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We often think that looking for friends is a matter of the heart. Our brains beg to differ.
My husband and I are currently teaching our local spiritual community through a series called "Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear" based on Dr. Srinivasan S. Pillay's book "Life Unlocked." Dr. Pillay is a Harvard-trained Psychologist who uses the neuroscience research to show not only the massive impact of fear in our lives but also some strategies for overcoming. It struck me as I was pulling my notes together for a recent presentation how much this brain imaging research might inform our process for making new friends.
Stand in Anticipation
Dissonance is when you are in a familiar place and yet choose to anticipate a preferred future. To bring about any change in our lives, we actually have to develop that dissonance, recognizing that we need to move from one way of being into a new way. Holding that desire for a different way is crucial to your brain beginning to look for solutions that will help get you there.
The power of imagining what we want is actually showing up in brain imaging scans as activating the motor cortex in the same way as actually beginning to do that very action. In other words, imagining the action and actually doing the action share the same neural substrates in our brain.
This is awesome news for those of us who love making vision boards, cutting out pictures that inspire us, journaling our preferred future and writing down goals. Practices that help you think, write or speak about your desired outcome not only feel inspiring, but science shows that it is actually triggering the brain as though we are already moving toward it. It's giving us practice for our dream.
Unfortunately, for many of us, we simply stop dreaming or hoping because it hurts to want something if we're not sure we'll get it. So we've spent more energy trying to convince ourselves we don't really want that different job, don't really need to lose that weight or don't really need more friends. We end up looking for evidence to justify where we are as opposed to holding the hope out in front of us and looking for evidence to fuel us that way. We'd rather feel better in our current place than stand in anticipation.
But the old adage is true: "If you can imagine it, you're halfway there."
Take the First Step. Quickly
For as important as imagination is, recent research also shows that if we stay in that mode we will put our brain in overdrive. Trying to hold the big picture or know all the steps we need to take ahead of time, activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) which can have a disorienting effect on us if it's continual. (That's the same subdivision of the brain that lit up when test subjects were being chased by a virtual predator!) It's akin to having too many programs running at the same time on your computer- slowing down the actual progress.
To prevent being overwhelmed, Dr. Pillay shows that our brain responds best when we redirect the activation from the big picture to the current moment.
The very question "What is my next step?" immediately activates the part of the brain that we need in order to move toward that desired outcome. "Actual change (movement toward success)", he says, "really can only occur when we perform a small action that advances us toward our goals." He continues, "brain activation signifying change in the frontal lobe shows us that actual change is much more likely to occur with small actions than with extensive thought."
Anticipating and Acting in Friendship
- Anticipate the friendships you want: How can you establish the dissonance you need to remind you that at a hypothetical distance there is an outcome you prefer? Give yourself permission to admit "I want more relational belonging." It might hurt to admit you don't have it now, but being clear that there is a different reality you want will help your brain begin to move you to that point!
Have you ever done a vision board for the kind of friends you want? Have you drawn up a picture of you laughing with a small group of women? Have you journaled about what the outcome would look like if you had the number of meaningful friendships surrounding you that you want? Do you have a photo of you with friends from childhood or college that you could pull out and place somewhere that reminds you how much it meant to have those friends?
- Name Your 1st Step: Here is what I had everyone do this last weekend when I was teaching: everyone had to list what they believed was their first step toward their preferred future. Any first step. It's okay that you don't know your whole plan or even if your dream is plausible-- just name your first step.
- Now, list your 10 to get there. After everyone listed their first step, I then told them to list ten steps to get there. They looked at me with confusion and then broke out laughing. :) It's classic. Sometimes our first step is even too vague for us to picture. Remember, we want to be able to picture what we're going to do as that will trigger us to actually step into it. The smaller the steps, the better. We will begin to prove to ourselves that we can move toward our goal.
So let's take an example. If our goal is to have more meaningful local friends, then maybe we'd think a first step might be to "start meeting new people." And already you can see why many of us never take that step-- it's still too big. So what would be ten things that you could do that would move you toward that "first step?" Name as many as you can with as much specificity as you can. And every time you name one that's still too big, break it down to even smaller steps.
I dare you take 15 minutes and actually write out your friendship goal, first step and at least ten specific steps you can do to get to that first step.
And just know, by belonging to a community committed to fostering meaningful friendships-- GirlFriendCircles.com will help keep holding the intention and we will provide as many opportunities as we can to help you take steps toward what you have said is important to you.
So, by all means, use your heart to guide you as you make new friends. But know it's your brain that will help get you there. :)
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 | | Shasta Nelson founded GirlFriendCircles.com as a way to help introduce amazing women to potential girlfriends. Passionate about women, our relationships and our value to community, she’s inviting women to find those friends online, but make sure to take them offline to a cup of coffee too! |
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