Inter-disconnectedness

I have recently been revisiting a lot of theory around neurology and the sensory systems. Every time I do I am amazed at how intricately we are put together. All our sensory systems are finely tuned to receive external and internal signals, as well as signals between them. We are truly sensory beings. In the womb, the first sensory system that is fully formed is our sense of touch. A baby can feel touch and vibration and respond to it from 7.5 weeks in utero. Then our hearing starts to develop. The baby can hear and orient to sounds from 25 weeks in utero. Our visual system is last to mature and vision is only developed at 12 months after birth.

We are sensory beings in a sensory-rich world. Think of all the sounds, colours, textures and smells when you take a walk in a forest. How we emotionally resonate with our surroundings. There is no getting away from it. That is how we were designed.

So I started thinking about multi-sensory relating and engagement. There are a lot of families that have distance between them – physical distance. Families have migrated and live in different countries. Since Covid most people connect through screens. Everyone says that it is fine, you can connect via Skype or Zoom.  It is quicker and easier. Nothing is lost.

But if you look at the way we were designed, so much is lost. It is not the same. You rely on your sense of vision and hearing when using technology but connection is so much richer. When I greet my parents, I give my father a hug and I feel his aging body through my skin. I smell in my mother’s smell, not only her perfume but what she has cooked today or whether she has done some painting. I see the micro-expressions on their faces, things that won’t be picked up on a camera. But I also feel them  – I emotionally resonate with them. A lot of research has been done on mirror neurons. A study done in 1999 by Dawson et al showed that when a mother and a baby look at each other for the first time after birth, exactly the same parts of their brains light up. We are neurologically wired for connection from the moment we are born. I am sure that is what happens when we spend time with someone in close proximity. Our neurons start to resonate, our biological rhythms start to resonate. Our mirror neurons start to fire so that our brains connect. How amazing is that!

During Covid we were advised to stay apart, to stay away. We engaged with people through facemasks. My baby did not meet his grandparents until he was 3 months old because of lock-down restrictions. Families across the globe could not be with one another for two years or more. Physical proximity and connection became a threat, a health risk.

My grandmother’s old age home was in total lock-down during the first two waves of Covid. In between we were allowed to visit her but there was a plastic sheet between us and her. My children could not understand it – they wanted to crawl on to her lap and cuddle with her. Naturally their desire is to touch. They kept on asking ‘why is great grandmama in jail? Can we help her to get out?’. And a world without touch from her loved ones was like a jail to her. Her hearing and vision were fading – what she had left was her sense of touch. She passed away a few months after we saw her. My mother was allowed to stand outside her window and talk to her, but was not allowed to go in. How much she would have loved to hold her mother one last time, to kiss her, to watch her chest rise and fall until it stopped. Isn’t it amazing that our first sensory system to develop is most often the last functioning one? Touch is so crucial. My grandmother’s death was hard, but understandable – she was 91 years old and very frail. What was traumatic to us was that we were removed from her, that we had to keep our distance, when she desperately needed us to be close. It is still hard to make peace with it.

In our world of interconnectivity – we are told we are so connected. We are connected throughout the globe, the world has become small. Really? Because what I see is disconnection. I fully understand that it is circumstantial, that it is often the price we have to pay. I appreciate technology that can at least keep us in touch with friends and families. We gain a lot from it. But I also see how tragic it is. And I acknowledge the loss.  So I have decided to prioritize time with the people I love, to not be satisfied with a quick call or voice note – but to pursue physical connection. To emotionally resonate with them, to neurologically resonate with them. To feel them, to inhale them, to hear them, to see them, and to love them in this whole-brain physical use-all-your-senses way.

In this period where we are still reeling from the after affects of Covid, I encourage you to rethink what connection means and what closeness means. We need to adapt to a world where we are allowed to touch, to see, to smell, to walk without face masks, to attend gatherings. May you connect with all your senses – to your surroundings, to the people closest to you. May you remember the power of touch, that which you first knew in your mother’s womb, that which will stay with you until you take your last breath.

This one is for you grandma – may you be held in your Father’s loving arms. May you experience His touch, His closeness. May you be so permeated with His presence that the things of this world, the experiences that you had to go through alone, be of no significance any more.