A few years back I listened to a TedTalk by a man named Theodore Zeldin. The talk was titled “The Art of Being a Couple,” though I’m not entirely sure why since he barely touched on how couples communicate and more about how we can become more human and develop a world that is evolving with the times.
In the very beginning he spoke of the Greek’s rhetoric and how this style of speaking was intended to be used when one wants to persuade someone else into doing or believing something. He stated that this is the way that we have all been taught to speak and how this is no longer serving us.
At that moment I started to think about this, the idea that we’re always sort of speaking in a way that is trying to convince someone of something. Which also led me to believe that because of the way in which we speak, we’re automatically assuming that we are separate beings, on separate shores. From this type of speaking we can only enter into conversations as a form of power struggle. Or boastfulness. Or showing off. Or proving our worth. But where is the deeper connection?
I feel like many of us are seeking to be seen and heard, on a deep, soul level. Rarely do I think it is someone’s actual, conscious intention to enter into a conversation for the purpose of persuasion. But if that’s the only tool we have then that’s the only method we have.
When I first came to the spiritual path I was told I needed to find the book Be Here Now by Ram Dass. I looked all over but couldn’t find it. This is 2011 and Amazon isn’t what it is, the culture isn’t into this kind of thing yet, so while at Barnes & Noble I found a copy of a Ram Dass book and decided to grab it anyway. I thought having something of his was better than having nothing. The book I grabbed was Be Love Now.
Honestly, just my luck. Although I was searching for something probably more akin to The Buddha’s Brain; something to help me understand how my mind and body work in order to be more peaceful. Something scientific and spiritual. What I got was what I needed though. A big dose of love.
In this book Baba talks about how the ideas of looking for love, getting love, giving love are all illusions. In reality the whole thing is love. You are love. When you open to the space within you that is already love, then you are in love. Maybe being with a romantic partner or even a friend can help create the conditions that allow you to open in this way, but it’s not coming from the other person. And you’re not giving them anything either. You’re just together, two love beings, open to the reality of that love.
There’s a way you can test this. A practice that Ralph De La Rosa has introduced me to is by sitting in a meditative space and thinking of a time when I really loved someone. Then letting myself be awash in those emotions. Next he invites us to think of a time when someone loved us fully, how does that feel in our bodies? Let that wash over you now. Then he says, where did that love come from? That person isn’t here, that experience isn’t happening. It all came from you. You are the creator of love, the so-called giver and receiver of love, you are the whole thing.
The reason why I bring this up is because if we can drop into the space of our hearts and our bodies and remember that we are love, that we don’t need to get or give anything necessarily, then we really can just be with someone else. And they can just be with us.
I think this is really important for moving forward as a species. Especially as communication becomes more precarious. With a lot of our interactions happening online, especially in spaces built for conflict, it is going to train us to relate in ways that are less wholesome, less healthy, and honestly more isolating.
Our human brains and bodies have developed over millions of years in such intricate ways. I recently learned that when you talk on the phone if you have a tendency to walk and talk it’s because your brain is used to processing so much more information during a conversation – eye movement, body language, the energy shared between two people – that it is still primed to process all that information and without all that input the energy needs to go into something. That’s how you start walking while talking.
About five years ago I had a friend who studied neuroscience and he had a theory that we were going to find that this online communication would operate similarly to hard drugs and refined sugar. He said that most substances in their whole form are generally safe and healthy. Things like coca leaves are less harmful than cocaine. Sugar in fruit is less harmful than refined sugar. That speaking to someone in person would be much more healthy than speaking to someone online.
Dr. Anna Lembke recently stated in the article Digital Addictions Are Drowning Us in Dopamine,
“Pleasure and pain are processed in the same parts of the brain, and the brain tries hard to keep them in balance.
As soon as dopamine is released, the brain adapts to it by reducing or “downregulating” the number of dopamine receptors that are stimulated. This causes the brain to level out by tipping to the side of pain, which is why pleasure is usually followed by a feeling of hangover or comedown. If we can wait long enough, that feeling passes and neutrality is restored. But there’s a natural tendency to counteract it by going back to the source of pleasure for another dose.
If we keep up this pattern for hours every day, over weeks or months, the brain’s set-point for pleasure changes. Now we need to keep playing games, not to feel pleasure but just to feel normal. As soon as we stop, we experience the universal symptoms of withdrawal from any addictive substance: anxiety, irritability, insomnia, dysphoria and mental preoccupation with using, otherwise known as craving.”
We are feeling more on edge than ever due to our environment, especially our digital environment and this does not lend itself well to connection either. When our systems are in a heightened state our higher-order brian function shuts down. We go more into the amygdala and we’re ready to fight, flee, or freeze. Essentially we are in protection mode and can’t connect. We can’t talk, we can’t hear what someone else is saying. We just have a primal urge to stay safe. Maybe we do scream, or yell, or say mean things but that’s not really communicating. That’s still protecting. It’s creating a space for you to get away from this person who is deemed a threat at the moment.
Toward the end of 2020 I was listening to a Terrence McKenna talk and in it a person was asking him a question. Within his question he spoke of how we were leaving the age of Pisces which was depicted by two fish swimming in opposite directions. The person said that this was this image of duality. As we move into the Age of Aquarius he noted that the symbol is two waves in resonance. I will note, they are not two waves that look like one because they are exactly the same, they are just in resonance with one another.
I took this to mean that this little nod from the universe (from ourselves really, in every way you slice it), was trying to tell us that the next phase of our evolution is remembering that we are all one and working together to see what else can be explored through this human experience. In duality we learned a lot, but I think we are all starting to feel how it’s no longer serving us. We need to take everything we learned in the last age, everything we learned about ourselves and the world, and move forward together.
We need a way to talk to each other that reminds us of our humanity and our fullness. A way that actually works to connect us, not to negate or dominate.
I also kind of like to think of the two waves of Aquarius, which I have tattooed on my arm, as the energy field of the heart. The HeartMath Institute does a lot of research around the electromagnetic field of the heart, a lot of which is really fascinating, but they literally show that this is how we can sense people and how they feel without them even saying a word.
When I am having a conversation with someone in person I try to stay really embodied, noticing how I feel, dropping into my heart, not just speaking from my mind. I can feel when someone is coming at me purely with logic and wants to debate something philosophical and eventually I start to feel exhausted. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s because I have to use a lot of mental energy and deny the entire body.
Also, I’m personally not interested in mental calisthenics. This is why I didn’t go to grad school right away (or at all) because I was so tired of theorizing about the world. I wanted to actually experience the world. I wanted to be doing. When I have a conversation I want it to be full bodied. With a whole other human. Their full life experience, their feelings, their heart, their soul. If we’re talking about other groups of people, I’m bringing everything in. And I’m also coming from a place of assuming we want to be on the same side. If I feel like the other person is trying to debate me or convince me or some other power tactic, I gently ask them to shift the conversation back.
When I need to have a conversation with someone about my needs, I try to do it in the way of nonviolent communication. I try to express what happened, how it made me feel, and what I would like to see happen in the future. I understand that this gives the person more of a chance to meet my needs, instead of me assuming they were trying to wrong me or me trying to punish them. I understand that for the most part the people I surround myself with are good people, although clumsy sometimes. This includes myself. This is how I would like to be treated too.
Which brings me to my other point and that’s all this shit is going to be super clumsy. It will be messy. We will make mistakes. No one ever taught us how to identify our emotions. No one ever taught us how to express them. No one created a safe space in which to nurture ourselves and ask for what we need in a kind way. This isn’t going to come naturally. But like they say on Adventure Time,“Suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
I really fully believe that we have to offer ourselves more compassion, and then extend that compassion out to others. I have had the amazing fortune to have experienced some of the best parts that this world can offer, especially materially. But what I’ve found is that the whole thing is kind of pointless without friendships, meaningful and deep relationships. I’ve found that it’s actually through navigating difficult times with my closest people that we actually grow closer. I think part of it is that we know we won’t abandon each other, that we are willing to work through the tough stuff. There’s probably some other type of biological and alchemical magic that happens which I’m not exactly sure of.
I think if we want to be seen we have to allow ourselves to be seen. I think if we want to be heard, we really have to listen. If we want to grow deeper with the people closest to us we have to allow them to be fully who they are, without retribution. We have to offer ourselves the same.
And as a collective, as a society, we don’t necessarily have to love everyone or be super close with them, but I think we can maybe realize that we’re all a lot more alike than we think. That we all wish for happiness, that we want our families to be safe, that we essentially are trying to figure out what that means.