Happy Mothers Day, I am sending lots of love and appreciation to women everywhere (whether you are a mother or not) women are natural nurturers and the world certainly needs more of that.
As I celebrate my 4 kids and the relationships we share I was reflecting on my oldest two being parents themselves and their unique journey’s to get there it seemed like the perfect time to explore a powerful little hormone called oxytocin. This is the hormone that fosters bonding with our children. It also gets stimulated during sex, birth, breast-feeding, when we hug or kiss a loved one – the list goes on. In the brain oxytocin acts as a neurotransmitter. This hormone plays a big role in trust.
Trust is vital to any relationship. If there is a lack of trust we don’t feel safe and our survival instincts are triggered. But it goes deeper than that, when your basic premise in dealing with others is distrust it sets up a barrier to intimacy and true collaboration both personal and professional.
Given that the human need for connection and contact is one of our strongest motivators trust is vital to our survival. We need to know when to lean in and trust and when to pull back and protect. It’s a complex process and involves many parts of our brain, biofield, and heart processing and providing information for us to act on. We feel best when we are in coherence or ‘on the same page’ with the other person.
You can see this play out in in a relationship when periods of coherence are lacking there is a feeling of disconnection and misunderstandings increase. There is a push/ pull effect. Coherence doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything it means that there is a shared common ground and trust. Trying to see the ‘why’ behind a differing view can sometimes reveal there actually is more of a common ground than we were aware of.
In the work that I do it’s important to me to be open to new ideas, concepts, and collaborations. I need to relax into trust to have those interactions. If I came from distrust my interest would be in protecting my ideas and way of doing things as the ‘right’ way. The ability to adopt and integrate new ideas and solutions becomes limited. In my field that is constantly evolving that would be a disservice to my clients and myself.
If oxytocin can help foster trust and connection, the next question is “where can I get some”? That’s actually the easy part – connect deeply with someone, hold hands, snuggle, or some non-contact ways in these shelter in place times would be an intimate conversation, sharing appreciation for someone, any feel-good contact increases oxytocin and the levels stay elevated after the connection ends.
While oxytocin is not the ultimate solution to distrust, it is a powerful aid in shifting the energy of distrust……and a deep connection feels really good. Who will you connect with today?