Meeting Someone Is Wonderful, But Connecting Is Magical

Matching up with someone is easy, we do it often and with dozens of people every day. However, what is truly magical is getting to connect. It is colliding of the 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 to the world of fantasy or science fiction without understanding that life itself contains even more incredible, more magical and even unknown processes. What mediates this connection between two people who, without knowing almost anything, coincide at the same point and the same place to be attracted to each other?

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

People connect, as certain atoms do, as the Moon does by attracting water from the oceans, causing the tides. Maybe life itself is that. Letting that fantastic connection that we establish with certain people throughout our lives lead us to a specific destination, forming part of a growth process where we allow ourselves to learn, share, help and be helped, leaving an imperishable emotional imprint on hearts other than ours. …

The laws of attraction in friendship

Elena and Sara met in college. In an audiovisual communication class, the teacher played a video of the Monty Python  that made the whole class laugh for a few seconds. However, by the time most of the class was rigorously silent and focused on homework, Sara still couldn’t suppress her laughter. When Elena heard her, she couldn’t help but give a loud and resounding laugh. That marked the beginning of their friendship. A great friendship.

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

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

Self-disclosure

The most authentic friendships are not based only on sharing common hobbies, on 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.

Experts in social psychology know that there is a turning point that determines whether or not that friendship will last. We talk about self-disclosure. People need to share our concerns, our 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 this is in turn capable of guarding it, protecting it and entrusting us with support, the magic begins. People need reciprocity. Furthermore, what we hope with these self-disclosures is not to be betrayed. Have constant support based on the strongest trust.

We connect to feel safe

The Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory published an interesting piece of work in 2017. When people connect emotionally with someone similar, with someone special, be it a friend or a partner, the brain changes. In this fabulous organ, interesting and revealing processes take place.

• The level of cortisol is reduced, the stress hormone lowers its activity.
• The hypothalamus, that brain structure linked to the threat process, also reduces its activity.
• When we establish a meaningful 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, with a lower level of anxiety, fear 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 link of power that arose from a chance event. We speak of course of the “emotional gifts”. What do we mean by it? Basically to a series of processes such as loyalty, consideration, support, recognition …

There is also another even more interesting idea. Social psychologists Carolyn Weisz and Lisa F. Wood of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington spelled out the theory Mirro mirror r  or the principle of the mirror 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. In turn, it is someone who acts as our own reflection or our point of balance. It would be like a beacon that always illuminates us with the truths. A good friend capable of telling us, for example, that a certain person does not suit us, someone who will make us return to our essences, to our roots.

Connecting is magic 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, somehow, there is a voice inside us that tells us who it is better to go out for a coffee with to dilute the sorrows and draw hope with the smoke of a chocolate. In turn, it will be that prick capable of alerting us, of indicating who is better to avoid.

We are social beings by nature and we need to establish links. However, those ties must be of quality. It is true that sometimes that sixth sense is wrong. That we err with some people. However, our instincts will always push us to try one more time, to keep searching, knowing, connecting …

. That satisfying bond is a stress-relieving aspirin, it’s the balm that regulates our elevated cortisol levels, and a direct injection of dopamine and serotonin that propels the heartbeat of happiness.

Let’s get carried away by chance, let’s do it.  Let life 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