The Healing Power of Healthy Connections
A lot of studies show how people in healthy, close connections live longer, are happier, have less medical problems and have a more positive outlook on life and their future throughout the life cycle. As Mother Theresa said, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
Connections help make life less scary and overwhelming for all of us, starting from infancy and continuing throughout life. They also allow us to share its beauty with people we love. Above all, connections help us regulate each other’s emotions, making them more manageable. We all had the experience of being scared about something. We cannot calm ourselves down, no matter what we say to ourselves. We call a trusted friend, or our emotional partner, or a family member with whom we feel safe. We tell them what is scaring us. They seem to find the right words to calm us down, soothe and reassure us. Chances are they are not saying anything dramatically different than what we could have said ourselves. And yet, when it comes from them rather than from us what they say has a healing quality that our self-talk lacked. Influenced by their words, we calm down: we breed slower, we feel our body relaxing, we feel our heart to quieting down and returning to beat at a normal rhythm again.
What is this power from loved ones that affects our bodies and minds? It is the feeling of security that comes from the relationship that …
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