Making Connections
I feel alive when I make connections. I feel stagnant when I don’t.
Connections. What are they? Why do I care? Why bother pursuing these? For me it feels like connecting the dots in my brain, like solving a puzzle or getting the answer on Jeopardy. I feel it. It is a spark. When I make a connection, I feel like myself, I feel a raw live potential and passion. Like when I was 15 and brainstorming what I would want to do “with my life” and had no idea but knew I loved to learn, and I loved people, so I connected them.
Let me try to define it. My google search tells me that connection is defined as 1. a relationship in which a person or thing is linked or associated with something else and/or 2.a supplier of narcotics. So I am not talking about the narcotics side of things. I am talking about the relationship part. Connections are relationships. Making relationships between things, concepts, people, ideologies, past, present, future, symptoms and longings. Sometimes these connections are given to us and sometimes we have to work at them. My experience tells me that we find meaning and fulfillment when we make connections. It is forward motion. It feels like the “aha” moment we have all experienced.
As a human and counsellor I am becoming more and more passionate about our ability to make connections and to find the healing that this brings when we just keep going. One leads to another. At a brain level we are constantly making connections and neural pathways which lead towards growth and improved functioning. Another word for this could be neuroplasticity. Psychology Today defines this as,
The brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered; neuroplasticity, then, is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new neurons and building new networks.
New neurons and new networks…at a neural level our brains are seeking to make connections to adapt, and I believe bring us towards greater health. I love learning and the brain, and I love applying it to real life. I find it refreshing to know that not only is it worth my effort to pursue health but at a brain neural network level I am naturally doing this too. I am learning to trust the process and notice the processes around me that occur naturally in the world. Our world is full of making connections and I find myself feeling alive when I choose to join in.
Interested in learning more? Check out this link to Psychology Today to learn more about neuroplasticity.
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