Inner Work – This is between you and yourself. This work is about introspection, self-awareness, self-analysis, and reevaluating one’s self. We examine our attitude towards ourselves, our self-worth, and how this influences our approach to other people. We consider our attitudes towards people in general. This work involves looking deep in to our understanding of what is real, what is true, what is good, and was is valuable. It is possible—and likely—that there are parts of our beliefs, attitudes, and values that are false and confused. Examining and revising our inner understanding is a vital element of learning to connect with others.
Silent Work – This is between us and other people, but does not involve speaking with them. This work is about being physically around other people in ways that are healthy, calm, and pro-social. We practice being intentional with our non-verbal communication, from body language to eye-contact to our choice of clothing. We practice being aware of how we respond to the presence of others, how we react to anxiety and attention, and how we feel about the appearance of other people. We take the insights we gained from inner work and apply them to real-world situations involving other people in order to test our insights and gain additional awareness of how the people around us make us think and feel. Without practicing being around others in an intentional and calm way we cannot hope to speak with them productively.
Speaking Work – When we have done enough inner work and silent work we begin speaking work. We do not begin speaking work until we are feeling calm enough to begin. This involves speaking with others in an intentional way. We practice being aware of how others respond to what we say, and how we feel and think about their response. We begin to practice the ‘social cycle’ in which we begin with intent, convert that in to action and speech, interpret the response from the other person, then use our understanding of their response to form a new intent and new action and words, and so on. Speaking work can be as simple as exchanging pleasantries with retail workers, or as complicated as attending a wedding and reception. The focus of speaking work is not just to throw ourselves in to ‘exposure therapy’, but to be focused, aware, and intentional about how we speak to others. Speaking work is focused on short-term concerns, i.e. specific conversations and interactions.
Relational Work – When speaking comes easily and we have some degree of confidence with the basics of conversation we proceed to focusing on more advanced modes of relating to others. Whereas speaking work is about the mechanics of a conversation, relational work is about the overall structure and form relationships from purely platonic to romantic. We learn to examine not just how people respond to us in the moment, but how those responses add up to a big picture of sorts. Within this is the concept of ‘theory of mind’, i.e. understanding the point-of-view, motivations, thoughts, and values of another person in a holistic way. We practice reflecting on past conversations to better understand how we relate to others in general and in ways specific to an individual. Group dynamics are also considered in relational work: what does it mean to be ‘part of a group’, and how does the group differ from the individuals that compose it? Etc. This work is focused on understanding how our specific words and actions accumulate to form relationships, and how they can undermine and even end those relationships.
Each of these four modes of work are done in cycles. We return to inner work, silent work, speaking work, and relational work again and again throughout our journey to escape loneliness and connect with others. As we gain mastery in one mode, we will find the other modes change as well. Understanding, say, our innermost values can change our idea about what kinds of relationships we want to invest in. A concrete example is that if we change our mind about how we understand and value success to mean ‘happiness’ rather than, say, ‘having lots of money’, we may decide to let some of our professional relationships go fallow while we invest more heavily in romantic or friendly relationships. Similarly, the way way respond to how others treat us may lead us to believe different things about ourselves and our place in the world. Any mode of work can influence any other mode. It is not a simple process of moving from A to B to C, but instead of dynamic and cyclical process of focusing inward (presence) and then outward (motion), and then back again.
When we have practiced and learned and grown so much that we have developed healthy relationships with of people we will then approach the final realm: escaping loneliness and making genuine connects with others. This is not a simple thing. Or, rather, it is very simple, but can be scary, threatening, and difficult to manage in practice. Being together with another person means being known by them. To be known is to be exposed, and to be exposed is to be vulnerable. It is possible to be highly-skilled in socializing, charming, surrounded by people, and well-loved, but still be essentially alone. Opening our inner worlds to others can be so fundamentally threatening that we never do it. Many people never know anything but loneliness. By doing the work, though, we can at least position ourselves such that we might just have a chance to make a real connection with another person and enjoy the indescribable bliss of true loving togetherness. The benefits are incomparable and precious beyond measure.