Your Hurting Is Not A Weakness!

If you are feeling lonely from a lack of human connections, devastated by a death or debilitation of a loved one, or heartbroken from a break up or separation, the good news is that you are having a normal reaction. You are not weak. You are not unhealthily dependent.

Our basic, inborn human need is to be connected, to belong. We used to think that babies couldn't see clearly or sense the environment- that they lived in a sort of psychological bubble for months. Not so. Newborn studies show that within 45 seconds of birth, babies are so connected and in tune with caretakers that they mimic the movements of their parents! Dad holds baby and as Dad’s arm raises, so does baby’s arm.

So when those connecting ties are shredded we hurt. Really, really badly. Whether it’s through distance, death, divorce, or deployment. We hurt. The pain of feeling disconnected is so real and so great, it actually registers in the brain in the same place as physical pain! Toothaches and heart aches register together. Only the heart ache lasts longer.

We continually learn more and more of what it takes to help us grow into resilient, happy people. Research shows that the happiest people have the most conversations during the day. But what we now know is the opposite of what we once thought was health-producing.

For example, during the first half of the 20th century, many psychologists believed that showing affection towards children was merely a sappy gesture that served no real purpose. Some even warned parents that “when you are tempted to pet your child, remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument” (Behaviorist John B. Watson). According to many thinkers of the day, affection would only spread germs and lead to adult psychological problems.

The tide turned in our thinking with the famous “terry cloth monkey mother experiments, conducted by Harlow. Harlow’s most famous experiment involved giving young rhesus monkeys a choice between two different "mothers." One was made of soft terrycloth, but provided no food. The other was made of wire, but provided food from an attached baby bottle.

The baby monkeys wanted to spend a lot more time with their cloth mother than with their wire mother. The conclusion of the experiment: "These data make it obvious that contact comfort is overwhelmingly important in the development of affection". Much more than food.

Just in the past week or so the Los Angeles Times printed two stories with connection as an important factor. One was about the death of Nobel Prize winner for literature, Doris Lessing. The other was about the effects of isolation in prisons.

Doris Lessing was a great champion of our human yearning to connect with each other. She wrote through one of her characters, ”Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who would really understand me, who’d be kind to me.” 

In the prison story it was reported that Colorado prisons are now shifting away from isolation. They learned it interfered with rehabilitation. The long term consequences of that separation from others are often fear, anxiety attacks, hyper vigilance,  and short-term memory loss. That disconnection from others is the highest punishment and experienced as “torture chambers.”

So, while I feel compassion for your pain if you are one of those suffering with disconnection, I’m also pleased that your bonding systems are in working order. You are registering that you valued the now distant others.

And there are many things that can be done to soften the pain and to begin to move forward towards connecting with others.

Dr. Jane Bolton, PsyD, LMFT, NLP Life Coach, www.DrJaneBolton.com

Phone/Fax 310.838.6363    Voted "Best in Culver City" 2011 & 2012