Oct 23 Weekly Challenge: Reconnecting
Options
themedalist
Posts: 3,212 Member
Theme: Greater Happiness
Challenge: Reconnecting
Have you lost touch with someone who is important to you? Most of us have. While social media makes it easy to stay connected with people, it’s not the same thing as catching up with an old friend over lunch, going for a walk with the neighbor you haven’t seen for a while, or calling a family member just to talk. Despite the prevalence of social media, it’s still easy to feel disconnected from the important people in our life, especially those we haven’t seen recently. This week, let’s work on that.
Our friends and family not only enrich our lives, but they make us healthier too. People with close friends and family members they can rely on and have regular contact with are less prone to heart disease, stroke, obesity, cancer, stress, and depression. And they live longer too! How great is it to learn that something else that makes us happier also makes us healthier? As we’ve seen many times with our weekly challenges, health and happiness are closely intertwined.
This week, let’s do our best to reconnect with someone we’ve lost touch with. It might be a friend you haven’t seen recently, a former coworker who took a different job, a neighbor, family member, or someone else. Or maybe an old MFP friend who you haven’t heard from in a while? Let’s reach out and make some plans to get together. Phone or Skype calls are also a great option. I’m not suggesting contacting people from your past if your relationship is strained. Since the goal of this week’s challenge is to bring us greater happiness, let’s focus on those we’ve lost touch with simply because life took a few twists and turns. Let’s try to bring them back into our lives.
My hunch is you will both be glad that you took the initiative to reconnect.
This Week’s Challenge: Try to reconnect with at least one person from your past who was and still is important to you. Or several people, if you are so inclined. Please post any details you’d like to share! I’m sure many of us would love to hear who you connect with, what plans you make, and how your get together goes. Feel good stories are always welcome!
No More Wednesday Check-ins: After thinking about this for some time, I’m going to stop doing a separate Wednesday check-in thread. I don’t think it’s necessary. We can just update this thread throughout the week. But I hope you will let us know how this challenge goes for you and please post any suggestions or questions you may have for our group.
Without your feedback, it’s hard to know if this challenge is helpful to you and our group. And your posts are the best way that I know of that we can support and encourage you in your quest to be a healthier and happier person. Please chime in!
Make it a great week!
...............................................................................................
Suggested Resources:
Friendships: Enrich your life and improve your health
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/friendships/art-20044860?pg=1
We get by with a little health help from our friends
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/15/health/friendships-health-benefits/index.html
7 Ways Friendships Are Great for Your Health
https://www.livescience.com/53315-how-friendships-are-good-for-your-health.html
..................................................................................................
Challenge: Reconnecting
Have you lost touch with someone who is important to you? Most of us have. While social media makes it easy to stay connected with people, it’s not the same thing as catching up with an old friend over lunch, going for a walk with the neighbor you haven’t seen for a while, or calling a family member just to talk. Despite the prevalence of social media, it’s still easy to feel disconnected from the important people in our life, especially those we haven’t seen recently. This week, let’s work on that.
Our friends and family not only enrich our lives, but they make us healthier too. People with close friends and family members they can rely on and have regular contact with are less prone to heart disease, stroke, obesity, cancer, stress, and depression. And they live longer too! How great is it to learn that something else that makes us happier also makes us healthier? As we’ve seen many times with our weekly challenges, health and happiness are closely intertwined.
This week, let’s do our best to reconnect with someone we’ve lost touch with. It might be a friend you haven’t seen recently, a former coworker who took a different job, a neighbor, family member, or someone else. Or maybe an old MFP friend who you haven’t heard from in a while? Let’s reach out and make some plans to get together. Phone or Skype calls are also a great option. I’m not suggesting contacting people from your past if your relationship is strained. Since the goal of this week’s challenge is to bring us greater happiness, let’s focus on those we’ve lost touch with simply because life took a few twists and turns. Let’s try to bring them back into our lives.
My hunch is you will both be glad that you took the initiative to reconnect.
This Week’s Challenge: Try to reconnect with at least one person from your past who was and still is important to you. Or several people, if you are so inclined. Please post any details you’d like to share! I’m sure many of us would love to hear who you connect with, what plans you make, and how your get together goes. Feel good stories are always welcome!
No More Wednesday Check-ins: After thinking about this for some time, I’m going to stop doing a separate Wednesday check-in thread. I don’t think it’s necessary. We can just update this thread throughout the week. But I hope you will let us know how this challenge goes for you and please post any suggestions or questions you may have for our group.
Without your feedback, it’s hard to know if this challenge is helpful to you and our group. And your posts are the best way that I know of that we can support and encourage you in your quest to be a healthier and happier person. Please chime in!
Make it a great week!
...............................................................................................
Suggested Resources:
Friendships: Enrich your life and improve your health
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/friendships/art-20044860?pg=1
We get by with a little health help from our friends
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/15/health/friendships-health-benefits/index.html
7 Ways Friendships Are Great for Your Health
https://www.livescience.com/53315-how-friendships-are-good-for-your-health.html
..................................................................................................
2
Replies
-
0 -
I am going to be contacting several people this week. I am not very good at staying in touch.2
-
That's a good idea to stay with one thread per challenge. Upon thinking about it, it was a good idea at the start of having weekly challenges. But, as time went on it seemed that it was almost sort of difficult to decide which thread to post something in. Such as if something was a direct response to to something in the introduction to that week's challenge, yet it was later in the week, so it was "supposed" to be posted in the Wednesday check in thread instead :noway:
:flowerforyou:2 -
Hi all! My first week here in this group and am so looking forward to meeting you all, Can I put a different perspective on this? I would like to get back doing Davina Mccall's exercise DVDs again, haven't done so for a few years due to a few health issues and I feel now is the right time to bring her and her gang back into my life, they really are like friends to me!3
-
I can think of a few people I need to reconnect with as well it is quit interesting how in our world with the ability to find it so much easier to stay in touch it seems we are even more disconnected from each other.
1 -
Great suggestion. Life gets so busy we are often negligent of those who mean the most and who need to hear that from us more often. My parents are 91 and live only 1 hour away but I still fall short of keeping in touch like I should. This is my week to change that!1
-
fatbambi2017 wrote: »Hi all! My first week here in this group and am so looking forward to meeting you all, Can I put a different perspective on this? I would like to get back doing Davina Mccall's exercise DVDs again, haven't done so for a few years due to a few health issues and I feel now is the right time to bring her and her gang back into my life, they really are like friends to me!
Sure @fatbambi2017. Electronic friends are also helpful.
0 -
I can think of a few people I need to reconnect with as well it is quit interesting how in our world with the ability to find it so much easier to stay in touch it seems we are even more disconnected from each other.
My feelings exactly, @karlbunch. It’s so easy to connect, but so hard to stay in touch. I like hearing what my friends are doing on Facebook, but it’s not the same thing as being with them in person.0 -
Great suggestion. Life gets so busy we are often negligent of those who mean the most and who need to hear that from us more often. My parents are 91 and live only 1 hour away but I still fall short of keeping in touch like I should. This is my week to change that!
Whoops. I need to add my parents to my list. Thanks, @lmc23953.1 -
I’m glad you see the value in this challenge. Though I scheduled this challenge before it happened, my husband’s good friend died suddenly and unexpectedly several weeks ago. He was 54 years old and had a young granddaughter. We never got to say goodbye to him and his family is feeling his loss profoundly.
Let’s not assume that the people who are important to us know how we feel and will always be there. Let’s reach out to them.
1 -
themedalist wrote: »I’m glad you see the value in this challenge. Though I scheduled this challenge before it happened, my husband’s good friend died suddenly and unexpectedly several weeks ago. He was 54 years old and had a young granddaughter. We never got to say goodbye to him and his family is feeling his loss profoundly.
Let’s not assume that the people who are important to us know how we feel and will always be there. Let’s reach out to them.
So many people dying so young nowadays, so sad1 -
Great suggestion. Life gets so busy we are often negligent of those who mean the most and who need to hear that from us more often. My parents are 91 and live only 1 hour away but I still fall short of keeping in touch like I should. This is my week to change that!
Lovely, I lost my mum a year ago, so painful, feel so guilty, I always thought she would be there2 -
This year has been tough for me. I've had to made the hard decision of letting go. Toxic relationships. Will revisit my list of friends and family and make sure I am showing those people in my life how important they are.4
-
And having thought about it a bit more, need to get in touch with an uncle and my brother, I have just messaged a friend on here whom I haven't heard from for a while, she just vanished!fatbambi2017 wrote: »Hi all! My first week here in this group and am so looking forward to meeting you all, Can I put a different perspective on this? I would like to get back doing Davina Mccall's exercise DVDs again, haven't done so for a few years due to a few health issues and I feel now is the right time to bring her and her gang back into my life, they really are like friends to me!1 -
prgirl39mfp wrote: »This year has been tough for me. I've had to made the hard decision of letting go. Toxic relationships. Will revisit my list of friends and family and make sure I am showing those people in my life how important they are.
Good for you, @prgirl39mfp. Letting go of some toxic relationships is really hard, but it’s often the best and healthiest thing you can do.2 -
Just last week my husband and I took a day to go and see a family member's new condo. We don't get to see her enough except at holidays and just wanted some one-on-one with her, outside the family gathering context. It was 1 - 1/2 hours one way, but well worth the drive. We had a lovely time and you know, even with someone you have known a long, long time, you can learn so much by visiting with them and just hanging out.
The reconnect doesn't always go so well, however. I attempted to reach out to a friend I haven't spoken with in a while (she lives about 1300 miles away). Found out she had died! I had been having trouble reaching her for a while, and that sure does explain it. First clue, a strange person answered her cell phone. Confirming clue - finding her niece's Facebook page and discovering the truth there.
So, I have been actively touching base with a lot of folks! Don't want any more news like that to sneak up on me again.3 -
Well, this challenge will be difficult. Like @prgirl39mfp , I've had to let go of some toxic relationships and don't want to revisit them. However, there is a friend that I used to work with who I only see on Facebook, maybe we can reconnect. I'll see how that goes.
@mxchana, that is pretty tough to find out your friend has passed away. So sorry.3 -
I am definitely enjoying the variety of the weekly challenges. I actually phoned my neighbour tonight. You would think that since we live beside each other, we would talk and get together more often, but life gets in the way. I miss seeing her and going out regularly. We will need to set aside a date and time to get together and stick to it.3
-
Just last week my husband and I took a day to go and see a family member's new condo. We don't get to see her enough except at holidays and just wanted some one-on-one with her, outside the family gathering context. It was 1 - 1/2 hours one way, but well worth the drive. We had a lovely time and you know, even with someone you have known a long, long time, you can learn so much by visiting with them and just hanging out.
The reconnect doesn't always go so well, however. I attempted to reach out to a friend I haven't spoken with in a while (she lives about 1300 miles away). Found out she had died! I had been having trouble reaching her for a while, and that sure does explain it. First clue, a strange person answered her cell phone. Confirming clue - finding her niece's Facebook page and discovering the truth there.
So, I have been actively touching base with a lot of folks! Don't want any more news like that to sneak up on me again.
@mxchana, this must have been a shock for you. It’s so hard to lose a friend. But it sounds like the sliver of silver lining in your losing your friend as it was for my family in losing our friend is that it makes us more determined to touch base and catch up with their other friends and family members. We shouldn’t make assumptions that people will always be there.2 -
@77tes and @prgirl39mfp, I definitely think toxic relationships belong in our past and should not be resurrected. There are many reasons why we need to let go of certain people in our lives.
I’ve just lost touch with quite a few wonderful people who mean a lot to me and I’m excited to try to reconnect with them. I’m reaching out to my old officemate, who I shared an office with for 10 years and haven’t talked to in several years. And my friend Mary, who I get regular Facebook updates from but it also haven’t seen in way too long. Last night I had a great conversation with another friend who I also hadn’t talk to in way too long.
Maybe the secret to making this an easier challenge is just to be horrible at staying in touch?
This is going to be a great week!2
