The Power of Connection
I was 27 years old when I learned how to breathe. A few months after I gave birth to my 2nd child I developed chronic migraine headaches. I went to a lot of doctors who gave me a variety of different diagnoses and a lot of different medications. When nothing worked, I turned to alternative medicine.
Rami was a shiatsu masseuse who not only looked like Mr. Miyagi, he had the same type of wise teacher vibe about him. Within seconds of our very first session Rami said, “you’re not breathing.” I nearly rolled my eyes. “Well, I’m alive, so clearly I’m breathing,” was my response – in my head. In actuality I probably smiled awkwardly and said something like, “I don’t think I understand.”
“You are not breathing fully.” He explained, “when we are born we know how to breathe but we forget as we get older. Next time you’re with your baby watch his belly. You’ll notice it rises and falls with each breath. You need to start bringing your breath deeper into your body.”
Sometimes we need to relearn and reframe the most basic things. Rami didn’t just teach me how to breathe, he taught me how to reframe my entire perception of myself, my life, my identity, and my potential. He was the first healer I went to who was committed to helping me identify the roots of my issues and teaching me how to help myself.
Rami didn’t single handedly cure my headaches but he helped me find healthy ways to handle the unavoidable suffering that comes with sentient existence. In addition to teaching me how to breathe he spent hours upon hours talking to me.
He could see a lot of dysfunctions in the way I perceived myself. He recognized the discord I was unconsciously creating between my mind and body. I had developed a habit of neglecting my body and put too much focus on my mind and my thoughts and he helped set me on a path towards rectifying my situation.
Perhaps the most valuable thing Rami did for me as a healer was give me his complete focus and attention. There was something so powerful and valuable about the way he would sit patiently with me and deconstruct my thoughts to reflect them back to me in new ways. He saw and acknowledged my suffering and empowered me to help myself grow towards a healthier mindset.
I was thinking about this because I was listening to Jay Shetty’s podcast, On Purpose. He said, “we either think too much, or we act too much.” This really resonated with me because I spent so much of my life thinking too much.
If you don’t know who Jay Shetty is, he’s an author, podcaster and a former monk. He is a gem of a human who is committed to spreading wisdom and tools for growth. He is also one of the many podcasters who keeps me company when I am in need of some guidance and connection. I love a good guru or guide. I am so grateful people like Rami, and Jay Shetty who spread healing wisdom.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how living beings need and seek bonds and connections. Loneliness is a bitch. When I was young, I noticed that I occasionally felt lonely even when I was around people. Maybe I was too focused on connecting only with specific people that intrigued me, instead of connecting with the people around me.
The other night I watched a documentary called “Stutz.” The film was made by Jonah Hill who interviews his therapist in an attempt to share the tools he teaches to his patients. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
Psychiatrist Phil Stutz says when someone is depressed, they have trouble finding a sense of direction. When his patients don’t know what to do to improve their situation, he tells them they can always help themselves by working on what Stutz calls the “life force.” The life force is what keeps people going.
He illustrates it as a pyramid of basic needs that are essential to mental health. The base of the pyramid is your relationship to your physical body. So exercise, healthy eating and sleep habits are tenets of mental health. If you’re feeling depressed and have no sense of direction, start by working at maintaining the health of your body. Weird, right? But also, not weird at all.
At the top of the pyramid is your relationship with yourself. It didn’t surprise me that his number one recommendation for getting in touch with yourself is writing. I was most interested in what he was saying about the center of the pyramid which is your relationship with other people.
Tending to our relationships with other people is really important. But aside from close relationships, we need to just be around people in general. We must interact with people for our mental health. He describes our exchanges with others as being like bouldering handholds on the climb up the mountain of life. Connecting with people is what helps us get up the mountain. We need each other.
Stutz recommends spending time with literally anyone for maintaining your mental health. It doesn’t even matter if your only choice is to spend time with someone you don’t particularly like. If it’s between spending time with that person, or spending time alone, be with the person. That person represents the entire human race, and their energy is going to benefit you.
As someone who for most of my life identified as an introvert, and an empath, being around other people just for the sake of being around other people, can be challenging. But as I get older, connecting with the exact people I want to connect with has become difficult. People, myself included, have jobs, kids, obligations. Everyone is busy.
Making new friends as we get older at times feels nearly impossible - especially if I want to stay in my comfort zone, interacting with people who are similar enough to me that we can understand each other and connect easily. I think that’s why I like that Stutz suggests spending time with literally anyone if you are depressed. The point is humans need to exchange energy with other humans for their own mental health.
I think I need to start sharing time, space and energy with people who are not like me. I personally need to work on interacting with strangers. I’m currently trying to prioritize seeking connection over seeking meaningful connection. People will seek meaningful connection without much resistance because there’s such a strong need for that. But maybe in an overpopulated world we’ve started to look at each other like weeds of meaningless connections.
Maybe “meaningless” connections are not meaningless at all. Interacting with strangers is important. All energy exchange is good for us (apart from negative or hurtful exchanges, obviously). Maybe this is all just to say I need to be friendlier to strangers.
There are so many different paths I want to go down in exploration of this topic of connection. For example, what kind of energy are we exchanging over technology? Is that “real?” Is it meaningful? Are we exchanging energy right now because you are reading the thoughts I’ve written here? It’s different than being in each other’s physical presence, but it’s most certainly some type of connection.
By the way, thank you SO much for reading my ramblings. One of my main intentions with this blog is to make it easier to connect with people. It gives me so much joy when someone tells me they’ve read my blog. It makes me feel connected. Thanks for that. We’re all just trying to figure out the best ways to operate in this crazy life and we’ll have a much easier time of it if we connect more. There’s so much wisdom available to us. The more we exchange and share wisdom the further we’ll go.