of caring — feeling the feeling of caring — starts with empathy. For many of us, this comes quite naturally. It can be very hard to watch someone you know well go through a struggle and not feel some empathy. If empathizing comes easily for you, it’s a skill that will greatly benefit you in your pursuit of closeness. If it doesn’t, don’t worry — this book will provide you with strategies for improving your emotional receptiveness.
Feeling the feeling of caring extends beyond simple empathy, though. It also means feeling the importance of another person’s health and happiness. It means you feel the gravity — the weight — of caring about his well-being. Feeling this sense of importance will ultimately move you into the second phase of caring: showing the other person you care.
Many of the ways we attempt this second phase — showing someone we care — are fraught with problems. It is in this phase where caring frequently falls apart in relationships because we’ve all learned lessons about how to show concern that are ineffective in creating closeness. In your own life, you’ve likely found that moments when you feel truly cared about are few and far between. Let’s talk about why.
Many of us have been taught to show caring by worrying about the other person, which doesn’t truly create closeness because it prompts her to prove that everything is okay with her to ease your discomfort. In addition, we may try to show caring through advising or attempting to fix the other person’s problems, which doesn’t work for creating closeness because it places you in a superior position, the one who can fix things, seeding resentment in the other person.
Real closeness requires you to adopt a new perspective on showing care in which you actively pay attention to another person’s well-being and then tell her what you see. You pay attention to how he’s doing, then let him know what you’ve noticed. It is not sharing your worries about what you’ve noticed. It is not trying to fix what you’ve noticed. It’s just expressed, thoughtful noticing.
Showing care really is that simple. And luckily, because it is that simple, we can do it in many more contexts than we normally find appropriate for showing care. We can easily show our care in this new way at work, for example. Let’s say you notice that one of your coworkers, who’s usually gregarious, is unusually quiet one day. Showing care would entail stopping by her desk and sharing your observation: “Nancy, I noticed you’re extra quiet today. You doing okay?”
A simple, interested observation, coupled with an invitation to share, is appropriate in any context. Though caring is an emotional experience, to be sure, it doesn’t have to be “intimate” in the way we usually understand the word. It’s just noticing and communicating interest in how another person is doing. You can absolutely be professional and still care.
Caring in this way is a powerful tool for creating closeness because it demonstrates a desire not only to know about someone’s deepest inner self but also to value it. You show your spouse, friend, sister, or colleague that you care enough to notice what’s going on in his or her life. Caring is, in many ways, the ultimate form of validation. Coupled with knowing, it produces an unshakable bond.
Knowing and caring can each be practiced on their own, but both are required to create true closeness. Without knowing, you may believe that a certain person cares about you but that he doesn’t really “get” you — a type of caring that is easily dismissed. Without caring, you may feel mentally connected to another but feel emotionally neglected. In other words, you may feel understood, but you won’t feel like you matter.
Caring without knowing often presents itself as annoyance and dismissiveness: “I know my dad loves me, but he doesn’t actually understand anything about my life.” Knowing without caring often shows itself as sadness and hurt: “How can my best friend — who knows literally everything about me — not realize that I’m suffering?”
Knowing and caring are a powerful combination. They create the feeling that another person not only knows your deepest, truest self, but is actively engaged in keeping your deepest, truest self well. What more could we want from our relationships?
The Benefits of Closeness
It’s hard to overstate the benefits of relationships that include knowing and caring. Beyond reducing loneliness in our social lives, closeness, as we intuitively know, is vital to leading a happy life. Those of us who are creative surely remember writing a poem, drawing a picture, or singing a song about longing for closeness, as well as love, intimacy, and connection. Art has no more fruitful topics than these.
In many ways, art is all about expressing the joy of close relationships — and the sorrow of losing them — but science has something to say about the benefits of closeness as well. My favorite explanation of these benefits was offered by psychologist John Bowlby, known for his pioneering work in attachment theory. He summarizes the importance of close relationships like this: “True intimacy with others is one of the highest values of human existence; there may be nothing more important for the well-being and optimal functioning of human beings than intimate relationships.”
“Well-being” and “optimal functioning” are not fanciful notions. They’re not abstract constructs of the imagination or ambitions that are too lofty for us to achieve. They are simply the things that make us feel well and do well in life. They are practical benefits. They are the difference between being excited to get up each day and being unable to drag yourself out of bed. They are the difference between feeling happy and feeling sad, between feeling capable and feeling incapable. And they are closely related to intimate relationships.
The vast library of scientific research on relationships has demonstrated that there are at last three measurable, practical benefits to having strong ties to other people: better mental health, better physical health, and longer life. These benefits, coupled with the deep personal satisfaction that comes with feeling truly known and truly cared about, makes closeness essential for a long, happy life.
The connection between closeness and better mental health was established through one of the longest-running and best-funded social science research projects of our age: the Harvard Grant Study. The study was launched in 1938 to “discover what factors lead to an ‘optimum’ life.” It was led by psychiatrist George Vaillant and a team of medical researchers, who followed 268 Harvard sophomores from the all-male classes of 1939–1944. The team tracked every aspect of these men’s lives for the next seventy-five years.
The participants in the Grant Study were chosen because they “were healthy in body and mind, and deemed likely to capitalize on their potential and become successful adults.” But not all of them sustained, or even began, happy lives. Many succumbed to alcoholism. Some remained overburdened by traumatic childhood experiences. But the ones who did succeed, both professionally and personally, all had one thing in common: highly valued close relationships. As Vaillant put it: “It was the capacity for intimate relationships that predicted flourishing in all aspects of these men’s lives.”
If we categorize “happiness in life” as a significant component of mental health, it becomes clear that intimate relationships contribute greatly to mental health. Closeness eases the anxiety and depression of believing that no one really cares about you. It softens the frustration and anger that come with feeling that no one understands you. Suddenly, others become available to us. Suddenly, we feel better inside.
In addition to promoting mental health, there are proven physical and biological advantages to reducing loneliness. Loneliness has been found to tax the immune system, in much the same way chronic stress does, making it less able to ward off infections. Lisa Jaremka, the lead researcher of a study on this topic conducted at the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University, reported: “We saw consistency in the sense that more lonely people in both studies had more inflammation than less lonely people. It’s also important to remember the flip side, which is that people who feel very socially connected are experiencing more positive outcomes.”
It’s not terribly surprising that loneliness acts in the body in much the same way that stress does. In many ways loneliness is stressful. When you find yourself wondering, “Who could I call if I really needed someone?” it is stressful. For this reason,