Crafting Connection: Transform how you communicate with yourself and others

By Felicity Dwyer

Being able to connect deeply with other people will help you succeed and flourish at work and enhance your career or business development.

And more than this, meaningful connection with other people is what gives most of us true joy and a sense of purpose in our personal lives.

But connecting and communicating isn’t always easy. Perhaps we’re fearful of being judged or rejected, or we lack the confidence to speak out in a group, or to approach what we believe will be a difficult conversation.

In this thought-provoking and practical book, you’ll discover how connecting with yourself gives you a foundation for better relationships with others. You’ll find ideas that you can apply to one-to-one conversations, to group interactions such as networking meetings, teamworking and leadership, and in family and social settings.

As you progress through three dimensions of connection, you’ll build skills and confidence in relating to yourself and others.

‘Crafting Connection is a must-read guide to communication and building better relationships.’
Jess Annison, OBE. Jess Annison Coaching

‘… an elegant, accessible, and practical guide to creating a more meaningful, authentic life by deepening the connection you have with yourself and with others.’
Sarah Grant. Nutritional therapist, Gut Reaction

Felicity Dwyer is a facilitator, trainer, coach and speaker. She helps individuals, leaders and teams to connect and communicate, so that people feel heard and understood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Practical Inspiration Publishing
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781788604031

Felicity Dwyer

Felicity Dwyer is a facilitator, trainer, coach, and consultant. She helps individuals and teams to connect and communicate, so that people feel heard and understood. A lead trainer on both CMI and ILM Leadership and Management qualifications, Felicity also helps people with challenges such as managing difficult conversations, facilitating effective meetings, and navigating change. She has worked with charities, small businesses, membership bodies, and public sector health and heritage organisations. Felicity has presented at conferences and seminars including the Association of Voluntary Service Managers, The Museums Association, and Forum Events. She leads a networking group and is a popular speaker at business networks. Her advice has been featured in publications such as Metro Online, Happiful, Yahoo Finance, and CEO Magazine. A Time to Think Facilitator, Clean Language Facilitator, and Nia White Belt, Felicity also holds certifications in coaching, training practice, management and leadership, person-centred counselling, and the neuroscience of change. She is a Member of the Association for Coaching and the Chartered Management Institute, and a Fellow of the RSA. Felicity’s own lifelong commitment to personal development has introduced her to some powerful transformative practices. The methods that she uses in her own life and shares through her workshops and coaching are evidence based, creative and effective. And she teaches them in a practical and accessible way.

Book preview

Dimension 1

Connecting Within

A school netball pitch. A 13-year-old girl with no interest or aptitude for netball, her mind elsewhere, in an imaginary world which is far more real to her than the physical space in which she stands. The ball comes her way and, in a belated attempt to catch it, she misses and the ball comes down hard on her little finger and fractures it. Not serious, but painful. It’s strapped to the next finger while it heals, and – the real silver lining – no more netball for a few weeks!

As that child, I lived very much in my imagination, I wasn’t co-ordinated or skilled at physical activities, and would rather be reading a book than playing sports. The experience on the netball court stands out in my memory because of the pain involved, but looking back, I spent much of my time at school with my body in one place and my mind in another. This made it difficult for me to connect effectively with myself or with others.

And now I’m writing a book all about connection and my starting point is about connecting within, by which I mean connecting with different aspects of yourself. This dimension is indicated by the inner circle of the Connecting in 3D model. Like many of the concepts and ideas in this book, this sense of connecting within didn’t always come naturally to me. It’s been developed over the years, through reading, learning from inspirational teachers and, most importantly, through practice. In learning to connect with myself, I’ve found a gateway to connecting more easily with other people. Because these are learned skills for me, I also love to share and teach them. I’m confident that, whatever your starting point, you can always expand into an even greater depth of connection, with yourself and others.

A foundation stone for connection is the ability to bring your attention into the present moment in time. We can listen deeply to ourselves (and others) when our attention is grounded in the present, and this is the reason why the first chapter explores the concept of presence.

In my experience, the easiest way to come to the present moment is to connect with physical sensation, in particular the sensation of touch. So, we go on to explore this in Chapter 2, before moving on to consider our values, our thoughts, and our inner landscape in the form of the metaphors and stories that help create our experience of reality.

The bedrock of my work as a facilitator, trainer, and coach is my ability to be fully present with other people. And I’m aware that my presence and impact is much more powerful and transformational when I also feel more connected with myself, in the ways described in this part of the book. The practices in this section are simple, yet powerful, and I hope they will serve you well, as they have me.

Chapter 1

It all starts here

Presence as the gateway to connection

Where are you now as you read this book? How much of your attention is fully focused on these words? To what extent are you aware of your body, your surroundings, and your own reactions to what you are reading?

Being present with what is going on right now opens a gateway to connection. It’s like a golden key to connecting with other people and to connecting with yourself. It allows you space to notice both what is going on inside yourself and what is happening in your environment. It’s difficult to truly connect unless you’re able to bring your attention back to the present moment.

It’s in the present moment that you can connect with your body, in particular the subtle sensations it offers you, rich with information and wisdom.

It’s in the present moment that you connect with the part of yourself that is a still point in time; the part that can observe your own thinking, and which offers you the realization that you’re much more than just your thoughts.

It’s in the present moment that you can make choices about where to direct your attention. And the quality of your relationship with yourself and others is, to a great extent, determined by where you direct and place your attention.

In this chapter, you’ll explore different perspectives on time. And you’ll discover practical exercises to help you connect more deeply with the present moment.

You’re a time traveller

As a human being, you possess a magical ability to time travel.

You can take yourself back, into your past. You can review and learn from things that have happened. And on the darker side, I’m sure you have the ability at times to infuse your mood with emotions such as regret.

And you can take yourself forwards, into the future. You can visualize and plan, hope and dream. On the darker side, you may sometimes find yourself caught up in thoughts or feelings of anxiety and fear about what might happen.

A superpower for building a connected life is the ability to choose where in time to consciously direct your attention rather than feel caught up in the time travelling. And a starting point for navigating time is to be able to reliably bring yourself back to the present. To the here. And the now.

Where do you reside?

Do you have a sense of how much time you spend in the past, present, or future?

You may have observed people who spend a lot of time in the past. They talk about what has happened to them; good or bad. They may recount conversations that they’ve been involved in, or continually revisit formative events that took place earlier in their lives.

And others are much more future oriented. They are more likely to talk about what they are going to do and how they see the future. They may make concrete plans, or dream and imagine how the months and years ahead may turn out.

Both perspectives are valuable. Looking back in a reflective way is how we learn from the past. It can help us to make sense of things that have happened to us and then put them in context. When we tell our life stories, we connect events to form a narrative that takes us from the past into the present. This gives us a sense of continuity and connection to our personal histories. It also creates a sense of cause and effect. This can be instructive, but also potentially misleading. We may draw conclusions from an outcome to a situation that isn’t justified. For this reason, it’s important to remain open to reviewing the meaning we draw from a situation, and to be prepared to challenge our own assumptions about the impact of our past.

Looking ahead is important too, so that we can make plans. We can’t be sure about what will happen, as there are always factors outside our control. But we can come up with a vision, strategies and actions that give us the best chance of achieving what we want for ourselves, and for the people and causes we care about. In a leadership role, for example, we need to build a sense of where we, our team, or our organization are heading, so that we can direct our energies in that direction. And in our careers, a sense of our desired future will give us a focus on the skills we need to develop and the opportunities we need to look out for.

But there are downsides to living in the past and future too. Take regret. This is an emotion that can affect us in the present; we may wish we had behaved differently or that our life had turned out in a different way. Yes, it’s important to reflect on, and learn from, our experiences. But we cannot change the past. I’ve learned over the years that the key to peace is to accept things as they are, to learn from mistakes, and to let go. There is more about this in Chapter 4.

And if we live too much in our dreams for the future, we miss out on the juiciness of the present. We may also suffer from anxiety, through imagining problems or catastrophes that may happen in the future.

It certainly makes sense to see potential downsides before making an important decision or when doing a risk assessment. But most of what we imagine could go wrong won’t happen in reality. And if it does, we’ll have no choice but to deal with it then. It’s sensible and responsible to make contingency plans. But don’t live your life on the basis that things will turn out badly. Trust that you’ll be able to deal with whatever the future brings. And in the meantime, enjoy what’s good right now.

So, if we can develop a skill at navigating time perspectives, we can ground ourselves in the present moment and make deliberate choices about when to move our attention forward into the future or back to the past.

The power of being present

I believe that the ability to be present is fundamental to the ideas I share in this book and essential for deep connection.

One strand of my work is facilitating leadership training programmes. On these courses, one of the areas we think about is that of leadership presence. Some people think of leadership presence as a kind of special power or gravitas that charismatic leaders possess. But what it truly means is the ability of a leader to be present in the moment… Here. Now.

In the context of this chapter, I’m thinking of leadership as our ability to influence or inspire other people. So, if leading means influencing and inspiring, we all need to lead in some contexts, even if we don’t have the word in our job title.

The presence I’m talking about has a vibrancy. It feels alive. It offers you the ability to slow down and appreciate the moment. It helps you to connect and to access your own intuition. And it helps you to really see and take in another person.

Author and speaker Olivia Fox Cabane identifies presence as one of the three constituent elements of charisma, the other two being power and warmth.¹ Feeling that someone is fully there with us, in the moment, allows for that sense of connection. In contrast, when you are with someone, but you can see they are distracted, the message that this is likely to convey is: ‘you don’t matter to me now’.

The dimension of connecting within, in the here and now, sends out the message that the other person does matter. Being fully present with someone allows us to listen, to hear what they are saying, and notice our own reactions to what we’re hearing. It allows us to respond to what we hear, rather than what we think we’re hearing, which can happen when our thoughts are elsewhere.

Connecting in this way helps us at work. If you’re leading change, for example, and encounter resistance, then really being present and listening to people’s concerns can help you to respond accurately and sensitively. To give another example, it can be a powerful skill for networking. I can still remember a conversation with a photographer that I met five years ago at an event. The reason she stood out was the quality of presence that she emanated. The ability to bring this calibre of presence to our interactions will help us to build relationships that enhance our career prospects as well as our lives.

Aspects of the present

In their book The Time Paradox, Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd explore the time perspectives of past, present, and future.² As part of their work, they identified three ways of living in the present, which they refer to as present-hedonistic, present-fatalistic, and the holistic present.

Present-hedonistic is a perspective of becoming immersed in and enjoying the immediate sensual pleasures of life: having fun, partying, enjoying the moment. This time perspective is common among young people. Hedonistic living has positive aspects and helps us to squeeze the juice out of some pleasurable life experiences. But living constantly in a hedonistic present, with no concern for the consequences, can lead to risky behaviour, long-term problems such as addictions, and drifting through life with no sense of direction or purpose.

The present-fatalistic time perspective is a day-to-day way of living, when you don’t believe that you have any control over your life and future. Things happen to you. Your chances are pre-determined. You don’t plan to improve your life because you don’t believe it’s possible. You don’t dare to dream. This is not an empowering place to be and, unsurprisingly, research shows a strong correlation between this time perspective and negative outcomes such as poverty. The lack of a sense of control or agency can lead to feelings of stress and depression or hopelessness. With this perspective, people may feel ground down by circumstances, but unable to conceive of things changing for the better.

The holistic present

The holistic present, in contrast to the previous two, is an expanded present-oriented perspective, which encompasses past, present, and future. It is a state of feeling connected with yourself and beyond yourself. You’re able to make choices and to access the past and future without getting lost in them.

For me this perspective is summed up in the beautiful words of William Blake.³

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand

And Eternity in an Hour.

In this state, there is a sense of time opening up. There is an awareness of what is happening around you – sights, sounds, and sensations. A quietening and clarity of mind, which makes it easier for you to access fresh thoughts and feelings, memories, and ideas.

There are many paths into this state, and different words for it. Mindfulness has become a common term to describe a state of relaxed awareness of the present moment, a state where you are making conscious choices moment to moment, rather than reacting unthinkingly to external stimuli.

When and where have you experienced this state of being?

Mindfulness

The concept of presence, of being in the ‘now’, is often a part of spiritual teachings, perhaps because it can give a sense of timelessness, a sense of being suspended from everyday thoughts and concerns. And it’s a way into a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves.

But it’s not just the preserve of spiritual teachings. Mindfulness is increasingly being taught in school and work settings. It is, at heart, the skill of being present. Mindful magazine offers this definition:

Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.⁴

There is a significant evidence base on the positive effects of mindfulness. These can include a reduction in stress, a greater ability to focus, better working memory, improved ability to learn, more flexibility in the way we respond emotionally to triggers, and greater satisfaction in relationships.⁵

Meditation

Meditation is traditionally associated with spiritual practices, although in recent years has been widely adopted in healthcare and workplace situations. And for good reason, as there is extensive evidence demonstrating the benefits of meditation. These include reducing anxiety, lowering blood pressure, and improving levels of concentration and work performance.⁶

At its core, meditation is simply the process of focusing your attention on one aspect of your experience. And then returning your attention to this focus whenever it wanders.

Practices: Coming into state of mindful presence

There are many ways that you can bring yourself into a state of mindful presence.

In this section, I’d like to introduce you to some of my favourite practices. These are the exercises that I return to most often and that have helped me develop my ability to come back to the present quite quickly. I’m not going to pretend that I spend my life in a state of eternal presence. I’m very far from it. But I do know how to come back to the present when I need to. Given how un-present I used to be, I can testify that this is a learnable skill, and one that can greatly enrich your life and of course your sense of