What is connection?

[Starsky]

I listened to the podcast 'The Fiat Currency of the False Self' where Stef talks about true connection with others and with yourself. And it scares me deeply that I might have no idea what connection is and whether or not I have felt connected to someone or to me before.

I have talked about this topic with my sister and she too, having the same shitty parents, couldn't come up with a real answer. What does it feel like? What kind of thoughts go through your mind? What does it feel like in your body? How can you tell when you're connected? Am I alone in this? 

 

It feels like I'm not connected to myself and that makes me feel dead inside. And I just realized that very often I know the opposite of something but rarely the thing itself. 

 

What do you think? I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NameName]

You just described my thoughts, I too would like to know

[Kevin Beal]

A Definition

 

It's directly experiencing a relationship without filter, isn't it? That is, connected thru reality?

 

Especially in areas where emotional defenses have developed (i.e. where it is difficult and emotional in nature), since it doesn't mean much to say that I'm connecting with my frustration of stubbing my toe on the uneven pavement, or that I'm connecting with the fact that Mars is also experiencing climate change.

 

This excludes the experience of bonding over things which are not true, like us both receiving god's love or any other mythology. Similarly it excludes the happy drunk disclosing personal information to you and saying "I love you man!" and then passing out on the floor. These are excluded because it's not through reality that this sort of emotional intimacy is achieved. In order to be maintained, a falsehood must be continually resurrected or replaced with a new one, or you'll have to become intoxicated again.

 

 

Examples

 

If I'm feeling internal conflict, and in exploring what that conflict is, it is revealed that the only reason there is a conflict in the first place is because I fear someone's negative judgment of me, and that realization causes me to feel shock and grief, that's connecting with myself. Connecting with myself by means of introspection. Not just intellectually making a connection, but emotionally, my feelings reflect the depth there.

 

Sometimes one emotion is a cover for another, and simply feeling is not enough for connection. One frequent example is with people who feel angry for a fraction of a second before either anxiety of guilt takes over them. Connection in this case would be experiencing that anger, since the guilt is some sort of internalized alter designed to shut down the true self in order to protect it. The true self feels anger.

 

If I'm in conversation with someone and I suddenly realize that I'm feeling floaty and bored, remember where I am and I can't remember what the other person was talking about for the last few minutes, I'm connecting with myself again. And if I tell the other person "hey, I'm really sorry, but I totally was somewhere else in my head for the last few minutes and I wasn't really listening", and then asking them if they felt similarly bored. This is probably the case, and then you can connect with the other person about what it's like in those situations, why they didn't feel comfortable saying that they felt bored, how it's scary to tell someone that you feel bored talking to them, and all that kind of stuff. Connecting with them by experiencing the feelings that they feel, empathizing.

 

Connection isn't boring. If you're bored, then something is not being said that ought to be.

 

 

Relevant Podcasts

 

FDR353 False/True Feelings

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_353_False_True_Feelings.mp3

 

FDR352 The Difference Between Anger and Rage

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_352_Anger_Versus_Rage.mp3

 

FDR660 Emotional Skepticism

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_660_Emotional_Skepticism.mp3

[Starsky]

Thank you so much Kevin. That really clarified things for me. I never associated connection with the true/false self. After you explained it, it really made sense. I guess I sometimes called that feeling or state being in the 'here and now'.

 

Thanks again!

[Bipedal Primate]

Connection : A feeling when two people are really paying attention to one another

 

When you think about it, connection is the core of peer support. It is the moment when we realize that someone else "gets it." It is the beginning of building trust, but often it doesn't last for long. We have to work at it, notice when it's there and when it's not there.

 

Sometimes when we lose connection, we find ourselves in judgement. (maybe this person is mad at me.) or (I can't believe he just said that.)

 

In order to reconnect we have to try to understand the situation in terms of context. (what did he mean by that?)

 

Sometimes it means taking a deep breath and apologizing for our part in the 'disconnect.' (I'm sorry, I just had a really strong reaction to what you just said.)

 

Reconnecting is also sometimes challenging when we feel hurt, blown off, misunderstood, or distracted.

 

Reconnecting may not happen the second after you've had a disconnect, but there are some strategies for reconnecting:

1. Name what happened -- ( I just noticed we disconnected)

2. Own your part -- (say it when you find yourself disconnected)

3. Apologize -- (its ok to notice what's happened and apologize for your part in it)

4. Ask -- ( I wonder if I have said something that bothers you?)

 

Source: 'Intentional Peer Support' by Sherry Mead, MSW

http://www.intentionalpeersupport.org/

[Kevin Beal]

I also think of this question in an angsty sense, like how do I know how much I'm repressing, how little I see myself as compared to how others see me, what are just excuses and how I achieve certainty about myself and my life. Feeling disconnected in the sense that I don't feel real. More like I'm living a script. This is more connection with myself than with others that I mean it here.

 

Something came to me in an audio journaling session just now that I think is important. In order to have some kind of empirical confidence about what's really going down in my own mind, we have to have access to our own raw, unfiltered psychological material. There are two sources of this that have come to mind.

 

 

1. Dream Work

 

There is no pretense to dreams. Dreams are symbolic, but they aren't you dressing things up to manage other people or delude yourself.

 

One of the prevailing theories as to why dreams are so important for our health is that they help in memory consolidation. The associations in your mind between a train on a track heading for a cliff, and a life you can't control headed for disaster is your brain consolidating your memories into a consistent framework of associations of like things. And if you are trying to consolidate memories symbolized as that doomed train, you could say that your brain is priming itself (like a homunculus) for some dreadful situation.

 

If you have anxiety dreams, that's important.

 

This essay by Daniel Mackler is good and goes into the benefits of dream analysis. (He argues that self therapy without dream analysis is folly).

 

 

2. Mecosystem Work

 

If you look at a lot of schools of psychoanalysis, there is a focus on sub-personalities within the psyche which can all express themselves, either informing thoughts or judgments, or even blending with the conscious ego, as if it were a demon possession. IFS calls it "parts work", some Jungians call it "Active Imagination", Stef calls it "the Mecosystem", and the others escape me at the moment (somebody remind me, please).

 

Naturally there is an inability to see yourself the way that other people do, but occasionally, emotional defenses and other psychological blocks make this problem worse, and being able to determine what parts of you get activated is important. Like in the previous example I gave with the person who initially feels anger but is immediately shut down with guilt or anxiety, it could be a personality within you that you've internalized telling you that it's not safe to feel angry (the anxiety) or telling you that you are bad for feeling angry (the guilt).

 

I've heard Stef say before something along the lines of "personalities are the most contagious of human toxins" (or medicines if the person is a virtuous person). I have a part that I've internalized that will stop me when I get overwhelmed with how I'm going to deal with other people and asks me what I want, reminding me to focus on taking care of myself. I have another part that wanted to shut me down and shame me when I considered myself as being unmanly, telling myself that it was unattractive and made me unworthy of love.

 

Being aware of what it is that the parts of me think about me and the life I live, and the people in it is an empirical exercise that helps me connect with myself. Experiencing the full expression of these parts of myself by engaging them in dialog. (Having a relationship with myself).

 

 

More Resources

 

Self-Therapy Without Dreamwork Is Folly - Daniel Mackler

General Stream Mecosystem Podcasts - Stef

Some random article about Active Imagination - Lawrence H. Staples

Internal Family Systems parts work - Wikipedia

Dreams Tag on FDRPodcasts.com - Stef

[Bipedal Primate]

I also think of this question in an angsty sense, like how do I know how much I'm repressing, how little I see myself as compared to how others see me, what are just excuses and how I achieve certainty about myself and my life. Feeling disconnected in the sense that I don't feel real. More like I'm living a script. This is more connection with myself than with others that I mean it here. Being aware of what it is that the parts of me think about me and the life I live, and the people in it is an empirical exercise that helps me connect with myself. Experiencing the full expression of these parts of myself by engaging them in dialog. (Having a relationship with myself)

I now have a great way to measure whether I am truly connecting 'with myself' or if I'm connecting with my false self (repressing, feeling like I am not real, or like I am living a script). My false self requires so much freaking brain power --The first thing that goes is my intellect, I can not maintain a rigorous thought process for very long when my brain is busy producing fictional information to sustain the illusion of my false-self. I also tend to get sick more, migraine headaches, sore neck, and generalized fatigue. It takes a lot of brain power to support delusional thoughts and my brain becomes bankrupt very quickly. These are huge red flag that I am repressing or living a script.Living as my true self is *effortless* -- Therefore, when I'm connecting with myself, I don't feel depleted of energy. Here are some signs that I have connected with my true self:I don't take things personally, I actually stop personalizing every darn thing a person says to Me! I don't 'instantly' judge others, I wait until I have heard what they have to say :-) I'm much more easy going and I laugh at silly mistakes. I have a sense of humor. I ignore and avoid toxic people.

[Starsky]

Thank you Bipedal Primate and Kevin. Again you provided excellent posts and a lot to think about and I am very grateful for the effort you put into it.

 

I've done quite a bit of parts work, getting to know many of them (I met around 30) and they filled almost 200 pages so far. Yet I noticed that I tend to slip back into autopilot mode, dissociating and watching my life like an uninvolved bystander and completely disconnecting from myself. In those situations I merely react like I'm supposed to react and it's exhausting. This, of course, was pounded into me in my childhood, making me very convenient to my parents and other arseholes. No wonder I got an A+ for the analysis of the Logical Song by Supertramp in 11th grade...

 

 

My false self requires so much freaking brain power --The first thing that goes is my intellect, I can not maintain a rigorous thought process for very long when my brain is busy producing fictional information to sustain the illusion of my false-self. I also tend to get sick more, migraine headaches, sore neck, and generalized fatigue.It takes a lot of brain power to support delusional thoughts and my brain becomes bankrupt very quickly.  

 

Yes, yes and yes. I'm struggling with this a lot, especially in the work field. I'm a self-employed interior designer and operating from my false self totally messes up my creativity. Somewhere I've read that your inner child is directly connected to your creativity. During my parts work I noticed that communicating with my inner child is a real challenge. My inner child is still really anxious, still thinking that she's not allowed to exist or merely permitted to mime as a ghost.

As a child I was beaten into believing that whatever I contributed was childish(!), stupid, silly, embarrassing, worthless or megalomaniacal. So I became whoever the fuck any authority wanted me to be. Thus I was cut off from myself and constantly scanning the environment. And that is so exhausting...

However, the effortless feeling of being in the true self is familiar to me. It's rare but it's always a bliss. I feel an inner light shining brighter than a thousand suns and whatever problem bumps into me, I know I can handle it. 

I guess I'm going to do more parts work now.