For our first episode in our Relationships series, we are excited to dive into the idea of Bids for Connection. This term, coined by Drs. John and Julie Gottman, describes a wide range of attempts at connection and conversation that many of us don't even notice. We have the choice of turning towards a bid, turning away, and turning against. Noticing and intentionally responding to bids for connection from the people in our lives can be an easy way to increase connection and strengthen our relationships.

We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.

Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!

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EPISODE QUESTIONS

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1. Does looking back on the last week through the lens of bids for connection change how you see any of your interactions with your partner or children?

2. This week, when your partner or child asks something of you, take a beat to consider the motivation behind the ask. Is it possible it’s a bid for connection? How does that change your response?

3. Have you found yourself turning against recent bids for connection? Are you feeling overwhelmed? What are some things you might do to help reduce your overwhelm?

4. Do you recognize some of your recent requests of others as bids for connection? Did they turn toward you? Are there ways you might tweak your bids to invite a more positive response?

TRANSCRIPT

PAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We are so happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.

If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to earlier episodes, particularly the first 14, our foundations series, because we continue to reference these fundamental relationship ideas and tools pretty often. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and review wherever you listen. That definitely helps new people find us.

So, today's episode is part of our Relationships series, and we're going to talk about bids for connection. This concept comes from Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman, who have been studying relationships for decades. And it can be a helpful lens through which to look at our interactions with the people we love.

So, a bid for connection is a small action that shows that a person would like to connect with us. It could be like, "Look at this," or, "I'm exhausted." Or just a hug or a request for help. Or even I have heard these, a loud sigh. It's an opportunity for us to make a choice in how we respond. The Gottmans described three possible directions that we can take.

So, "turning towards" means enthusiastically meeting the bid with connection, looking towards the person, responding with validation, increasing those feelings of connection. The person feels seen and heard, and the relationship is strengthened.

Now "turning away" could look like staying mostly unengaged. So, maybe continuing to look at whatever you're working on, glancing up for a second to say, "Mm-hmm," or replying, "In a minute." Sometimes it feels like that's the most we can do, but over time this type of response often leads to disconnection in the relationship. The person feels a little rebuffed, like you're uninterested in them.

And "turning against" is usually the result of actively being in a state of overwhelm. It looks like more aggressively rejecting the bid for connection. "Can't you see I'm busy?" "Oh, here we go. What now?" Or even just rolling your eyes rather obviously. Turning against the bid damages the relationship and makes it more likely that the person won't make future bids for connection with us.

ANNA: Yeah. This concept has been so helpful for me. It helps me see the moments where more connection is possible. And I know the person that I want to be is one who turns towards those bids for connection from the people in my life. But we do get busy and in our heads, and it's not always super clear that it's a bid for connection, because it rarely looks like, "Hey, I want to spend time with you."

And so, I do really like keeping this idea top of mind as much as I can so that I notice the more subtle cues that someone's looking to connect. Because it really is one of the easiest ways to keep relationships in a good place. Connection is the foundation of any healthy relationship, and the stronger and more secure the connection, the easier it is to navigate the ups and downs. So, finding ways to keep the connection strong is so helpful and we don't want to miss these easy ways to do it.

PAM: Absolutely, absolutely. And something I've found helpful is using this idea of bids for connection to look at those requests from my partner or kids, like you said, they don't always look like what they are. And it's particularly when they request something that we know they could do themselves. So maybe they ask you to bring them a drink or a snack or bring them their phone. At first, we may think or even say, "You can get it. You're closer." But if we instead get curious, we can take a moment and ask ourselves, if it's something they can do for themselves, why are they asking me to do it?

So, maybe it's about the act of getting the thing and we realize they're busy with what they're already doing, or we learn they're resting a sore leg, or that they're feeling a little bit under the weather. But if none of those fit, it may well be a bid for connection. Not that they can likely name it that way, as you said, but they are feeling a need to connect and this felt like a way that they could reach out.

And it's super important to note that meeting the request is not the same as meeting that need for connection. So, for instance, getting the drink doesn't mean their need has been met. So, if you bring the drink and immediately go back to what you were doing, 10 minutes later they may ask you to bring them a snack. That's another clue that it's not really about the thing, it's about connecting with you. The request is actually an invitation for you to join them for a few minutes to connect, to ask about what they're up to, and listen to their answer, to wholeheartedly join them in their activity for a while, something that fills their connection cup.

And it really helped me to remember they aren't trying to frustrate me. They are trying to meet a need. And the need for the drink is just a surface need. We know that, because they could meet it for themselves if it was just about that. The deeper need they're expressing is more likely for connection or maybe for reassurance that we value them and our relationship with them more than the thing that we're occupied with. It also helped me to remember that even seemingly negative behavior can be a bid for connection. So, particularly if regular bids have been ignored, they can get louder and more negative in an attempt to express how important it is for them to connect with you, to feel seen and heard by you.

ANNA: I love how you mentioned those odd requests that clearly they could do for themselves. It's like, "You're a lot closer to the kitchen," or the light switch, but it doesn't take much scratching below the surface at all to see that it's not about the light or the glass of water at all, but about needing that moment of connection. And like you said, that need will most likely not be met by just getting the light or the drink. Especially if I add a tone to it, like, "Here's your drink," or, "Fine!" The requests will just keep coming, like you said, and they could turn a little bit more negative or they'll move on to some other way, which could just be even harder to understand.

And for some reason this piece is kind of interesting to me because asking for something that they can do for themselves, we seem to have a harder time offering grace around this to children. If a neighbor were to ask us for water, we'd hop up and happily get it, but if our child does, we can start the, 'You can get it yourself," kind of lecture tone, and somehow then we'll tie it into this independence agenda or assigning some kind of future significance to this one little ask. "They're never going to learn to do things for themselves," which of course does not hold up to much scrutiny at all. But you see parents go there all the time. And the thing is, they really will learn to do the things for themselves. And most likely already know. But the request is, again, not about the water or the sn