This Ephemeral Life

The first time I lived in London, I believed, for three whole years, that I didn't have any real friends or community. I compared it constantly to my "ideal" life in Brooklyn that was constructed entirely around a sense of community grounded in shared cultural heritage and a particular set of social justice values.

Then I moved back to the states, to Alexandria, VA and I missed my London friends. The "new" London friends. They were good friends. They missed me. They wrote me real letters. (Facebook was just catching on, but still, they wrote me letters and cards! British people are SO good at letters and cards).

The realization: I wasted so much time and emotional energy mourning my life in New York that it made me unwilling to be fully present, open and appreciative of my life in London.

This realization + deep work with my friend, coach and hypnotherapist, Laura Palmer, helped me to let go of the artificial external barriers to human connection (accents, sense of humor, cultural differences) and connect with human beings anywhere. I am fully open (on most days -- we all have our bad days), to being deeply connected to people who come into my life.
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Being someone who moves every 4-7 years, quickly becoming fully present and establishing human connections have become my most essential life and career skills. Ease of human connection that transcends artificial social constructs is key to positive and successful transitions of all kinds, and my personal practice in this area helps me to provide a deep and authentic level of support to my clients who are embarking on a big life and career change.
So, here are a few quick lessons that I've learned to be able to plop yourself anywhere (new city, new country, new job, new leadership role, new networking environment, etc) and quickly establish authentic, rich connections that lead to genuine relationships:

1. Make peace with your ghosts. In or melancholy moments, our minds wander down paths of the pasts and transport us. In these moments we can feel the touch of an old love and imagine the road not taken with him/her. We can feel the soreness in our bellies from laughing so hard with a group of friends back in our twenties in a way that feels far off in our forties. We remember the neighborhood where we had our first child and the unique friendships formed there. We remember an environment that seemed to be just the right spiritual home that we can't seem to find now. We remember a particular set of colleagues whose work together was like magic - quality, passion, commitment - a sense of family, that we have never experienced since. We encounter our past identities and wonder what happened to the selves we once knew. The longer we live, the more places we go, the more ghosts we have. This is normal. Some of the ghosts can only be memories and we know that we will never re-activate the relationships. Some are people we suspect we'll return to in another chapter, even if, right now, there's only time for a quick text or Facebook comment. Some people pop into our consciousness and we realize we need to reach out to them urgently. Life and relationships are ephemeral, but that doesn't make each scene, chapter, moment any less important or memorable.
2. Assume others also desire connection. Most people don't wear their longing for deep connection on the outside. It's too vulnerable. It's not cool. There are all sorts of rules, boundaries and cultural norms around how OK it is to feel connected to others. While I'm not encouraging you to violate those cultural, professional and personal boundaries outright, I am encouraging you to take on a mindset that regardless of the exterior signals, human beings want connection. This will allow you a new freedom to interact with even the most reserved, self-protected and seemingly disinterested people.
3. Be curious. Watch the people who you consider to be people magnets. Notice how many questions they ask and how interested they seem in others. For some, this is completely natural. For many, this is a trait that has been cultivated. Being curious is a practice. It requires us to get out of our own heads and internal dialogue and to be awake to the human beings around us. In fact, a good way to assess how present you are to the world around you is to observe how often you find yourself enquiring about other people's lives. My rule of thumb is, the more I feel caught up in my own drama, the more important it is for me to get out there and take an interest in someone else's life.
4. Be vulnerable. #3, be curious, is so critical, but it's a balance. When you live with the assumption that people want to be deeply connected and with curiosity, what happens is that you attract other people who want to be deeply connected and who take an interest in you. So, allow yourself to share what's really going on with you. For some this is easy. For others, nearly impossible. We're all scared of sharing too much, of appearing weak, of distorting the image we're trying to project. This becomes even more complicated in a professional context. There are rules to be followed, to be sure. And they are not always clear rules. But to be curious without any reciprocation of vulnerability is inauthentic -- and repellent.

Our lives and careers uproot us, transport us, lead us down windy paths and present us with unusual detours. With each turn, we have a choice: to connect deeply with those around us, or not.


Jen Walper Roberts is a leadership and transition coach who supports mission-driven women to thrive in leadership, life and in their work to make the world a better place. Jen has led Conspire Coaching since 2011 and continues to develop coaching communities of mission-driven women in North America and Europe. She currently lives in Leeds, UK with her (very handsome) British husband and four strong-willed children. If you're facing a significant life or career transition, or are stretching into a significant leadership role, contact Jen to save time, energy and mental spiraling.