It’s Important to Feel the Connection in Your Relationships
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MAUDE: A cautionary word for relationships: Pay attention, be alert, stay aware of the experience of your connection.
All too often, people become so used to the contact and connection in their relationships that they start to take them for granted. You presume upon that sacred gift. You stop really noticing the experience of that connection; how it makes you feel, why you treasure it, why it’s so important.
The less you are aware of it, the less you nurture it and the thinner that connection becomes. Yes, there are memories of the importance, yes, there is fondness and love for what has been. But the actual experience can begin to fade.
In its place grows distance, even a sense of estrangement. These feelings can easily give rise to fear and all its components. The first to go is that feeling of safety and peace that you derive from a living, vital relationship. One where the connection resides in the present; in an experience of the magic that occurs between two people sharing love and awareness and caring for each other.
Openness and trust begin to waver, along with the feeling that it is necessary to defend yourself and to pull away a bit.
That loss of a sense of safety and peace and the substitution of fear give rise to withholding and withdrawal. One of the saddest losses is the sense, the knowing of being on the same side. The strength and presence of the we that is a separate entity from the two in the relationship weakens, and if you are not careful, can disappear altogether.
Phil suggested an exercise that we did last night, designed to bring full awareness to the experience of our connection. This is mostly for couples and those either living together or having frequent in-person contact. We sat on the couch and without speaking at all, we hung out, absorbing how that felt to just be with each other. We did this for about 40 minutes. It was very deep and moving. An aside, but an important one. We didn’t lose our sense of self when we did this; the sense of us was an addition to the experience of being a unique and complete individual person.
For those who are not often in physical proximity in a relationship, you can bring the same attention and awareness simply by deciding to do so, and then keeping that awareness present in your consciousness.
Your intimate deep relationships are the treasures of your life. Foster them, support their growth, stay aware, and pay attention.A cautionary word for relationships: pay attention; stay aware of the experience of your connection Share on X
PHIL: We humans are social animals; survival is near-impossible unless we live in a group, and this need to be in a group manifests as a very deep and natural desire that we all have. It fulfills both our physical and social needs.
But in addition, we have a drive to be individual. In Maslow’s hierarchy, this drive sits atop the physical and social needs that the group supplies.
In Western culture, this individual drive has so much prominence that the need for other people is sometimes barely acknowledged. Margaret Thatcher said: “There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.”
A business relationship may be just words and practicality, but personal relationships are about feelings as well.
These feelings are both about individuality and connection, and it is the latter that is more basic according to Maslow, but Thatcher would have you ignore it. So the challenge is to pay attention to it, and of course, feelings aren’t words, so they can get overlooked.
So sit with the feelings. The feelings of being an individual tend to predominate, but listen for that drive for connection that we all have, and part of those feelings that the group inspires is the feeling to give, to care, for that is part of how a group operates. The exercise that Maude describes is a good way to focus on this.
We are creatures with both thoughts and feelings. Pay attention to both.
Photo credit: Maude Mayes
Photo note: A walk in the park
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Hi guys! I believe that what M. Thatcher was trying to impart at the time is the importance of individual responsibility? — even though she ended up totally denying the existence (“there’s no such thing as society,” hahaha) of the collective altogether in that particular comment, which is weird, no doubt, her point, if anyone heard it, was solid and very very important, in my opinion.
xo
lynelle
Thank you for these insights. It really helps to take time to appreciate loved ones. It’s so much more satisfying to count the ways you love someone than it is to keep holding on to those bits of imperfection that detract.
Esther
Yes, Esther I agree with you. And that comes so much more easily if you really stay aware of the connection between you, the feeling of it, the specialness of it.
regards
Maude