Elizabeth Oldfield: When we started The Sacred in 2017, I only spoke to people in person. My deep value, what’s sacred to me, frankly, is relationship, is deep connection, is meeting people as real people, as humans, as, um, the particular incredible souls that are walking around the world—not in the more slightly instrumental way that we often do in professional settings. You know, what can I get from you? What can you give me? And so the time I spend with guests in person was always so central to this project, maybe even more than whether large numbers of people were listening.
In COVID, like many people, we went online, and we continue to do some recordings online. And there’s people who I’m just never going to be in the same place in the world as. But we made a really clear decision several months ago that we wanted to prioritise speaking in person. Conversations filmed here in the community house that I live in, in south London, which I’ve written about and spoken about elsewhere, which really reflects my values, my sense that we are made for each other. We are made by each other, and a more relational life, a choice to move towards each other in a world trying to push us apart, might be the wisest thing we can be doing now.
And so guests from all over the world, all different backgrounds, come. They’ve come here to south London, to this new studio, to my garden. We’ve offered them cups of tea and coffee, and we’ve had snacks together, and we’ve had a bit of time to wander around. Often they’ve been stroking the house cat, Mia. Sometimes they’ve met the house baby, right? There’s something very humanising about meeting in person. I’m not very good at masks anyway, but I can’t keep a mask on when someone’s seeing the inside of my messy house. My guard is down. There’s a vulnerability about saying, come to my home to have a conversation about your deep values.
And there’s loads of research that when we learn just a few small facts about people, it helps build trust with them. There’s a guy called Patrick Lencioni talks about how to build trust in a team, and he says, just share details—details from your childhood. What was your favourite chocolate bar? Like, where did you grow up? And when a guest knows what mug I like and I know what mug they like, it begins to complexify a little bit our two-dimensional pictures of other people.
I wonder if you’re not watching this episode, but you’re just listening to it, whether you’ve heard the difference, whether the conversations that happen when I am in embodied space with a guest are a little bit braver, a little bit more honest, a little bit more human. Maybe I’m imagining it. I’d be really interested to hear your feedback. I have certainly felt it easier to build a real human connection, to have a real conversation where we’re both actually thinking live, not just sticking to talking points.
And it makes me think about that reality more broadly and more socially. All the research shows we are together in our bodies less and less, you know. We’re not in our workplaces. We are ordering things online rather than going to our local shops. We are downloading books rather than going to the library. More and more studies online. More and more can be done mediated through a screen. And I think as AI agents get rolled out, we’re only going to see more and more of that. And communication is narrowing and narrowing to just text, right? Not really so much even engaging with voices. We’re just reading text on a screen.
And I worry about it. I have felt the difference being in physical presence with guests. I feel the difference living with other people in this community house, being part of a local congregation, trying to get to know my neighbours. And there’s really good data that we should care about this—that when we spend a lot of time alone, when we are not with other people in our bodies, our brains actually shrink. Makes us less happy, more paranoid, less trusting.
And when we’re thinking about trying to be people who can cross divides, who can listen across difference, who can tolerate disagreement, it’s really, really key. Because you can’t just close the window, right? When you’re with someone in your bodies, you’re reading the reactions on their face, you’re feeling in your body the tension. But I think when we’re together in space, we often have more skills and more opportunity to tolerate that tension, actually, and to find our way through to something like a relationship.
So having listened to these amazing guests, the reflection I’m left with is, how can I be with people more often in my bodies? I only have one. How can I be with people more often in my body? And I want to leave that with you. When this week will you be with other people? If you live with other people, if you have family in your house or housemates, how can you actually look each other in the eye, have a shared experience, put your devices down, get round a table? Could you maybe invite someone to share your table? Could you show up at choir? Could you show up in your neighbourhood in some way, on the street, or go to a local shop rather than buying something online?
And as I’m saying this, I’m like, God, this sounds ridiculous. This is so trite. My grandma would roll her eyes at me that we have to be choosing to do these things, because for most of human history, this is just how we were. We are hyper-social creatures. We are just . . . made for each other. We are more like bees or ants or starlings than lone cheetahs or hyenas.
I really do think one of the most important things we can be doing to grow up our souls, to be people who move towards each other rather than away from each other, who can help build a better world rather than panic and make it worse, is to be together. So that’s my encouragement. Sounds simple. It’s not always easy. It’s not always comfortable, frankly. And I’d love to hear your stories of being together with other people this week.
