Good morning, when I look out at you all this morning I see that we have in common more than our shared experience of Lakeside living. I see that we are energetically connected in a way that caused all of our hearts to beat at the same time in a mere 20 seconds once our attention was on the same thing, and why one person laughing or crying can cause others to laugh or cry.
The research literature shows that the essential impulse of all life is a will to connect. According to Lynn Taggart's astute book The Bond, deep connection is the quality most essential to human nature; we were never meant to live a life of isolation and self-serving survival. Human beings experience the greatest stress and the most serious illnesses when we are isolated from others and from a sense of connection.
An enormous body of research reveals that the root of stress, and ultimately illness, is a sense of isolation, and the most toxic of all appears to be our current tendency to pit ourselves against each other. Lifestyle risk has less to do with someone having a heart attack than it does simple isolation from other people, from our own feelings, and from a higher power. Heart disease can actually be viewed as a disease of emotional alienation.
Brigham Young University pooled and analyzed data from 148 studies that averaged seven years each and concluded that relationships of any kind, good or bad, improve your odds of survival by 50%. They found that isolation was the equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic, and... was twice as harmful as obesity. The findings show that strong individuation and preoccupation with self is extremely bad for your health.
So why are so many emotionally disconnected when having a good connection is so vital to the way our species is designed? According to the highly insightful book Fear of Intimacy by Robert Firestone PhD and Joyce Catlett, being close to another in a loving relationship makes one aware that life is precious, but must eventually be surrendered. If we embrace life, we must also face death’s inevitability. We are negatively predisposed toward those who tempt us to lower our defenses and inadvertently expose us once again to potential pain, loss, or rejection.
According to their over 20 year research project involving couples and families they found that the truth seems to be that people are afraid to realize their dreams and have an intolerance of affection that was especially notable in close relationships. Intimate relationships between couples and families were the most resistant to further development which can easily be associated with their finding that people tended to maintain negative attitudes about themselves.
The research literature shows that as a species we are faced with choosing between investing in relationships, remaining vulnerable to possible loss and rejection, or attempting to protect
ourselves by retreating into a defensive posture. In other words we choose between fully investing in life in spite of its temporal nature, or we can be accommodating to death and defend against death anxiety by limiting our gratifications and denying our zest for life.
Knowing this, it may sound too daunting to address negative behaviors and attitudes that keep many from the good feeling experience of life that emotional connection enables. Many of those that have issues with connecting emotionally to others aren’t aware that their subconscious residing emotions are holding them hostage from this prime fulfillment of their deep need. Because of new findings on our lifelong neuroplasticity and improving our habits we can now learn how to work with the subconscious mind to make the most of our very finite lives.
Through decades of studying human nature and the human condition my research has revealed that we can learn to work with the 95% of our mind that is subconscious so we can Feel and Do Better ongoing. Some of you out there may be thinking that you are too old and set in your ways for this to work for you so it really doesn’t apply. But, this is wrong thinking because studies on centenarians enabled by the technology of MRI and CAT scans have proved that challenging learning enables their brains to grow more gray matter and fight off dementia.
Why does the subconscious mind have so much power? It’s the reason you don’t have to will your heart to pump or your lungs to breathe. However, its primary function is to keep you alive, otherwise it loses its other job which is to keep your body, mind, and emotional functions operating. Your subconscious mind is machine-like in its dedication to keeping you safe. And, it uses fear as its main motivator to get your cooperation. Even if you are striving to live through your heart and love, the 95% of your mind that is subconscious has a lot of control over you. And, its agenda of keeping you alive is not always aligned with your conscious goals.
If you’ve ever experienced a broken heart, and the deep feeling of loss that goes with it, your subconscious mind can sense danger when the possibility of it happening again presents itself. To keep you out of danger’s way it automatically puts up defense walls of fear around your heart. This fear sets you up to sabotage your own attempts to get close to someone again.
Your conscious mind’s choice to take another chance on love is in conflict with your subconscious mind’s mandate to keep you from danger. Your hard working subconscious mind is just doing its job effectively. It isn’t capable of telling the difference between the risk of being eaten by lions and the risk of suffering another broken heart—it senses only that there is danger and uses fear to keep you from it.
Your subconscious mind believes danger can lead to your death, and to be fair there is no doubt that people actually do die of broken hearts. More importantly is the fact that, by far, people live longer, healthier, happier lives with a life partner according to the research literature. However,
since your subconscious mind’s main priority is to keep you out of danger, it initiates protective measures to secure your safety. Even if you are willing to take a risk on love and long to have it in your life again.
It automatically throws up red warning flags out of nowhere, causing a physiological chain reaction in your body. One minute you are fine and the next you’re squirming in your chair, your heart is racing, you’re perspiring like a sprinter, you can’t get out of there fast enough, and your promising date goes to hell without your conscious consent.
Despite your desire for love, and regardless of your need for intimacy, you are a victim of your own highly effective survival mechanism. Your subconscious mind senses that you are in danger and activates this survival mechanism to prevent it… and, blame, self recrimination, and more lonely time follows. To add insult to injury the subconscious originating misery that we blame ourselves for can feel like it came from our conscious minds.
If you believe that you are flawed for driving away a prospective mate, now is the time to give yourself a break. It’s just not possible to fix this or any other disruptive subconscious originating behavior without being aware of its dynamics… or even that it’s possible to fix.
If you believe that you are romantically doomed because you are (pick any one, or a combination, of the following words): inept; afraid; weak; stupid; frigid; awkward; damaged; hopeless; clueless; paying for some past sin; or unworthy, then this story you are telling yourself is the reality you are living in. That is the power of your unchecked subconscious mind, to make a great person like you believe a fiction like this. That is the power of your beliefs to make or wreck your life. Who knew?
You can stop beating yourself up for self sabotaging your attempts at romance. You are not to blame for the pain your subconscious mind has inflicted on you in the past. Only what you consciously do, or don’t do, to keep it from happening again now that you are aware of it. There is every reason to believe that if you deeply desire it you will have love in your life. If love didn’t work out before it was likely because the two of you didn’t work well together, not just because of you alone. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be. However, feeling the appreciation and support that having a love partner offers enables many to flourish in all areas of their lives, and is more than worth the effort to get.
It is essential to understand that it’s difficult to get someone great in your life if you don’t feel great about yourself. The way you feel about and see others is a reflection of the way you feel about and see yourself. Learning skills to deal with the parts of you that don’t serve your experience of life well is supremely valuable. Self improvement is good… self development and self evolvement are better, self transformation is best.
Most negative feelings are easily attributable to subconscious fear. It is my belief that our emotional aspect has more effect on how we experience our lives than any of our other aspects. And, emotional connection is the main determiner of whether the way we experience our lives feels good or bad. Back to Michael for more insight.
Your experience of life is predominantly about how you feel and what you perceive while you temporarily occupy your highly sensing physical body. You may be unaware that what affects your behavior, attitude, feelings, thoughts, actions, and experience of life most is the way your body feels, and feelings that your emotions create. You are predominantly a feeling organism, remembering this fact will help you set destiny goals that nurture this essential human aspect.
Most people know that the largest organ of our bodies is our skin. Most don’t know that one square inch of skin has four yards of nerve fibers, 600 pain sensors, 1300 nerve cells, 9000 nerve endings, 36 heat sensors, and 75 pressure sensors. Within this seriously sensing organ you feel everything from a skull splitting headache to a mindblowing orgasm. Besides these physical sensations you have emotions and thoughts producing a plethora of energetic feelings. Aware of it or not, we are in a constant state of feeling things physically and energetically.
We are here to experience, to feel, and to learn. Whether from our bodies, minds, emotions, or spirits—the more we know which things cause us to experience which feelings the more likely we are to head for a destiny that will celebrate the way we experience our lives. However, we tend to be attached to what we know, which can mean being attached to a less than vibrant life just because it’s what we are used to. Even if it feels painful or lacking, if it’s what you know you can be attached to it. This is why self study to find your own personal pain triggers, that are outside of your awareness, is so good.
When your subconscious originating thoughts command your feelings and sensations it often uses fear as its motivator. According to University of Virginia neuroscientist James Coan’s research, a fear response is expensive to the brain and usurps many of its processes. When touch is involved, especially familiar touch, the emotional brain is more readily quieted. This is easy to understand given the amount of sensors are located in just one square inch of skin.
When partners hold hands everything went quiet, there was no prefrontal brain mediation. There is a massive decrease in emotional responding. The prefrontal cortex helps you to regulate yourself, but when you're by yourself it also keeps you self-involved and feeling exhausted. It doesn't operate that way when someone else is soothing you. When someone familiar touches you it's like magic. When you are with someone you are comfortable around calm washes over the whole brain, according to Coan’s research.
Huge numbers of people were able to become isolated when they became economically subsistent. But, it doesn’t serve our human condition well. We are built for connection and physical contact. Isolation keeps people from the physical touch and social connection that denies their essential human need. “... we experience the greatest stress and the most illnesses when we are isolated from others and from a sense of connection”as Lynne McTaggart writes in her book “The Bond”.
With this economic subsistence came the notion that what is lacking from being without human connection can be made up for by filling one’s life up with stuff.
Have you filled your life, your house, and your garage with stuff you thought would make you happy but did not? Has your stuff chained you to its maintenance and/or debt so that it feels more like it owns you instead of the other way around? Would whittling your life down to some state of simplicity help you to feel less stressed out and more light hearted? Would paring down negativity help you to feel at peace? Would finally learning to paint, play the guitar, or dance address your need to express creativity?
This kind of self inquiry is the most effective way to get oriented to your good destiny’s direction. You can tell yourself good things and take none of them to heart, but questions are thought activators. Questions lead to the answers that lead to actions, so maybe it’s time to reevaluate. It’s highly desirable to reevaluate and reprioritize what you need in your life until it feels like a good fit.