We have a big announcement to make in today’s edition of the Ness Labs newsletter! Scroll to the bottom to learn more.
My week has been full of human connection. Yesterday, I hosted a symposium and spent the morning learning from people from many different fields. The night before, I had a long phone call with someone who knows me well. And last weekend, I was back home with friends and family.
It’s also been an extremely busy week. And yet, I’ve been walking around with something I can only describe as an emotional and intellectual glow. Things feel lighter and ideas seem to come more easily. Problems feel more manageable. And this all made me curious about what human connection actually does to our brain.
Turns out, there’s quite a bit of research on this. Neuroscientists have found that positive social interactions engage neural systems involved in reward and in understanding other people. They can also help regulate our response to stress. One influential theory suggests that our brains treat trusted relationships as a resource: when we feel supported, the demands of life can become less costly to manage.
But being around people isn’t quite enough. A sense of “we” seems to matter. Research on social identity shows that identifying with a group – feeling that you belong rather than just being in the company of other people – is associated with lower loneliness and anxiety, and interventions that strengthen this sense of belonging can improve well-being.
That’s why a conference room full of strangers and an evening with people who feel like your people are psychologically very different experiences.
There’s also an interesting body of research on synchrony. Although we don’t quite understand how it works, studies suggest that our minds and bodies can become more coordinated with the people we interact with. When we talk, move or work together, we start to attune to one another.
But fellowship is more than social contact. Just being around people won’t necessarily produce these effects. Some of the strongest benefits seem to emerge when there’s mutual support, shared identity, shared activity and that feeling of: these are my people.
So how do we create more of it? Here are a few ways to build more fellowship into your life:
1. Find your tribe. Pay attention to the communities and people around whom you feel most like yourself, but also most alive, curious and engaged. They don’t have to think exactly like you. Fellowship means building relationships where there’s trust, mutual investment and some meaningful sense of “we.”
2. Experiment with different modes of connection. A conference, book club, long phone call or walk with friends all create different kinds of connection. Instead of treating “socializing” as one category, notice which forms of fellowship leave you more energized or grounded, and experiment with ways to make more room for those.
3. Create your own spaces of connection. You don’t have to wait for this sense of fellowship to hopefully develop somewhere in your life. Invite a few like-minded people over for dinner, or organize a coworking afternoon. Start a monthly tea, reading group or Sunday walk. Fellowship can start with one person deciding that it would be good for these people to spend more time in the same space.
We spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage our energy individually: sleep more, exercise, eat well, build better systems. But a lot of our energy comes from other people.
Fellowship is about noticing that and being more deliberate about the relationships, communities and shared experiences that make us feel more alive.
Announcing the Ness Labs Fellowship
For the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with how to create a more hands-on way to practice the ideas we explore at Ness Labs, with more live support, more reflection, and more opportunities to turn curiosity into action.
And I’ve finally landed on something that I’m really excited about: the Ness Labs Fellowship.
Each month, we will meet for two live sessions where we’ll practice metacognition, pay closer attention to the patterns and possibilities worth exploring, and turn those insights into tiny experiments.
Between sessions, you’ll have access to a private live chat with other fellows, recordings of every session, worksheets, and occasional Hypercuriosity Workshops, where I’ll test new tools with you before deciding whether to incorporate them into my next book.
The Fellowship is $249/year. And if the regular Ness Labs Membership is the right level of support for your experiments, nothing is changing: it’s staying at $49/year, with the same access to self-paced courses, coworking, and peer-learning sessions.
We’ll kick things off with a live call with me on October 1st, and I’d love to see you there!
Already a Ness Labs member? Please upgrade to the Fellowship here instead so you’ll receive a prorated refund for the unused portion of your Membership.