Meeting someone is wonderful, but connecting is magical

Meeting someone is easy, we do it often and with dozens of people every day. However, What is really magical is getting to connect. It is colliding in mind and heart with someone and suddenly discovering how our worlds harmonize, how we see galaxies where others only see puddles of rain or how our laughter explodes at the same time and for the same reasons… Because yes, indeed, connecting is magical.

Often, we are characterized by this attraction towards the world of fantasy or science fiction without understanding that Life itself contains even more incredible, more magical and even unknown processes.. What happens in that connection between two people who, without knowing each other almost at all, coincide at the same point and the same place to be attracted to each other?

We’re not just talking about the process of falling in love. We are also referring to that magnificent situation that builds the strongest friendships. The same ones who do not know about time or distance, but do know about complicity, pacts and that emotional harmony where there is reciprocal concern and sincere affection.

People connect, like certain atoms do, like the Moon does by attracting water from the oceans, causing tides.. Maybe life itself is that. Let that fantastic connection that we establish with certain people throughout our lives take us towards a specific destination, forming part of a growth process where we allow ourselves to learn, share, help and be helped, leaving an everlasting emotional mark in hearts other than our own. …

The laws of attraction in friendship

Elena and Sara met at university. In an audiovisual communication class the teacher played a video of the Monty Python which made the entire class laugh for a few seconds. However, when the majority of the class was already in strict silence and focused on their homework, Sara still couldn’t suppress her laughter. When Elena heard it, she couldn’t help but burst out laughing. That marked the beginning of their friendship. A great friendship.

When we talk about emotional relationships, or even friendship, research is always oriented towards the same aspect. They tend to go much deeper into the benefits that these types of links bring us than into the triggers. We talk about those underlying processes that make up that “magical connection” that is sudden, but always decisive. Now, there is one aspect that is necessary to know and that will undoubtedly be curious to us.

Friendship hides much more complex processes than those that determine simple attraction in a couple.. There are a series of laws and psychological dynamics that we will be interested in knowing and that affirm that connecting is magical.

The self-revelation

The most authentic friendships are not just based on sharing common hobbies., in having the same tastes or values. In fact, the fact of having a good time together does not determine the strength and significance of a friendship either.

Experts in social psychology know that there is a turning point that determines whether that friendship will last or not. We talk about self-revelation. People need to share our concernsour fears and concerns with other people to obtain support, to feel that intimacy and that therapeutic complicity.

The moment we communicate a confidence to the other person and they are in turn capable of guarding it, protecting it and entrusting us with support, the magic begins. People need reciprocity. Even more, What we hope with these self-revelations is not to be betrayed.. Have constant support based on the strongest trust.

We connect to feel safe

He Virgini Affective Neuroscience LaboratoryHe published an interesting work in 2017. When people connect emotionally with someone like-minded, with someone special, whether it’s a friend or a couple, the brain changes. In this fabulous organ, processes that are as interesting as they are revealing take place.

Cortisol level is reduced, the stress hormone lowers its activity. The hypothalamus, that brain structure linked in the threat process, also reduces its activity. When we establish a significant bond with someone, the first thing the brain experiences is calm. You feel safe, you feel safe. Hence we can say that connecting is magical, but above all it is healthy. Because we gain internal balance, a lower level of anxiety, fears and stress.

The emotional “glue” and the law of the mirror

Once we are clear that we can trust that person, we also need other processes. We look for dynamics with which to consolidate that power bond that arose from a chance event. We talk of course about “emotional gifts”. What do we mean by that? Basically a series of processes such as loyalty, consideration, support, recognition…

Likewise, there is another even more interesting idea. Social psychologists Carolyn Weisz and Lisa F. Wood of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington they stated the theory mirror mirror or the mirror principle in friendship. It is actually something as elemental as it is transcendent at the same time.

Connecting is magical because it means finding a person who fits our identity. At the same time, he is someone who acts as our own reflection or our point of balance. It would be like a lighthouse that always illuminates us with the truths. A good friend capable of telling us, for example, that a certain person is not right for us, someone who will make us return to our essences, to our roots.

Connecting is magical for our brain

Some may call it intuition or sixth sense, but Our brain often knows who it is best to connect with. We could say that, in some way, there is a voice inside us that tells us who it is best to go out for coffee with to dilute the sorrows and draw hope with the smoke of chocolate. In turn, it will be that puncture capable of alerting us, of telling us who it is better to avoid.

We are social beings by nature and we need to establish bonds. However, these ties must be of quality. It is true that sometimes that sixth sense is wrong. That we were wrong with some people. Nevertheless, Our instinct will always push us to try once again, to continue searching, knowing, connecting…

Our brain likes solid, lasting friendships for a very specific reason. They help us survive, to make our daily lives more meaningful.. That satisfying bond is an aspirin for stressis the balm that regulates our elevated cortisol levels and a direct injection of dopamines and serotonin that boost the heartbeat of happiness.

Let’s let ourselves be carried away by chance, let’s do it. Let’s allow life to make us connect in a meaningful way with those special people who make our reality a more wonderful, warmer and more interesting scenario. Have you experienced firsthand the magic of connecting with someone?

Images courtesy of Jerry LoFaro and Claudia Tremblay

You might be interested…