All we want is to touch, to be touched, closeness, to feel attunement, acceptance, and that deep feeling of shared wellbeing with others; love, bonding, safety, play and peace. That is really all there is to it. Not feeling this, we crave what is missing like an addict craves the next fix. What we call thought and thinking, being abstractions, create explanation after explanation for the hunger, which is somewhat like eating the menu for lunch. The truth is, our bodies live in the present moment, as a constantly moving state of changing, ebbing and flowing, a dance of vibratory resonances.
Like water in a stream, it is this ever-changing movement that creates the form and sensations I call me. Stop the movement and there is no river, no me to see. And deep within the particle structures that make up the atoms and molecules that make up the cells and physical parts we see in the mirror, we find the wave or energetic side of the equation – frequencies; millions and billions of tiny resonate radio broadcasts that inform. Joseph Chilton Pearce described, and for years, this frequency realm and how the heart is the center of the show.
Being sensitive and aware of this embodied world of resonance changes how we relate, communicate and interpret our connections with everything, especially with children and, of course, other life forms, animals and plants, including the food and water that we hope nourishes. Ideally, during pregnancy, birth and the first few years of a new life, before symbolic language explodes in our children, this present-resonance that informs is more obvious. What else is there? Then, with language, this physical, present, touch-and-resonate-reality fades, or is pushed aside by the abstractions that dominate the adult heart and mind. But the original need for shared wellbeing, trust, safety, play and peace remains, though often hidden by the neon signs constantly flashing in our brain, dazzling us, like a Las Vegas side show.
Sitting with a group of parents, a common theme filled the room; meltdowns, or what we used to call tantrums, and not just once in a while, and these were exceptional parents, conscious and constantly striving to be ‘good.’ While I can’t begin to know or diagnose why meltdowns are now ‘normal,’ I do know growing up my sibling nor I had frequent meltdowns. Nor was this common among our friends or at school. My two boys, now in their 30’s and 40’s did not experience meltdowns as described by these parents. Carly Elizabeth, for the most part, now four-and-a-half, shies away from such outbursts. And so, I wonder.
Basic trust does not exist in the intellect or what Joe calls cultural counterfeits for the attuned, bonded state. You can eat all the menus you want and that deep need we experience as hunger persists. From the day Carly was born, she was touched and held. She and I still squirt each other in the shower or tub. She washes my hair and I hers. She taps on my office door in the early morning. I stop what I am doing and we snuggle up on the white couch, wrapped in a soft woven shall. “Can you feel my heart sing?” I ask. “I can feel it, can you?” and for the next few moments we sit quietly and just feel. Then, we tell stories or plan our next adventure. While driving in the car I often reach over and touch her hand or play silly finger games. My wife Z and I often hold hands. I dance and sing with Carly any time she will let me. Safe touch is like a lightning rod that grounds the body in ways that thoughts and words can never do. Then, upon this embodied grounding, we can share, or at least try to, with words. When we lose touch with touch we lose this embodied ground where ‘real’ nourishing connection lives. Lose touch with touch for a long time and we wither like a plant that constantly needs water. Losing touch with touch extends to toxic our increasingly toxic environments and pretend, counterfeit food. When this becomes the norm, regardless of the current need or conflict, I would melt down too.
Enchanted by the dream-reality thought and technology create, we lose touch with touch. We lose touch with the ground, with the resonance that makes all life possible. The adult bond or resonate attunement is the ground, like a lightning rod. When overwhelm strikes the adult provides the safe-place to discharge the charge. Without that safe-place, the becomes child overwhelmed and melts down. Too often perhaps, a lack of touch-resonance in the parent child relationship contributes to the experience of overwhelm. Maybe, watering our children and ourselves each day with a few moments of playful, affectionate touch will lessen the need for meltdowns. Maybe. I wonder?
Ops, gotta run, Carly is tapping at the door. Can you feel my heart sing?
Michael Mendizza
