Do you find yourself reminiscing with friends about the past or thinking fondly on happy times with family from your childhood? Reliving joyous shared memories of our relationships, whether done on our own or in a group, is a ritual for many of us, one that can bring laughter and tears of joy. It can reinforce relationships and bring a fresh surge of positive emotions.
Psychologists have a name for this strategy of being present, recalling, and even anticipating the moments of positive connection that we all have in our daily lives: relational savoring. For some of us, this type of reflection comes easily. We are instinctively drawn to focus on these moments of connectedness, perhaps because it feels good to reflect on positive moments we have had with loved ones, or perhaps because doing so has been ingrained in us by our families as part of our culture.
Research suggests that savoring moments of connection with others can make us feel good and enhance our relationships—which is especially true for people of Latin American heritage—and there are ways we can put this into practice in our daily lives.
What savoring relationships looks like
The majority of the research on relational savoring looks at therapists guiding single clients to engage in the practice, sometimes on its own or as part of a larger program.
A relational savoring session begins with a brief mindfulness exercise, included to help the client and the therapist enter a reflective state. Next, the therapist assists the client in generating several positive memories. From these generated memories, the therapist selects a memory of relationship connection that has strong positive emotion. After that, the therapist leads the client through five steps designed to help them reflect in a deeper way on the chosen memory:
- Sensory reflection: recalling the details of the event, including different sounds, sights, smells, and more.
- Emotion focus: focusing on and trying to re-experience the emotions associated with the event.
- Meaning making: discussing the cognitions and meaning associated with the event.
- Future focus: discussing the future implications of this memory for the relationship and the experience.
- Mind wandering: discussing anything else that comes to mind.
In each step, the therapist asks open-ended questions designed to stimulate the client’s reflective capacities.
How might relational savoring look in daily life, outside of therapy? One of us had a recent experience that was so meaningful that we have been savoring it ever since:
A few weeks ago, after a particularly long day of helping my 12-year-old son, Charlie, as he struggled with a difficult homework assignment, Charlie told me, his voice barely a whisper, that he realized something important about me—that I was like his puppy. Charlie had been asking us to get him a puppy for years. Intrigued, I asked him why. And he looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said it was because I was always there for him and was super loyal, just like a puppy is always there, wagging his tail, ready to cuddle. This moment, so tender and so pure, will stay with me forever. I must have thought about it 100 times since it happened. I’ve recalled the way Charlie looked when he told me (his hair sticking up a bit wildly, a result of a long day of toil, his big eyes so caring), how his voice sounded (so genuine, as though he was about to tell me something incredibly important and vulnerable, also on the verge of tears), and how he beckoned for me to sit next to him on the edge of his bed before he told me. I thought about how the months leading up to this moment had been unprecedentedly difficult in his life, how much he needed me, and how being there for him has been one of the great pleasures of my life. And I realized that for Charlie, who adores dogs more than anything else in the world but cannot have one because of asthma and allergies, telling me that I am his puppy is the greatest compliment he could ever give. I realize that this is what being a parent is all about, showing up for our children when they most need us, believing in them when they have a hard time believing in themselves. And as I recall this moment, I breathe in the memory again, taking in all of the feelings of closeness I have with him, wanting to hold on to every detail. —Jessica L. Borelli
Relational savoring can also happen as a ritual in families. Here is what that looks like in one of our families:
When my large extended family gets together, memories that have become stories get shared and reliably evoke love and laughter in all, even among, or perhaps especially among, those of us who have heard them before and could probably tell them ourselves. Whether it is the story of my aunt’s beloved parrot demanding his coffee and bread—in those words, in Spanish, “Maria, café con pan!”—at their snack time (she treated that fellow like a king!), my parents’ first bus ride at the far back of a very bouncy bus on a rough road on their honeymoon (a memory they could never share without breaking into giggles), my parent’s nicknames for us while we were in the womb (not for public consumption!), or our sibling slumber parties when I’d come home from college and we’d watch movies, talk, and tell jokes. On a more serious note, we remember when my parents were teaching me to read/write in Spanish, and, upon receiving a letter from my grandmother, I asked why her writing looked like mine when I understood that mine looked funny because I was little and learning. My mother explained that my grandmother was challenging herself to learn to read and write at her age and wasn’t it special that we were both learning at the same time? It was. I felt it then, and we feel it now as we share the memories and tell the stories that highlight our love for each other, the close-knit bonds that tie us together, and the peals of laughter that mark so many of these moments. —Belinda Campos
The benefits of savoring relationships
Much of the research on relational savoring involves parents thinking about parent-child relationships, although some studies have also examined romantic partners, older adults, and adolescents. Research suggests that compared to savoring personal memories (called personal savoring), relational savoring enhances positive emotion, increases closeness in relationships, makes us more satisfied with our relationships, and improves our ability to respond to children’s needs.
In our work, we found that not only does relational savoring work well for parents of Latin American cultural backgrounds, but it actually works better for Latino parents than for non-Latino parents. Specifically, in the most in-depth study of relational savoring to date, we interviewed mothers to assess their reflective functioning, the capacity to understand mental states (feelings, thoughts, desires) and their ability to influence behavior in their children and themselves—which can help promote secure attachment in children. We found that, compared to Latina mothers who practiced savoring individual memories, Latina mothers who practiced relational savoring showed higher reflective functioning three months later. Non-Latina mothers did not experience different benefits from the two practices.
We found a similar pattern when we assessed whether mothers spontaneously kept up with the practice. Compared to Latina mothers who practiced personal savoring, Latina mothers who practiced relational savoring were more likely to report that they were still be using the technique after three months. Again, we did not find these differences among non-Latino participants.
Relational savoring, with its emphasis on the importance of close relationships and family connections, as well as the celebration of positive family experiences, naturally resonates with Latino cultural values. Among people of Latin American heritage, the cultural value called familism socializes a distinct way of valuing relationship closeness within families. Familism values prioritize family relationships over personal preferences. These values manifest as a belief that family relationships are the most important thing to emphasize in life, and that we should prioritize family over things like career, friends, or wealth. Showing up for one another during times of need (e.g., when a family member has a surgery) and times of celebration (e.g., for a birthday party or graduation)—and showing up in great number (e.g., large family gatherings) and for a long time—are ways of living this value for family.
People of Latin American heritage also value positive emotion expression, particularly in the context of close relationships. This emphasis on harmonious and positive social interactions, while at the same time preferring to avoid negative emotions and conflict, has been referred to as simpatía by psychologists. Gatherings with lots of shared laughing illustrate the emphasis on simpatía.
These values may make relational savoring a more appealing and accessible approach for people of Latin American heritage, particularly in contrast to other approaches that involve talking about relationship challenges early on.
Savoring across cultures
These early findings emerged from a version of relational savoring that was not specifically adapted for people of Latin American cultural background and the specific needs of Latine parents. Despite this, relational savoring demonstrated stronger benefits among Latine parents relative to personal savoring, and certain benefits were only seen in Latine parents. This led us as researchers to go deeper in exploring how relational savoring fits with cultural values prevalent among people of Latin American cultural background.
U.S. populations of Latin American heritage are diverse along many lines, including their country of origin, immigration generation, how acculturated they are to the U.S., the languages they speak, age, gender, and sex, as well as their experiences in important relationships in their lives. This realization has led our research team to work on further adapting the relational savoring practice to be more culturally congruent within specific groups of Latinos (e.g., recent immigrants as opposed to more acculturated families), learning more from the experiences of different communities themselves, and seeking to improve upon these methods. Among the lessons we have learned, for example, is that holding relational savoring sessions via Zoom can increase access and thus participation.
Our research studies have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of revealing when relational savoring works best. We still have a long way to go, and we look forward to continuing to expand upon our understanding of when relational savoring can best support families in improving their relationships and mental health.
We now know that relational savoring works well with families of Latin American and European American backgrounds. We still need to know more about relational savoring for other groups, such as Asian American and African American families. As we move to do so, we will be evaluating whether relational savoring is congruent with cultural values prevalent in these communities and make modifications to the practice as needed. Ultimately, we are committed to the process of pursuing cultural congruence as a goal so that everyone has an equal opportunity to reap the benefits that can come from positive connectedness with loved ones.
For the purposes of the present article, we use the terms Hispanic, Latino, Latina, and Latine interchangeably to refer to people in the U.S. whose heritage is from Latin America. This decision is in keeping with the way study participants identified themselves and recognizes the multiple pan-ethnic terms currently in use; it also highlights the flexibility of the Spanish language that can, depending on context, use Latino and Latina to signal gender but also to refer to everyone regardless of gender (e.g., Latinos/gente Latina).
Comments