I think I came closer in this session than in many of the previous ones to encouraging the kind of shift I am after for my patients. It did not come through my explanation of the concept of conceit but from the surprise of suggesting that Zach simply be a friend to his friend. The element of surprise was important. Startled by my comment, Zach had a glimpse of another way of relating. It made sense to him in the moment, not just conceptually but personally. The Zen poem connotes a similar feeling, returning by an unused path. Could that also be mindfulness, coming back via an intrinsic but unfamiliar resource to find the unexpected? But when I read the poem to Zach at a later date, instead of hearing “violets,” he heard the final word as “violence.” A Freudian slip, we might conclude.

If I’d been better schooled back then in the art of accompaniment, I would have

understood how important it is to honor another person’s ability to make choices. I hope I would have understood, as good accompanists do, that everybody is in their own spot, on their own pilgrimage, and your job is to meet them where they are, help them chart their own course. I wish I had followed some advice that is rapidly becoming an adage: Let others voluntarily evolve.

Suggestion #3: Radical Curiosity…

It can be a real joy to lose ourselves in the experience of another person. It can also feel strange at first, if you’re not used to it, and it might take some effort. Curiosity—real, deep curiosity about what others are experiencing—goes a long way in important relationships. It opens up avenues of conversation and knowledge that we never knew were there. It helps others feel understood and appreciated. It’s important even in less significant relationships, where it can set a precedent of caring and increase the strength of new, fragile bonds…

The crucial point is that being curious helps us connect to others, and this connection makes us more engaged with life. Genuine curiosity invites people to share more of themselves with us, and this in turn helps us understand them. This process enlivens everyone involved. The “strangers on a train” experiment points to these cascading benefits, which we’ll discuss much more in Chapter Ten. Even a small interest in another person, a brief word, can create new excitements, new avenues of connection, and new pathways for life to flow.

Like generosity, curiosity is an upward spiral.

At their core, feelings of stuckness come from patterns in our lives. Some patterns help us navigate life efficiently and quickly, but others may lead us to respond in ways that don’t serve us well. These patterns may include spending time with the wrong people—the wrong friends, and even the wrong partners. Far from being random, these patterns often reflect areas of preoccupation and struggles from our past, which in a way feel like home. They are like a set of familiar dance steps that we fall into. A familiar sensation, even if it’s negative, is activated in a conversation with someone, and there is a kind of comfort in that familiarity. Oh here it is again, I know this dance.

Here is where Emmy Werner’s research, our own Harvard Study research, and many other pieces of research from across cultures and populations converge to show that a critical link between childhood experience and positive adult social connections is our ability to process

emotions.

It is from our relationships as children—especially our relationships with our family—that we first learn what to expect from others. This is when we begin to develop the emotional habits, so to speak, that will be with us for the rest of our lives. These habits often define the way we connect to others and our ability to engage others in mutually supportive ways.

A crucial point here is that our ability to process emotions is malleable. In fact, managing emotions is one of the things we actually get better at as we grow old. And there is strong evidence that we don’t have to wait until late in our lives for this to happen. With the right guidance and some practice, we can learn to be better at managing our feelings at any age.