Connection is vital to human health. We are a species that has survived primarily because we have lived, worked, and cooperated in tribes. Together we have helped protect, defend, feed one another, and pass on valuable knowledge from generation to generation that has not only helped us survive but thrive.
The human infant is dependent upon connection, specifically in the form of touch. Studies confirm that lack of touch negatively impacts our physical and emotional health. One such study was conducted in the mid-1990s when scientists traveled to Romania to examine the sensory deprivation of children in understaffed orphanages. The touch-deprived children, they found, had strikingly lower cortisol and growth development levels for their age group. From the womb through our elderly years, touch plays a primary role in our development and physical and mental well-being. New studies on touch continue to show the importance of physical contact in early development, communication, personal relationships, and fighting disease. We are wired to seek connection and for a lot of very good reasons. Yet, loneliness is now an epidemic even though we are seemingly more connected than ever. Why is that?
I am old enough to remember when artificial sweeteners, or sugar substitutes, were gaining popularity. They were all the rage with women my mom’s age obsessed with obtaining Twiggy’s emaciated, prepubescent look. There was no end to products showing up on grocery store shelves containing these sugar substitutes and promises from companies about how helpful they would be to maintain a woman’s figure. They were rolled out quickly and with little concern about their safety. (Sound familiar? Some things never change.)
I remember watching my mom stir saccharin into her coffee in the morning, from this cute little pink package. I begged to try it but was told it was for adults, which of course made me want to try it even more! As luck would have it I would find myself unattended one morning in our kitchen and take the opportunity to pour one of those deceptively, cute little pink packets straight into my mouth. The experience sent me running to the sink wretching and rinsing my mouth out. To say that stuff is awful is an understatement. I expected the delightful sweetness of sugar and what I got was something horrible. I never asked to try any of my mom’s ‘special’ sweeteners again.
Young children lie a lot less to themselves than adults do and are much more unwilling to accept something, or someone, that misrepresents themselves. There is something about us, that we are born and equipped with, that knows what the real thing is, and what it’s not, but as we grow older we learn to accept counterfeits. Adults talk themselves into all sorts of unsatisfactory, harmful, and often destructive things.
I imagine this has to do with conditioning. Conditioning refers to specific programming (beliefs, pressures, and fears) that are taught to us by the people around us: family, friends, as well as society and culture in general.
Many of us, especially in Western culture, are taught from a young age to be satisfied with what we are given, keep our heads down, and our mouths shut, not ‘rock the boat’, stay in line, follow the crowd, and do what we are told. Operating like this, year after year, we lose touch with what is true for us and what feels right, authentic, or correct. We become disconnected, like NPCs (non-player characters) in a video game, from ourselves, and our inner knowing, by going through the motions (i.e. programming). We swallow the ‘saccharin’, smile and nod, and act as if life is giving us sugar when it’s not. We accept many counterfeits, knowing all the while they are not real or what’s best or healthy for us.
Social media is one of those counterfeits that has been sold to us with brilliant sophistication, stellar marketing, and a profound understanding of the human mind and its vulnerabilities. Social media promises satisfaction, love, acceptance, attention, and ‘connection’. But it doesn’t exactly deliver all of that and after a while, just like saccharin, it leaves a bad aftertaste in one’s mouth. It leaves a bad taste in our mouths because down deep we know it is not real connection. It is a sorry substitute for the real thing.
I understand that many utilize social media for business and maintaining connections with faraway relatives and friends but I think that is the exception, rather than the rule, as to why we use, and abuse, social media. Many, if not most, of our social media friends are not people that we are doing life with, or ever really see or meet personally, yet we might know their most intimate thoughts and they may know ours. There is something unnatural and disturbing about that, to say the least. It’s like building a house with no foundation and expecting it to remain upright.
Then there are the swaths of people who spend a good deal of time using social media to project their anger, dissatisfaction, and angst upon others to relieve their own misery and unprocessed trauma leaving a trail of mental destruction in their wake. It’s hardly a healthy environment. Especially for our youth.
Dopamine is a chemical produced by our brains that plays a starring role in motivating behavior. It gets released when we take a bite of delicious food, when we have sex, after we exercise, and, importantly, when we have successful social interactions. In an evolutionary context, it rewards us for beneficial behaviors and motivates us to repeat them.
We are, whether we are aware of it or not, subject to our chemicals. We experience quite the dopamine hit when we log in and check all of our ‘likes’ and notifications or reply to comments left on our feeds! Unfortunately, the high doesn’t last long, being a mere imitation of the real thing, so we find ourselves going back for another ‘hit’. After a while, the thrill is gone and it’s replaced by anxiety, stress, and aggravation, but we can’t seem to stop ourselves from checking in, day after day, hour after hour. What does that sound like to you? Does it sound like an addiction? It is.
I am currently reducing my intake of social media, which I try to do from time to time, but I still find my thumb poking around at the social media icons on my smartphone. It’s reflexive. I am addicted because my brain, being a human one, is made for it.
Of course, there are also many other kinds of counterfeits of connection outside of the digital world. They are found in feeling a need to belong which is natural and normal or woundedness around not feeling like one belonged or fit in. Regardless, we may find ourselves becoming part of groups that we feel we should be part of rather than are aligned with us or healthy for us. This could be in the form of clubs, organizations, religions, cults, political groups, and so on.
In my case, it was my need to feel like I was part of something or included that led me into becoming part of a cult, or what one might call ‘a high control religion’. I had grown up with little connection to family or community, moving from town to town in my formative years. Religion was attractive to me for that reason and unfortunately, I found myself part of something very unhealthy. It’s not all bad. I learned a lot through that experience. Most importantly how to become aware and take responsibility for my unhealed and unintegrated shadow patterns that made me susceptible to such control.
Connection is like water. We need it to live, and thrive, but if we have too much of it, too little of it, or the wrong kind, it can be toxic to us. So how do we cultivate healthy connections?
Looking around, I don’t know that most human beings understand healthy connections or how to recognize them. I think our species is still learning about it, myself included. I learn what something is, by first learning what it is not. That’s the way I am wired.
One of the things I have learned so far is that a healthy connection should not feel unsafe. If you feel unwelcome, attacked, controlled, or not entitled to your autonomy, thoughts, opinions, or beliefs you are not in a healthy situation. A healthy connection should also not make you feel like shit. I am learning to pay attention to how I feel. Do I feel comfortable, nervous, or unsettled? Do I feel at ease, like I can let my guard down or relax? If I find myself returning again and again to unhealthy connections it’s time to ask myself why that might be. These are all good questions to ask when evaluating whether a person, or group, is healthy or not and becoming aware of our wounding and hidden shadow patterns.
If we are spending time with a person, or a group, that brings us down every time we are with them, those are not our people.
Is it time to step back and evaluate connections? That might mean cutting out social media, or media in general, for a season. Or perhaps spending some time alone in nature. Alone is not the same as lonely. Silence and solitude can speak volumes!
Lastly, and probably most importantly, maybe do something old fashioned like make a phone call or meet in person, face to face, heart to heart, over a cup of coffee!
Blessings!
April
Thank you! 🙏🏻😊
This is a must-read article IMHO ... "Looking around, I don’t know that most human beings understand healthy connections or how to recognize them. I think our species is still learning about it, myself included. I learn what something is, by first learning what it is not." (Ditto.)