Wired for Connection

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Sir Isaac Newton

So I was watching the hour long video that Hedy Schleifer has released on her website, www.hedyyumi.com, and she was talking about a natural law that we all know about to do with magnets, called the law of attraction. She talks about how when a couple are in their survival dance with their neurochemistry set on ‘anxious’ setting they end up repelling each other - even when the intention is to get through the conflict and stay connected.
And she talks about how, by using the brain's wired-in need to connect relationally, we can invite two people to turn from repelling each other to being drawn and attracted to each other again. In a sense we as couples therapists - and I think, as individuals therapists, are in the trade of helping people to build bridges back to connection. Connection with themselves firstly and then increasingly, connection with others in their lives.

We as humans just don’t do well when we are feeling the perception of disconnection. We are wired for connection and get distressed when we feel out of it.

Trust, Participate and Be Grateful

Recently I participated in one of those lovely peer group gatherings that nourish and strengthen me. A simple gathering of 4 humble, wise women of ages ranging from 40-70 that comes together to create a slow, sacred space where we flow organically around whatever comes into the space. We are all increasingly trusting that whatever questions, clinical cases or reflections are presented, that a common thread evolves which draws us together wondrously resonating with four very different lives and women.

The thread yesterday emerged simply and powerfully from a book one of us had been reading, a book of Buddhist type reflections that invited the reader to follow three energies with awareness:
To Trust that life is happening just as it must; to Participate and turn towards what life is inviting you to; and to be Grateful for all that supports and enriches our lives moment by moment.

This came as a gift to us all in the complexity of all that living our lives with vision calls us to – a map that lights the way ahead….

Our Social Brain and the Web

So back to my ipad. 

We can’t stuff the genie back in the box that is the web. We can however stay curious and vigilant with our growing understanding of how our social brains function to grow practises that will allow us to have the multiple benefits of the web, and at the same time help us grow in a new mindfulness or meditational practise of slowing down and bringing our full presence to the moment.
Any ideas out there about all this?!?