"We live in the shelter of each other"
Celtic saying
When we are born we are fully depended on our closest adults.
Having someone to hear our cry and respond to it keeps us safe and living. And as we learn that our needs are attended to, we learn to trust.
Susan Johnson, funder of Emotionally focused individual therapy, once wrote:
"When we are able to form an emotional bond with another we create safety. We build a safety net that provides us with the felt sense that when we encounter discomfort, obstacles or suffering, someone will be there to comfort us. We ride through storms together and that journey is much more easier to navigate having someone beside you than alone. "
We crave for this emotional closeness to another, and this doesn't change as we develop into self-sufficient adults.
We still need to connect and form emotional bonds in order to survive.
Togetherness is knowing that you are home, that you belong, and you are part of the universal landscape of love and belonging.
You understand that you are part of a moving or a standing domino.
You move together, and each individual move is connected and has consequences for each and all of you.
You are part of this dance and every interaction dictates what will unfold next.
Your attitude, attention and efforts will maintain that balance so the domino is stable and holds strong.
It requires that you are, and remain, present, engaged and willing.
It feels appropriate to end with an insight beautifully written by the same author in Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships,
that reminds us of the complexity and power of love as an emotion universally experienced by us all:
"Love can begin in a thousand ways-with a glance, a stare, a whisper or smile, a compliment, or an insult. It continues with caresses and kisses, or maybe frowns and fights. It ends with silence and sadness, frustration and rage, tears, and even, sometimes, joy and laughter. It can last just hours or days, or endure through years and beyond death. It is something we look for, or it finds us. It can be our salvation or our ruin. Its presence exalts us, and its loss or absence desolates us."
