There are many indications published that express the view that although we are seemingly more connected viz a viz social media, that in fact, this “seeming” connection is erroneous.

In a world of sound bites, rapid speech, tweeting and the like, we have developed the illusion connection.

A few years ago on my way to a retreat, I met a women in a cafe who was from a small town in Poland. She told me that when she was a small girl, her village did not have telephones. Obviously, what this meant was when someone needed to communicate with someone else they had to visit their house OR run into the them at the local market. She told me that in her village this created a sense of trust , warmth and friendship between members of the community. It was rare that someone visited another’s home with their hands empty- so the experience of generosity and warmth was constantly being expressed.

In the 1970’s telephones arrived in her village. She explained that while everyone was fascinated by this new technology, at the same time, over time, obviously, people stopped visiting each others homes.

To drop by a neighbors home to ask for help or to communicate began to end as people were able to just “pick up the telephone.” She went on the describe that it did not take long for gossip to increase. As people were not in the presence of one another, curiosity and paranoia began to develop. This resulted in more gossip and as she expressed, actual fear of one another.

Often with social media as well as the larger media we are basically hearing gossip. Even if someone posted their own photos or tweets. We are hearing the gossip of our own minds.

Inherently, there is nothing wrong with gossip. We all do it and in someways it can form the glue of communities. But when we begin to distort our lives and our feelings to create our own gossip- we then begin to develop a much larger problem. We are alienating ourselves not only from our own selves but also from others.

A good human society begins with two people. A good honest conversation with a friend can unburden our hearts and minds and bond us to another human being creating genuine good feelings. These feelings have a ripple effect on our connections throughout our day.

Reality is not about misery and our own defectiveness. Nor is reality about our desire for perfection in our lives. Somewhere there is a balance. The Buddha said that there is a treasure in us to be discovered. Wisdom and kindness are just waiting to be awakened and expressed. We experience this treasure by sharing ourselves with others in meaningful, open, vulnerable and honest ways. We begin to feel more alienated when what we share is only seen on a screen. This is like talking to ourselves all day long. We lose a sense of “other”, of community, of society.

Find someone to take out for coffee today. Talk about the latest book that you read. Share a recipe. Offer a kleenex. Open your heart to another REAL life human being. This is where a good human society starts.

I have spoken with many of my patients about the experience of not being able to feel all of the feelings that we experienced as a child.  This is, unfortunately,  what happens with so many. Because our parents might not have been able to tolerate certain feelings in themselves, or, if they are numb to feelings themselves, unknowingly they can shut down the important process of learning how to just be ok with feelings.

When this occurs, the natural process of feeling becomes blocked.  Sometimes we can even experience feelings as “weird” or “unnatural” or even worse- feel as if we are making up our feelings. 

Feelings are as natural as weather patterns.  They come and they go- they move and they change. From a Buddhist point of view, feelings are an important link to our humanity.  Without the ability to feel and to know what we are feeling we can become numb ourselves.

This “numbing out” of feeling can lead to addiction, depression, anxiety, and isolation.

An important component of therapy is often “re-learning” how to feel and to give feelings a language.  But also, therapy can become a space to help to make friends with our feelings so that we are no longer afraid of them.

I happen to love this video.  Watch as the child is allowed by his father to just, well, feel….  

I read a recent article about a woman who looked at her tears from a microscope.  I felt so moved and astonished that our tears configure, geometrically, to the state of mind that we are in when we are crying.

Tears of grief look different under the microscope than do tears of elation or tears of relief.

This is also my experience in the office.  Tears are never “just” tears- they are profound expressions of release and they contain information for us.   I often ask my patients, “If your tears could speak?  WHAT would they say?”

Just as our Western world only has one word for love, we only have one word for tears.  Clearly, from this experiment under the microscope, tears are letting us know that they DO in fact speak.  They speak a different kind of pattern, creatively they seem to being saying, “I am never the same as yesterday’s tears… I am BEAUTIFUL in my expression!  LOOK!  LISTEN!  I am part of a divine design of things.”

Many of us grew up in an environment, as well as a larger culture, that doesn’t seem to have much room for tears.  Tears are nothing to be ashamed of.  Tears often are the communication that we have MUCH before we have a language to explain what we are feeling.  This is a kind of wisdom to me.

Trust your tears.  Every time, every single drop, has a unique language all of it’s own.

Cut and paste the link below to read this article and view the amazing images of tears.

http://www.lifebuzz.com/tears/#!NTFoA