Building Connections: How to Be A Relationship Ninja | Rosan Auyeung-Chen | TEDxSFU

If you met me as a child, you would have seen a girl with glasses that were so big, it took up half her face. While the lower half was filled with a lot of metal, I had metal braces and it came with a tasteful neck gear that was basically a piece of wire that went into one side of my mouth, out around my neck and in the other side. Now, as if that wasn't enough, I decided to complete the look by wearing my older brother's hand-me-downs, as well as clipping this huge bow on the top of my ponytail every single morning. Now, every time I shared this story with my friends, they would look at me and say, oh man, you must have had a lonely childhood. I don't blame them. I personally would have thought so myself, except it wasn't. I learned at a young age, you are never lonely if you can connect. I guess I have my father to thank. When he was a child, my great uncle approached my grandfather and told him that he was gonna leave China. He wanted to build a better future for himself. So he told my grandfather, I can take one child, claim it as my own, and give that one child a better life. My grandfather chose my father. It was between him and his younger sister. At a young age of 10, my father left everything he knew, followed his uncle to a land full of mostly strangers. So growing up, it was basically the four of us, my brother, me, my mom, and dad, because eventually he came to Canada when he was in his early 20s. But we were never lonely. My dad had this amazing ability to connect with people, and our lives and memories were always filled and surrounded by people that cared and loved us. And that's when I realized, family didn't have to be about blood relations. Family was something we can create. And from that point on, building connections became a huge part of my life. I even became a clinical counselor, where building connections is a necessity for helping others. As Natasha said, I work at Vancouver General Hospital's psychiatry department. I provide individual and group counseling to people struggling with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, adjustment and personality disorder. Now, before I share my secrets with you on how to become a relationship ninja, I have to highlight, sometimes building connections can be kind of a tricky thing to do. It can take time, effort, commitment, courage, and like today's conference theme, for us to take the leap. One thing I learned as a child, that in order to build strong connections with others, you really have to be strongly connected with yourself. You have to really know yourself. By that I mean, you gotta know what you like, what you don't like, what works for you, what doesn't work for you, and of course, what your strengths and weaknesses are. As much as it's important to focus and use our strengths, a lot of times we actually forget it's just as important to acknowledge and unconditionally accept our weaknesses. Only by embracing our weaknesses do we actually become more grounded and more stronger as a person. Otherwise, you might find yourself feeling easily offended by people, and you actually might end up coming off as a little bit defensive. As a child, I would get asked by other kids occasionally, hey, what's on your face? And because I was embarrassed about what I had to wear, I would snarl back with nothing. What's wrong with yours? Now I quickly learned, apparently that was not the quickest way to be making friends. And it honestly wasn't until I accepted that my looks were a part of me and something I couldn't change for a while, that I actually began to focus on one of my strengths, my sense of humor when interacting with people. And soon after that, I started making many, many friends. And despite the fact that I still looked the same, I was a much happier kid. And even though people still ask me that same question, it no longer felt like we're digging in an open wound. Instead, it was just another question. A lot of times when we're building connections, we have a tendency to want to show people our good side, and just our good side, which makes sense. We're trying to make a good impression, hopefully build a long-lasting connection. Now, take a moment. I want you all to think about people that you feel closest to you. People that you feel most connected to. Take a moment, imagine their faces. Got it? I guarantee they've seen your good side, and your not-so-good side. It isn't until we're able to accept and embrace ourselves for who we really, truly are, that others can do so as well. And that's how we build strong connections. I worked with teenagers for 10 years, and I have to say, whew, they trained me well on this concept. Don't take it personally. I talk about non-filtering verbalization. If I was to take everything they said personally, I wouldn't even be here today. I'd be living in some remote island, trying to be void of any human contact. One interesting thing I actually learned about this concept just a few years ago, is that sometimes what people say, as much as it kind of hurts a little bit, actually might not completely be about you. Instead, it can be a reflection of their way of thinking, their current emotional state, or their patterns of behavior. One day I was at work, and I had a colleague burst into my office, because they had this juicy secret that she just had to tell me. So, I could use a break. I listened to the secret, and after she was done, on her way out, I remembered she turned around. She looked at me in the eye and said, now remember, don't tell anyone, because you kind of have a big mouth sometimes. My head exploded. I'm like, did she just say I had a big mouth? Me, a trained counselor, where confidentiality is like the number one rule? At that time, I knew I had only two choices. One, I can consult my colleague, ask for more clarification, but I kind of felt like I might be walking in an open minefield. So, I decided to do the next best thing. I went to a colleague I trusted, and I told her the story. Now, of course, I did not tell her the secret, otherwise, I just confirmed the accusation that was made of me. I remember her reaction. She was like, what? No! Thank goodness. If anything, she just told you a juicy secret, and everyone knows if you tell her something, the whole department's gonna know by the end of the day. Now, I actually did know that, but it felt good to consult in someone I trust. So sometimes, if you feel like someone said something that really hurt, either ask for clarification, or do what I did, ask someone that you trust. The next one is my favorite. Bad vibes. How many of you out there just met someone, you just talked to them, or you barely know them, maybe had just a few words here and there, but for some reason, the moment you saw them, you just didn't like them? Put up your hand. Let's see a show of hands. That's right, let's be honest. Okay, put it down. Now, for the sake of my presentation, I'm not gonna ask how many of you had that feeling when you saw me come out on stage. And I do sincerely apologize if your neighbor looked at you before putting up their hand. Now, bad vibes, that's a really interesting thing. We always say, oh, he gave me a bad vibe, or she's giving me a bad vibe. But in reality, they actually didn't. They didn't do anything. All they did was come into your line of vision. What happened was you saw them, and then you decided, hmm, I don't like that person, and you labeled them with bad vibes. I remember when I was 16, and I had my first day of volunteer work at a day camp, and I came home telling my father how, oh, there was this other volunteer that I just didn't like. I remember my dad looking at me, saying, why? You don't even know her. I remember looking at my father in the eye and saying, oh, you know how it is. You just sometimes meet people, and you don't like them, but you don't know them at all. And I remember my father was like, he's like thinking, where did my 16-year-old daughter go, and how did she get replaced with this old lady filled with wisdom that just spoke one of the unsaid truths of human interaction? So all he said was, go finish your Chinese soup. So the next time you have a bad vibe from someone, take some time, ask yourself what it is about that person that really bothered you. It might not be a fun task, but I guarantee you will actually learn more about yourself. Now, human beings, we're all amazing storytellers. Every single one of us, we tell ourselves stories all the time. Some of us are loud storytellers, some of us are a bit more quiet storytellers, but we tell ourselves over 50 stories a day about ourselves, about our family, about our friends, and even strangers. It's how we interact with the world. Now, that's all fine and dandy until we forget that they're stories, and we start telling ourselves that they are facts. Judgments and assumptions. Sometimes when I'm working with my clients, I'll point out, oh, you just made a judgment or assumption, and they'll be like, what, I didn't? No, I didn't. And a lot of times, it can be a hard thing to catch, because at some point, we tell ourselves stories so often, it just became second nature. So judgments usually would have some evaluative term, maybe pretty, ugly, big, small, right, or wrong. And with assumptions, it usually would have the word should, always, and must. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone that can actually read minds, but I do know a lot of people that don't appreciate being judged and don't appreciate having assumptions made about them. Before I came into this field, and like most of you as well, you might actually think that counselors, psychologists, therapists, they must be these relationship ninjas. They must have these amazing relationships with family, friends, peers, and I actually thought so too. In fact, if I heard a marriage counselor was getting a divorce, I'll be thinking, oh, maybe that counselor's not too good, or, which is funny, because we don't judge a medical doctor's ability to help people by how many times he or she gets sick. But the one thing I realized when I came to the field was, oh, there were two things that I learned. One, from the moment you received your training, it's almost as if someone put these microscopic glasses on you, and you suddenly see every single characteristic trait about everybody you see. All the good and all the not-so-attractive traits as well. In fact, sometimes I find that I often have to turn off my brain when I'm talking to people, otherwise I will start over-analyzing their words and over-analyzing the behavior. That's when I realize, hmm, ignorance is bliss sometimes. Secondly, even though clinical psychologists and counselors, yes, we are equipped with more skills to overcome social hurdles, however, it still takes two to build a connection. And no matter how hard you try, if the other person isn't putting any effort, you wouldn't be able to build any connections. Next is about, it's all in the delivery. Ah, there we go. A lot of times, we kind of hate communication. It feels like such a pesky thing to do. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it. And actually, at a young age, I realized it's actually not hard to be honest with people. It's not what you say, it's actually how you say it that ultimately affects the other person. Imagine this, if you were to give someone a present, which would be better received? One where you shove them a brown paper bag or one where it was very obvious you put time and effort into putting the present into a nicely gift-wrapped box? I think we can all agree on the latter. I call this communication gift-wrapping. I always tell my clients, when you're trying to tell someone something, just actually take some time, put some effort in. Think about what is it that you really want to say. Try to keep it simple. Try not to talk too much around the lawn, otherwise people might feel a little confused and actually misinterpret what it is you're actually really trying to say. Now, we all struggle sometimes with telling people news that might be bad. What I always suggest is, why don't you pose it as a suggestion for exploration rather than something etched in stone? And it never hurts to highlight why it is beneficial for this person to know this new piece of information, even if it hurts. I was wedding shopping with a friend of mine a few years ago and she was trying on wedding dresses, and after two, I remember her looking at me going, oh, nothing fits well, I feel so fat. I look fat, don't I? I think we all can agree, whew, dangerous position to be in. I remember looking at her and saying, well, I just don't think those dress styles suit your body type right now. You'd think I would've dodged a bullet there. Unfortunately, she didn't let me off the hook, and the closest exit was too far away for me. So, she's like, you do think I'm fat, don't I? And I actually ended up sticking to the facts. I asked her right back, I'm like, well, have you been eating differently? Do your clothes feel different? Have you been exercising less? And you know what? I think you can all guess. I didn't even have to answer the question. She came to her own conclusion, and she didn't hate me afterwards, either. A lot of times, people tell us that, I don't care if I'm lonely, but let's face it, no one really wants to be lonely. And it's true. We often forget, you're honestly never lonely when you connect. It's only through connections that brings out care, compassion, love, empathy, and humanity in all of us. Unfortunately, it's when we're disconnected that people do things that hurt themselves and others in the world, like we see in the news today. So I challenge you all here today, over the next break, next day, next week, next month, next year, make a connection. You'd be surprised at the impact that can have on you and the other person. For some of you in the audience, you know that I just had my second child earlier this year. I also have an older daughter named Rachel. And it's been a challenging task trying to prepare for this talk and take care of a newborn son. But I figured, ah, what's a better way to build a talk about building connections than to implement it on my son? So I practiced with him every single day, and it didn't take me long to get a reaction out of him. I even took a picture. I still love him. I didn't give up. Remember, building connections takes time. Sometimes it can take a lot more effort. So I kept going, and I kept trying, and I kept trying, and finally, I got a different reaction out of him. Remember, don't take it personally. Thank you.