Contact
I go to a fitness training center three times a week. Some people seem to come there for socializing. It’s a club ambiance among them. Their contact seems intimate. Others like myself come there to work out and go home.
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I am envious of people who can open up with others. Though I might like to be like that I always hold back. I can recall a few times when someone attempted to break the ice with me. Once I was doing squats and had both hands up as if holding a bar with weights on each end. I could see him standing there staring with an amused questioning look, almost right behind me. I ignored him. I can’t really tell you why. I felt bad about it right after he walked away.
Another time a woman almost as old as I stood there watching me balancing and with a smile said “that is amazing. How did you learn to do that.” She had the presence, the knowing way to engage with a comment that breaks the ice, a body language expressing openness, spontaneity, a smile that touches you deeply without invading.
I responded “Practice,” and I walked away to do another exercise. I could see in one of the wall mirrors as the smile left her face. I felt really bad. I would have liked to have been kind. But I held back, afraid to get involved.
My grandson is eight months old. He was born screaming. Nothing she or her husband could do would calm him down. He had to be constantly held and assured. So they were both virtually sleepless for about five months. Now from this photo, you can see he is a contented, happy, loved baby. My daughter knows about my childhood abuse. She edited my last book. I talk with her often about the research documenting the passing of trauma through generations. The studies were done with mice and rats, but she does not need convincing. He looks a bit like me and we both feel “little Joel” is getting everything he missed in the first sad run. Not one of my baby pictures is smiling from infancy on.
The capacity for contact has a determining influence on health. People with greater capacity for contact have a network of social support. Studies show that a lack of contact is linked to various illnesses and even a shorter life expectancy. Social isolation correlates with a greater incidence of heart disease, insomnia, depression, and especially for the elderly, deterioration of memory.
So fortunate that I have been married for the past forty-five years. If it weren’t for that, I would be forced to make contact with others and to be perfectly honest I doubt I could. I simply could not have survived. Without contact there is an absence of the feeling of belonging. When the need for belonging is not there, it can be replaced by feelings of depression, disorientation, and hostility. I hope the woman who reached out to me did not do so because of a lack of belonging. That would be tragic. Yet, when I see her at the fitness center, I am not able to go over and attempt to remedy this.
I see myself as different, not in a positive way. That is how most people seem to see me. I have heard it so often. But I know I need to look at others, not with suspicion, but knowing we belong to the same metaphorical race, we both have a similar nature, different experiences but the same roots and a common destiny. I think if I work on this I may still be able to learn to feel empathy toward and be able to receive and express kindness by letting others in. But this is an area resistant to change. I am most comfortable at home on my computer. I am not comfortable in groups of any size. At 81 I am not up for any outward change in this area of my life. You can only change if you really want to change and with my lifestyle, I don’t care to make the effort.
In the very first year of life, we learn basic trust or distrust, either of which will be with us for our entire lives. So we will be generous and kind or burdened with fear, anger, and distrust. Trust and kindness go hand in hand. It is either a positive or a negative circle that is hard to step out from.
We connect with others by being kind to others. This adds to rather than subtract from our own well being. We can make others feel included or excluded in different ways: by our acts of course, but even by our words, our glances, our body language in general.
Our sense of belonging is related to contact and connection with others. Humans, in general, need to feel we are part of a whole greater than ourselves. When young people, especially young men, lack this feeling of belongingness they seek contact at all costs, even with groups that are violent, extremist, and dangerous. This lack of contact and belongingness is one of the reasons adolescents sometimes are attracted by gangs, cults, and sects. They have weak links with family and community, suffer from feelings of impotence, and an unfulfilled need for belonging. So they seek contact with people and groups that suffer from similar feelings. That is the way into a gang and it can be hard to find the way out. I am grateful I did not seek this out. Rather, I was attracted to the strengths I lacked and formed bonds of friendship in this way.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
