Connection - on and off
“You connect so easily”, my dear friend tells me with a heartwarming smile. She is right, to a certain degree. I connect easily with people, I can be socially joyous and generous, I often connect the social dots and I am eager to learn more about everybody’s emotional landscape. My body feels very open towards loving. At the same time, I feel there are parts inside of me that tend to keep people at a distance, and sometimes even more so those that actually are emotionally very dear and close to me. At times, my outgoing generous approach is in and of itself a “tool” to not connect with those deeper parts inside of myself.
Attachment style comes in. Protection styles are subtly active. A lonely little child resides in the deeper layers of my stomach area. She has internalized a map of the world based on feeling utterly desperate and abandoned. She barely has a voice, so its hard to hear her calls. She whispers gently, she cries silently, her song is made up of emotional tones that only listening to the body can convey.
These last years I have had the grateful luck to connect deeply with a group of friends that truly take the time to get to know each other and respect and appreciate diversity, attachment wounds and gifted complexity and intensity. Attachment, a sense of belonging and intimacy come together to form an alchemy of trust and surrender, honesty, and respect. Slowly but surely, I learned, and I am learning to communicate the needs of that little voiceless human being inside. It turns out we are all singing a similar song and the harmonious sound of the colorful choir fills my existence with existential depth and truth.
On a certain level I feel a relaxation of the need to love and be loved (wonderful podcast about this: https://podcasters.spotify.com/.../A-case-against-love... ). Mildness is growing, but it has its own pace and rhythm. Slowing down is essential, this way I can notice the little one’s experiental hole in her stomach. By giving her space to breathe consciously and receive connection, she slowly transforms that hole-ness into a sense of wholeness - love actually. I am shaken, not broken.