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Nurture Your Energy by Making the Connection
If you like this article:
-Doc Childre and Howard Martin, in The HeartMath Solution
Making an emotional connection with someone gives you and them energy. When there are barriers to a deep connection in an intimate relationship there will be relationship conflict until that connection is established and felt.
You can diffuse the negative effects of relationship stress by developing simple and effective means of communication that quickly make a genuine heart connection. Being able to make quick, effortless, and deep connection with someone strengthens the relationship. When you strengthen a relationship, you directly protect yourself from anxiety and depression, directly govern your well being and better manage and nurture your energy.
You can use the BATHE technique below to establish a quick, caring connection with someone who is stressed, worried, upset, or overwhelmed.
The Five Steps for BATHE - Heart Communication developed by Marian R. Stuart and Joseph A. Lieberman
These five steps are designed to be used in rapid succession. The success of the BATHE method actually depends on moving through all five steps within about 10 minutes.
Step 1: B for BACKGROUND
To connect with someone who is having a difficult time you have to find out what happened to give them pain. Ask the question:
"What happened to you?"
You do not need to go into minute detail. Just get the gist of what happened by listening without interruption for about 2 minutes – not much longer. Keeping the story to two minutes prevents the person from getting lost in the details of their story and wandering away from what's at the heart of the matter for them. The essentials are always in their feelings and not in the details of the story.
Step 2: A for AFFECT
Move quickly into the next question:
"And how does that make you feel?"
When asking this question you may feel a bit awkward or think it is so obvious. Ask this question about their feelings even if it seems a bit rude or too intimate. Don’t hesitate. This question allows the person to connect with their feelings – perhaps for the first time. It also provides a space for them to feel that you care about their feelings.
Step 3: T for TROUBLE
When asked how they feel there is chance that they may be overwhelmed with their emotions. The best way to help this is to get right to the heart of feeling – the core of their pain. Only by touching the source of the suffering can they gather enough strength to avoid being pulled into the depths of their suffering.
Now ask them:
"And what troubles you the most now?"
Avoid backing away from this question because it might seem too discourteous, too harsh, or too obvious. You may think you know what the trouble is but often you are totally surprised. If you don’t ask you will never know.
This question is the most effective question because it helps focus the mind of the person who is in pain. In pain, and left to themselves, the person’s mind and self can easily become overwhelmed and fragmented – not knowing what to do. When you ask them "And what troubles you the most now?" you give the person in pain a place to focus. They can then start to pull their thoughts together around what the hurt is now for them. It helps them to connect with the truth and heart of the matter.
Nothing usually gets resolved with this question but it gives the person clarity about what is actually causing the pain and opens the future in front of them.
Step 4: H for HANDLING
When you have provided them the opportunity to give voice to their emotions, you have released much energy. The next question capitalizes on concentrating this energy on the main source of the problem in the present moment.
"And what helps you the most to handle this?"
This question starts the process of coping. It turns the person’s attention to the resources around them that can help them. It helps to generate each person’s capacity to deal with even the most difficult situations. It gets focused on collecting their resources. You have not solved the problem for them but you have helped them get back on track.
This question tells them that you believe that they are stronger and more resilient then they might feel at the moment. It allows you to stand with the person in their pain, be present with them, and care about them without rushing in to take care of their problem. It allows the person in pain to realize the resources they have available to them and to move away from feeling alone and without power. It allows them to feel that they can begin to take their lives into their own hands again.
Step 5: E for EMPATHY
When you move through this means of communication, it will allow you to connect quickly and deeply with someone. To complete the communication you want to tell the person in pain that you truly care about them. This gives them the sense that they have an ally in their struggle – they gain confidence from your connection with them and from your attention to their pain.
To end the brief exchange you can express to them the sincere feelings you experienced while listening to their story of pain and suffering. A few, simple words are all that is needed. Something like:
"I am so sorry that happened to you."
"I feel so sad for you."
"That must have been so hard for you."
By sharing their pain with them in this manner – if even for a brief time – it helps them feel less alone with their burden. By making the heart connection with them in this brief exchange you have helped them carry their pain. They will have experienced that they are not alone. This connection gives them strength and fortifies them to move out again into the world to take up their lives.
As for you, you will feel more effective. You will feel better. Whenever you make a sincere connection with another person, it strengthens you and gives you positive energy. As you care for them, you are also caring for yourself, developing, and growing your own humanity.
Sincere connection with another person not only helps heal the other person but it heals you too. Not instantly but over time. Through deep interpersonal connection, your emotional brain gains more confidence in relating to others and this confidence protects you from depletion, anxiety and depression and spills over into better regulated health and well being.
"It is one of the most beautiful
compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without
helping himself."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
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References: The Fifteen Minute Hour by M.R. Stuart and J.A. Lieberman The Instinct to Heal by David Servan-Schreiber
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© Copyright 1997 - 2008 by Mary Ann Copson and Evenstar. All rights reserved.
About the Author:
Mary Ann Copson is the founder of the Evenstar Mood & Energy Wellness Center for Women. With Master's Degrees in Human Development and Psychology and Counseling, Mary Ann is a Certified Licensed Nutritionist; Certified Holistic Health Practitioner; Brain Chemistry Profile Clinician; and a Health, Wellness and Lifestyle Coach. Reconnect to your physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual natural rhythms at
http://evenstaronline.com
