures and different um narratives I'm just saying about each and just genders have different um narratives and pressures so having the right spaces for those and it ties.
Into what you're about to say about groups so for example men groups um to have all kinds of way of doing so basically trying just to create a safe space for people to I guess connect open up and that type of thing because they were saying like as a guy subconsciously or consciously you're basically eyeing up who's the most powerful person and then you put yourself in certain rankings of the loud one or The Quiet One or the one like.
It's sort of like eyeing up your potential enemies if anything kicked off you know who who's your first freebie as a punch and then the second one is The Shield Vibe and it was quite interesting as they sort of talk about it because then you sort of do process like do I think about packing orders and that and that type of thing I think it it's always I think for me it's more subconscious than consciously do it but I know that.
Some people consciously do it or if they need to get to know uh the leader or the main social person or whatever to have an impact or the captain if it's a sports team or whatever but I think you do sort of eye people up of of sort of pecking order wise um and knowing your spot which is really interesting because they're just saying like most of our conversations should start as a bit of killers because it'd be like.
Oh what do you do for work I'm a CEO and you're like no I'm not a CEO so like you've already dropped down a peg rather than going like what do you do in your spare time well if they read a book it doesn't put them higher or lower but I think sometimes when it's like I'm a CEO and run hundreds of businesses oh I'm a CEO but I only run one business so there's always this constant eyeing up.
Competitive nature um that can be sort of ingrained via sports or business quite easily I think I get it from more of a sports perspective than a business perspective but I know it can translate over um so it is is very interesting but then going back to the belonging side I think post covid people are struggling to connect because they I think pre-covered people are quite good at walking over themselves I would say and would go with the crowd because.
The connection's more important I think during covid it's like well you have to look after yourself so then you become self-sufficient which is good in some sense I think it's good to be a bit both but it's like you become so sufficient then you don't want to budge for the connection because you're like my voice or or My let's say I prefer to watch a certain football team and someone else wants to watch their football team it's like well I might as well just watch.
Mine and let them watch theirs rather than going for the point of connection um so sort of revisiting of going okay how do you have connection but also have a voice at the same time because how do you get like a more authentic connection than you've ever had before because of covid it has sort of burnt a lot of bridges in the sense that you just looked after yourself or your local tribe family friends or whatever and it's hard to rebuild.
Connections that are further afield naturally with with local lockdowns and stuff like that that happened yeah I think um what you were saying about the first introduction is usually some sort of achievement based question right and I think challenging us to move away from that but it's the easy Baseline because then you can have some sort of hook to have a conversation and um I find that okay cool you were here oh what what is the business like you've.
Got the second question then in your brain to allow them to share and I think it's about balancing um stuff that you need hooks on to ask further questions because just asking questions is a good way to to get that um balance of depth with the balance of like now as in I remember reading somewhere like the best thing to approach um discussions around grief for example is not necessarily asking how are you doing but asking how are you doing today and.
Grounding it in like a moment um because we all know that of course like okay you've done this job and that's like a a catch-all question that leads on to other questions um but it could be like oh what interesting thing have you done today but I understand that that's all subjective because they might be like I've done nothing interesting today you know or tell me a story about your day or tell me a story about your week and I.
Think that would be uh sometimes a little bit harder for the person to answer in the first instance but more interesting and gets out of the whole we're conversing based on uh you know achievement to get going um and background to get going because we need some sort of stick in the ground to orientate ourselves with the next questions and and so forth or you bring in a hot take right like oh did you see the cues at the supermarket they're.
Crazy you know but that's one little impatience right you join the last queue like what's what's your Technique do you go to the chat self-checkout or do you join the big queue like whatever it is right you you can bring the thing because everybody has opinions it's just whether or not they've been allowed to voice four that they've been asked them so is it that you ask somebody's opinion about something well hey we were talking about this last week.
My wife and I were discussion in this subject where like you know we're figuring out is it a or is it B like how would you have approached it you know and and that kind of stuff and I think broadly speaking it's trying to the way that you belong is we get better at conversations and not necessarily just talking we're also listening and more kind of moments uh in the moment I guess similar with introverts extroverts I naturally spot introverts and kind of.
Go alongside them a little bit and like hey how are you doing today like but how how's how's your day been or whatever whatever and have those like side conversations um that it doesn't need to be a big thing and I find that introverts uh generally speaking are great at asking questions extroverts more so talk about themselves so it's it's good to like have all this awareness of how these Dynamics work and kind of play around those to kind of find the.
Best balance um as it were you know and like second thing is about you know if you are in a group or a large group and you've noticed somebody's not spoken you could be like hey hey Tom like what what do you think to what we're saying you know you've got anything to add or anything like that and that's basically an extrovert needs to realize when they're talking too much and and bring other people in that that haven't been.
Speaking because it's not as if they've not got anything to say even if it is just uh no I agree with everything that's been shared I have nothing to add that is still an opinion yeah agreeing is as good as disagreeing yeah it is an interesting topic belonging do you find that you are belong is there different stages of belonging or different groups of belonging or do you just feel right I belong in in life how do you sort of.
Perceive it because you've been daydreaming about it a little bit more than than I have I think the easiest um starting point is the difference of how you are with your friends versus how you are in whatever your work context is whatever your admission context is whether or not your volunteer whether or not you're part-time whether or not you're full-time whether or not it's a you know whether you're retired and you've got a community group or whatever you know.
It's are those two people similar and if they are cool if they're not why not and it's just kind of trying to be a more consistent version of yourself just for your own energy levels so I I think obviously you know when you join a group to begin with you feel like The Outsider and naturally the best thing to make you an Insider is that people ask you questions or uninterested in you um but then sometimes after that earlier.
Stage people ask you less questions because the technical questions are now old so it's it's more so connection at the start is broadly speaking easy because it's a fresh it's a blank slate you can ask all sorts of questions to get you going but then it's kind of like the ongoing connection I think is um harder because it takes energy to be interested in in people and it takes intentionality and intention to continually make sure people feel comfortable in the ebb and flow of.
Emotions you know and I think it's about basically talking about what can go wrong like verbalizing what can go wrong so for example in this call it is like for you to basically belong in this call it's about your opinion is valid like I want to know what your opinion is by asking you and I'm also like it's completely fine if the doorbell goes and you have to disappear like that's fine it doesn't mean I'm not gonna like dislike what you.
Did I'm not gonna turn this call off and be like oh why did you do that you know it's about like removing all that stuff and maybe narrating the boundaries of what's allowed what's not and what's not allowed and more so kind of like basically the permissions aspect right even if randomly if you wanted to change subject or if you spoke over me because you wanted to get your point that is fine with me like I'd rather do that because I'm okay with.
The contact switching so I guess it's more a case of we all know these sub-narratives all these things going on and sometimes there are some additional subnarratives that we don't know so Voice the ones that we do know about and also voice um kind of anything that you don't know about right based on your own experience for example you know don't worry about saying like if you if you don't know how to read a word or whatever just like.
Give it your best go when we're all like struggling at reading every now and again like it's fine if you don't want to read that's completely fine we'll get someone else you know just like trying to throw in as much caveat into to make things feel like you're okay it's not a performance to be in this group you don't have to perform and that's really really challenging because I think everybody feels the need to perform or give their best version of.
Themselves and that comes at a cost and energy cost and it's whether or not you can do that consistently and to be honest the best version of yourself is the vulnerable version of yourself um right so I know that I've kind of like said there's a different stage but yeah it's easy to kind of like feel the sense of belonging because there's this high intensity of people asking you questions whenever you join a new group and they're figuring figuring you out.
And like asking you stuff but then it's the ongoing thing and really I think the best sense of belonging is about shared experiences so are you in a group where you're creating shared positive shared experiences because a lot of the time that then becomes the new Baseline of conversations because you can recount stuff in the same way that we have a shared experience of this podcast and we can recount you know different funny things like for example that I can't.
Remember celebrity names and I just end up calling them you know different objects to kind of like remind myself oh whatever whatever right it's like a funny thing to to joke about and it's not a joke at my expense it's a joke about the situation right because we all get to those we'll have those moments so yeah never like humiliating anybody and laughing at the situation rather than a person yeah it is interesting because we're like a church group a Samoan group and.
We're talking about what happens if let's say you hear I don't know how we got onto the topic but it's basically if you hear bad news from let's say someone in um let's say a colleague what do you do and most of the girls were like well we would also share our bad experience and it would be a bonding session but then most of the guys are like well we wouldn't want to share our experiences if we're putting more bad experience on.
Top of their bad experience so actually we'll just draw basically draw it out of them so it's really interesting seeing the sort of The Duality that there's no necessarily right or wrong answer but one person feels like you're putting it onto someone and then one person feels like you're sort of attaching through the the pain or the hardship and it was a quite interesting chat because I I've never viewed it like that before I think because I never liked.
I don't know I've always wanted people to have fun and have joy and that type of thing so I would naturally not go oh and I'm struggling as well I normally crack a joke or ask them how they're doing I would lean towards either a joker or a counselor and not someone that's sort of a peer-to-peer element that I'm sort of learning as I get older it's like actually people respond to that sometimes even more because actually saying a joke as much as your.
Heart is you want to make them have joy it might not be the right stage or the right location or you might misread something and they might take it wrong because they're in a more sensitive spot so actually even though your heart and your application is pure it can feel like you're jabbing or stabbing or whatever someone's heart and I think it is quite interesting I think that sort of discussion quite I don't know maybe view it in a sort of a different.
Light so now I sometimes take a step back of if someone's hurting I sort of go do they need a lightness to this pain because sometimes you do need to step out of pain have a laugh go back into it step out of it because it's just coping mechanisms boys uh actually no you need to sort of sit in it but it's such a fine line because equally if you do share about your pain you don't want it.
To turn around of I'm ignoring you now I'm talking about myself so it is like a really interesting sort of different world when it comes to emotion I think I feel like I'm new to it um a lot of the times understanding the sort of unspoken rules about emotion that I'm learning through my marriage and and and courses and other things that I've just never it's as if you sort of seeing into the Matrix I find when you learn.
About emotion you see things on a completely different sort of 3D if not 4D view of life I guess it's like having a new sense um if it's like smell or sight it changes everything yeah it's it's challenging because everybody is uniquely different and we get better over time and that's fine right in the sense of when it comes to uh one area of um shared experience or like an emotional experience is kind of like losing somebody right.
Um and I I found like over time I've got better at it one I used to be like oh well that person doesn't want to necessarily talk about it right because you want to think about the happy thing but actually then it makes that person that they've lost literally disappear Into Thin Air as if that person never existed and as I've got older it's actually about um valuing those memories and stuff and kind of recounting that not as a be scared to.
Recount but be kind of like happy to recount it because then that person that you can like respect in that person existed in in your life and and one thing that I've like been doing and I'm not sure if this is necessarily right I'm just sharing from experience but if someone says you know let's let's say that someone shares that their grandparent has passed away or something I'd be like oh that freaking sucks like grandparents are super special aren't they you know like like.
And not I'm like saying it because I had grandparents so I know it but I'm not making it about me so it's still their thing you know like man uncle's a super like super great or like aunties or like whatever or siblings you know it's kind of recounting like the special aspect of that relationship um and kind of giving it back to them so they're like yeah it is and I think it's yeah not being embarrassed to remember a memory.
Um which is quite funny you know to remember that that person um that person by and for that not to be anything offensive you know and I think it's going back to your thing like I've done a course recently on the sort of emotional health and learning how to understand your emotions and what how does your body or mind react to different emotions sad huffy and that type of thing and then how to I guess walk through it or rather.
Than stuff it down and that basically a quick summary and um they basically say you can narrate what you're going through so let's say you there is a sad person normally they say it for yourself but but in this case you could go I really want to support you and connect you but I don't know how to and they say it's really sometimes you you can just share your heart and you don't know the application and you can give them the opportunity to.
Be like well actually a good way to show me love is just give me a hug right now so you're like cool I'll do that um narrating your heart of going I feel confused because I'm all like happy for the good memories but also sad for this information and I don't know how to process it what what you want me to do and it's one of those things that sometimes they might not necessarily have an answer but that's okay because.
You sort of come sort of open-handed with your answer and you're like I have no idea what to do what you want me to do and the other person might be like I don't know and you're like cool like I won't I'll just sit here for now and we'll wait until something pops up and if nothing pops up that's okay as well yeah one of the best ways again like when you're coming to a group or a one-on-one and if someone shares.
Something like that's going on and you're just listening and you might be asking questions to kind of like understand uh like how they're viewing it and I think one of the best questions is like um how can we help you by in what way can we best support you and I think that just you don't need to know the answer just being comfortable enough to be like that that's that sounds super difficult like how can we best support you right now.
And I know it sounds cringy but actually that's the best thing because you give the person an opportunity to be like I don't need anything right now I just need you to listen then you're like cool one last thing to kind of like put on a to-do list right so you've like served them because I think there's always this sense of because we were talking about you know when you introduce someone or sorry when you're kind of like new to a group.
You're asked about your achievements it's also about you know what you do is valued so if you're not doing anything from a visible uh tangible sense then it feels like you're not you're not pulling your weight but actually listening is as important as you know it is a doing thing as important as any other doing thing and I think with with that type of context it's like I sort of find emotion can so happily fall into the gray area.
In the sense that you might not know how they're feeling you might have not communicated your thoughts so there can be a lot of miscommunication but I sort of feel like when things are black and white like when you've shared specifically what your heart is and you don't know what to do and the other person says they don't know what to do then there's like a Clarity of you know where you both stand rather than like a oh that person was really really offish.
With me because maybe they're feeling confused and didn't really know what to do physically with their body and the person's like I felt rejected in that moment and I think it is just I think the course sort of helped me go by building boundaries and Clarity sometimes it just helps you out even though you both disagree or you both are confused or whatever but at least you know that rather than you're confused and then the other person's rejected.
Because actually they're just picked up on your confusion and you don't know what to do um so it's like oh that's really interesting um because they're saying actually a lot of us do carry a certain energy when we go into room um obviously there's performance energy that that you may or may not know but also there might be just a physical Joy or equally a depression that can people will not or some people might not pick up on it but a lot of people pick up of.
Like oh that was a bit strange like that person wasn't as warm and welcoming as they normally are and it's one of those things it's like it's so yeah it is so interesting sort of trying to connect with people and then equally I guess it's sort of when you're building a new Bond what if you go through a hardship trying to open up and share and make sure that trying trying to think that they're trying their best to connect and help.
You even though it might be like a oh but you should be grateful that you've got one grandparent instead of two and you're like well I didn't really need that now but you're like you can get clarity of going what is your heart and trying to share that it's like oh because I want you to be happy because I feel sad when you're sad yeah cool actually that made me more sad by you sharing that because it didn't.
Sort of land with where my heart is at right now or whatever so yeah and I think you're fascinating it's trying to share some of the uncertainty um because I think again we're talking about new situations you can kind of do that quite well but if it's a relationship that has an expectation for example if you shared something sad you would expect because of our relationship Dynamic that I would know how to behave right I I would know what you met and.
Needed Without You conveying it and without me kind of asking hey what you need and if I with good intentions share what I thought you needed and you were like yeah that that Mr Mark then that can be really challenging um so I think it's like even with existing relationships I think you have to always be um kind of just careful and almost sometimes not not think that you know sometimes yeah you know like what do you need right now.
And that's not just that's not a ticking bucket box exercise it's it's with obviously the empathy to it I was also reminded of I know this is a slight different topic but I'll drag it back into the topic how you were saying you knew someone that if they were in a meeting they would wear a cup so then their kids wouldn't go close to them because they know they're in a meeting and then they'll pull it off I think.
Hoffman's like I wonder if we can not only use clothes to promote ourselves or make us feel good or whatever but actually could you create certain codes with your spouses or or best friends whatever that if you're wearing a cap it's like just sit with me like I don't want to talk about my stuff but I'm happy to talk about football or whatever just to help that you don't always necessarily need to explain yourself because then it might be a a equals this.
Cap equals this if I wear blue it means I'm blue if I'm yellow I'm Joy or whatever it's like imagine if you did have like your color palette and maybe you had a website of all your color palettes to some extent I wonder how interesting that would be of understanding someone straight away and then knowing how to react to that like if it's light colors they're more happy if it's dark they're less happy but if let's say they walk into a room.
And it's dark you're like you can still be glad that they've still come because that dark you're glad that they're in the room even though they're wearing dark they still feel welcome to come in that room that a lot of the time if if you feel depressed or anxious or whatever you might not necessarily even want to go into a room um but yeah so it sort of made me think about I wonder if you can do that.
Because I think one thing I've noticed is if I want to focus or if I don't want to think I put my hood up and I think it's my sort of way of like blanking out everything around me um so it's either for tunnel vision to look at my laptop to to get work done or sometimes it's just shut off the extra sort of vision and eyesight of the things I'm cocking let's say around the house that needs fixing it's like.
Actually I need to show off my brain and that's sort of my sort of go-to thing without me realizing that I've clocked recently um I think any sort of um tools to either communicate uh verbally or to ask the right questions or to receive the the right kind of support verbally is all good similar to the whole emotion Circle you know the circle where you've got um on the outside of the circle is cut up into like different.
Emotions and then they simplify those emotions as they go inward so basically you might be like Oh I'm feeling frustrated well the Baseline um to that one the more inner you go to the circle is actually that is either sad or you're angry right so yeah cool you're frustrated but are you sad or are you angry yeah so Tom's showing you have to visually describe it it's basically a circle with two layers an outward Circle and an inward Circle and basically the.
Outward one or all the variations so re-reads can you I can't really read something so like passionate right passionate is on the outside one so yeah really passionate is basically the Baseline emotion is excited so you can have a better conversation because you know know that there's more definitive words um to kind of exactly what you're feeling um because again frustrated it's frustrated in there somewhere is it is it in the sad section or is it in the.
Angry section it might not even be word search yeah um but nonetheless I think these tools are really good but I think I think they have different ones for different um yeah not in this one I can see uh well yeah they'll be um there'll be all sorts of different ways in the Outer Circle right and I think what's fascinating is these kind of tools you think that you would use them with kids so for example yeah the concentration.
Cap I'm wearing a cap don't interrupt me because I'm on a video call and I'm setting boundaries with a kid um but even kind of emotions and stuff I think as you get older you realize actually this kind of stuff was never taught in school so it's okay to be learning this stuff from a from a Baseline and someone with like drawing or whatever like art therapy not that I've ever done it but I'm super fascinated with it because I've read.
About it and the benefits of doing that with kids because it's not a verbal thing children might not be able to necessarily convey their emotions verbally to you but they could probably draw a picture and out of that picture you'd probably be able to decipher and kind of like talk it through and I think it's very therapeutic um to some extent so I like drawing and I think I should draw more um and it's not necessarily that you're.
Always drawing for a sake of an emotion emotional output you know similar to like journaling right journaling is a form of processing externally um with written words I think you know art is a process of processing emotions in a in a visual in a visual way to some extent yeah it's really interesting because I knew someone that was doing that art therapy um I can't I'm trying to recall back of what he he what he was taught to do and.
I think it was like if you're feeling angry like Scribble but if you're feeling I don't know hopeful then draw a boat or whatever I think he was given a bit of structure because he he struggled with like I wouldn't know what to do um so there's like a bit of like I'll build a brick wall if you feel safe and that type of thing um so it was it is quite yeah it is really interesting I think for someone.
That is not particularly great with words at all times I think art therapy or just generally drawing I love sort of doodling and a lot of time I'll doodle and then just rub it out because it doesn't really mean anything but I feel good afterwards yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that makes sense so in kind of like wrapping up in conclusion to some extent what would you say open up and let's hold outside it definitely is cold outside I'm too.
Close to this window because I feel the cold front in wrapping uh what what would be and you can take a little bit of time to think about that what's one thing that can move the needle to feel more below like feel more of that sense of belonging in a group or in a setting what what one thing do you feel that it moves the needle so that could be in your experience what you've done or in your experience what you've.
Received to move the needle to make you feel that you belong sense when you said oh you think about it and we could leave a little bit of space halfway was thinking if imagine if we had 30 minutes of silence that someone's listening to it or just like waiting it's like it was called customers not yet yeah if you listen to two tons of people wait for the arms you can pause the video and you know we're talking.
Again otherwise the podcast will just have to keep going moving the needles I don't know I think um because I think I wouldn't even know if this is necessarily belonging but I think when you over stretch so when you over emphasize helping others out sometimes actually it's because your heart wants help you over help someone else when really you need the help and that's your way of of calling for help so I think it's sort of assess it is sort of holding a mirror up.
To your heart of going what does that person actually need help or are you helping them because actually you want help and that's your for these way of communicating it because you don't know how to ask for help and how to have needs in a friendship or relationship or whatever that will all have needs For Love or connection or Joy or whatever but it's like yeah I think it's that holder a mirror up to your heart and try not to over stretch because.
Actually it might be your body speaking to you um yeah great point for me I think it's about asking questions and it's asking questions um for opinion for an opinion um so for example rather than just saying like oh so where do you work and what do you do of course we do still need to do those things to kind of like build a Baseline you know in a week or something I I think you know what's one thing about fatherhood that.
Nobody told you about you know or something if you know it's a person with a kid like what's one thing that you never read in a book or you know what have you been reading this week or what's what have you been watching this week that's interesting or something you know open-ended questions that can be tied into maybe their family situation or their Dynamics or or something like that that's insightful that there's no wrong answer to that gives them an.
Opportunity to just say something that has a little bit more thought to it and a little bit more of of their own hot take as it were you know so I would say asking opinion based open-ended opinion based questions that allows them to just shine a little bit more um than a typical um you know they always know where they've been working they've been telling that to hundreds of people but you know cool you're newly married so what's like new what's one new insight.
That you've learned since being married you know and I know of course you can't access every day but hopefully it's a it's a it's a tool right a tool to ask that question in another setting you know like again the whole limb if everything paid the same what would you do like that's I I've loved that question again it's just asking these different questions that gets a bit of opinion gets something new um out of people um so yeah don't over stretch yourself.
And keep asking those interesting questions until next time keep hammering those snails.