What Makes Best Friends So Powerful?

"It's uncanny," he said. A university professor in economics, Marty, tells mem "I'm hardly given to 'woo-woo.'"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know, all that stuff about the so-called 'mysteries'? Frankly, I've thought it was crock. And, yet, ever since I found my best friend, I have this repeating experience I can't explain. We could save money on our phone bill, because when I'm thinking of her, the phone rings, and it's her. Often, the reverse is true. There seems to be this unexplainable underground connection that shows up when I need it most."

Telepathy or coincidence? I know what Marty means. Do you? Here's an example. Some 30 years ago, at 2 a.m., I awoke suddenly from dreaming about one of my closest friends driving his car along a dark and winding road at night. Suddenly, there's this blinding light, and a tremendous crash. The next thing I know, my leg feels deep searing pain. I know he's been injured and tell my husband. The next morning I learn that my friend's leg had been severely damaged at the precise time I was dreaming, a few thousand miles away. Go figure. All I know is that it was one of the mysterious experiences that changed my life, one of many having to do with people I love.

Said Rumi: "We have no idea what we are."

What is it about certain best friendships that connects us with the essential, enabling communication to traverse time and space? Biologist Rupert Sheldrake might frame this as a by-product of morphogenetic field. Carl Jung would refer us to an unconscious level of exchange that's ongoing beneath our radar. Ernest Holmes would explain it as an extension of what he called "The Thing Itself," that which is beyond words and names, which breathes through us as Life itself. However you frame it, when this experience ignites, you are richer for it. Rumi was right. We have no idea what we are. I'd add: we have no idea who we are.

Best Friends Can Provide Powerful Clues

If you've chosen well, there is no end to what's possible. The bond provides a protective function to your well-being (improving health, and extending lifespan). In studies of female friendship, oxytocin levels increase, the very same chemical produced in nursing mothers. What's going on here? Is this somehow connected to that profound instinct many mothers have for their young? If you've ever experienced the uncanny with your best friend, is this biochemically induced? And, what about those unexpected Internet connections, the ones that run deeper than the usual lightweight commentary? Is what we've called "a matter of chemistry" really simply a matter of biochemistry? Who knows? We are only just beginning to plumb the depths.

The "16 Best Friend Essentials" Rating Scale

Perhaps what matters even more than the answer is the experience itself. When you strip all else away, your best friend, if really the best, becomes your companion for the journey. Geographical miles do not matter. For decades, my own best friend and I have shared virtual tea parties, long distance, as a matter of necessity, to keep ourselves from buying our own self-imposed limitations. This is just for openers. Let's look at a check-list of essentials. Use them to rate (zero to 10) your best friend, and then yourself. Where can you stand improvement, to become a better friend?

1. Best friends keep you honest with yourself, to the degree you are each committed to growth.
2. Your soul's best friend nudges you to come out from your own stale, crusted interior that has become too calcified.
3. Best friends help you upgrade when you've settled for a life too small.
4. They help you move closer to new edges, encourage you to face the unknown with courage and humor, perspective and praise, when you've mislaid your own supply.
5. True best friends make it safer for you to shed your contingency self's packaging, that old persona you use to ward off the world when you feel too vulnerable.
6. Best friends help you stand "in the fire," when you need more passion and strength; sweep up the ashes, from closing chapters; and "prepare the bath," metaphorically, for what needs cleansing.
7. When you get stuck, who else can give you a better "jump-start" when your battery needs charging?
8. Best friends are "there" without you needing to ask, willing to challenge you when you resist receiving.
9. Best friends see your warts, your flaws, and love the beauty, love and wisdom that goes deeper than your "nerdiness" and self-recriminations.
10. Best friends admit it when they are jealous, and judgmental, and ask for forgiveness, and support you to do likewise.
11. Best friends encourage you to bloom in areas where you are too myopic to see the seeds. They are willing to do whatever it takes to support you to follow the desire and delight of your own heart.
12. A best friend supports and prompts the continuing investigation of what this means over time, modeling this behavior themselves.
13. Best friends notice what drains and revitalizes your energy, nudging you in the direction of the latter.
14. Best friends draw you closer to the mystery that you are, "hold hands" with you in the dark, reflecting back to you all that makes you not only "good enough" but grand, especially when you doubt that you are here to be all that you can be.
15. Best friends, if they are worthy, bring you to the door of the Beloved that lives in your heart, with its desire to be free.
16. Best friends bring you back home to who you are, to the feast that awaits you where "you will love again the stranger who was your self...."

This assumes, of course that you've not settled for a best friend that supports stagnation and whining. Some do. But, then you've got to ask yourself just what kind of a friend this could be? You do deserve the best, you know.

The most powerfully mysterious friendships teach you how to feast on life.

What Makes Your Best Friend Your Best Friend?

Is it mutual caring? Is it intimacy? Is it shared activity? Is it something even deeper? Ask yourself this question: how did your relationship with your "other" begin? What was going on in your life that created an opening for such a special bond?

For Marty, it was the fact that he had just lost both parents in a car accident. Most of his friends were busy with their lives. While he appreciated that they "tried to be there for me, none of them really knew what to do." Then, Millie showed up, one day at a coffee shop, and sat at the next table. "I dropped my coffee and she ran to get a rag. I didn't even know her name. But the thing that got me was what she said as she mopped up the coffee: "Don't worry! Some messes are easier to clean up than others. Know what I mean?" I did. I guess my eyes welled up, something that just doesn't happen for me. She noticed. "What other mess are we dealing with here?" she asked. I blurted the whole thing out. I don't know what came over me. Instantly, we had a bond. She didn't try to fix it. She didn't say the routine clichés. She listened. We've been listening to one another ever since. That was 23 years ago. That spilt cup of coffee turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. Otherwise, we might not have connected."

When the connection deepens to more meaningful levels, so often this comes when the "fabric of life" has been torn. Something we thought could not happen does. Some unexpected pain, fear, or profound joy takes place and the other bears witness. They hold our history. They remember. We are not alone. Years ago, when I was an army nurse during war, the gals that served alongside me were having PTSD encounters (although the syndrome had neither been identified nor named). We were "in the trenches" with one another. No one will ever know what that experience was like but us. We held it in the private, nearly unspeakable chamber of our hearts. We knew each other in a way that nobody else could. You simply had to be there. Know what I mean?

Your turn: What are you willing to share about your best friend experience? I'm listening, and learning from you, my teachers...

For more, see carabarker.net. For updates, contact me at carabarker.net, or [e-mail] to save time, click on Become a Fan. Stay tuned for upcoming developments with The Love Project, including "Practicing Love." Follow Dr. Cara Barker on www.twitter.com/DrCaraBarker

 

Follow Dr. Cara Barker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrCaraBarker

Comments

[SShaw490]

08:34 PM on 03/07/2011

I've always believed that every human being has a deep inner core of deity - that we all have some kind of holy trait that we live out in our unique way. My mother's is her deep and abiding desire to know and to be known. She hungers and thirsts for a relationship that is so intimate and so visceral that it becomes telepathic and empathetic almost to the physical level. She wants to know and be known as an intimate lover that responds in purely instinctive terms.

And her sister was the one who knew her and was known by her. They felt each others' pain, entered into each others' struggles, finished each others' sentences, loved each others' families (even the ones that were hard to love). It was as if one could inhale and the other could exhale like a single organism.

But my Aunt Doris died, unexpectedly, in 1994. When her body was no longer strong enough to hold her soul inside, my mother found herself in God's place - wanting to be known but being unknown. God makes the work of art that we call the earth hoping we'll know the artist, but we don't. He speaks to our inner person hoping for intimacy but we ignore him. And so it is with my mom. The yearning is never satisfied.

But Mom won't live forever - and I'm certain that Aunt Doris will be the first person she sees when the time comes. Loneliness past, knowing

[Dr. Cara Barker]

12:02 PM on 03/13/2011

Thanks for your patience, SShaw. The past week has been more than challenging with 'over the top' (too many) sessions, plus a few people to attend in their stage of hospice. Hence, the computer was off, while I was staying 'on.' I trust you understand. All this said, I read your remarks, and simply had to respond, although I am woefully tardy.

Thank you. Thank you one more time. Your way of expressing yourself is beautiful, and your message, strong, clear, uplifting, resounding in Truth. I am with you in your sentiments. As for your mother, well, what a wonder she must be. She sounds like a woman fiercely devoted to the real substance of Life, so often missed in the noise of this world. Her relationship with your auntie is quite familiar to me, not only between my mother and her sisters, long since passed, but between my sister and myself so often.

I am sure, by the way, that what you say about your Aunt Doris waiting will be so. Some weeks after my boy in college was killed, (20 years ago 3/21), he came to me in a number of dreams. In one such dream, he told me about the 'welcome committee, ' of which he was a part,where the work is welcome and orientation.

Let me thank you once more for your kindness, your story, your generosity here. I've been up since 3am and your Light has made all the difference.

Love
Cara

[mssreader]

09:31 PM on 03/04/2011

My dear Cara, I've just sent this article to myself so that I can send to all my "best" friends and since you wrote the article I won't send it to you. Oh, as we grow older don't we need our best friends more and more and don't they become more precious to us? I am grateful to so many though of course just a few are the very best of though there are many who are best. What would life be if it weren't for best friends who never judge us and accept us for what we are and then love us in spite of ourselves. And how easily we can " I love you" to our best friends and know that we are loved back and we can be ourselves. And when we get that phone call or email when we really need our best friend but haven't shared something scary that we're struggling with and just their voice or reading their words suddenly relieves us knowing that we aren't alone in all this. I get to include my daughter in my best friends list and feel so fortunate to do so. Best friends tell us to stop "shoulding: on ourselves. Even when they depart from this life, they leave some of their love behind knowing we are going to need it. My best and oldest friend died a few years ago and I feel her angel wings brush my face and touch my heart often.

Thanks Cara.

[Dr. Cara Barker]

10:33 PM on 03/04/2011

How did you know, mss reader??????????????? I was just thinking of you this morning on my walk, thanking the Universe that you are in this world. And, here you are. Yes, dear friend, we truly do need our BF's more and more along the road. Or, is it that the further we walk down the lane, the more 'tread' on our tires, the more we realize that we are not alone. Last night, and this morning, I gave myself the gift of spending time to thank two of my dear BF's, both in their 80's so that I could thank them, once more, for the gift of their BF-ness.

Listen, my girl, those angel wings you feel are all around us, aren't they? My guy's first began to flutter 20 years ago on 3/21. Your angel heart, like his, is one of the greatest gifts of my life here.

All joy, all comfort, all gratitude be yours, dear one,
Cara

[mssreader]

12:49 PM on 03/05/2011

Cara. has it really been that long? For me it was 9/15 17 years ago. How unreal and real at the same time.

I have a dear friend who is 86, the only remaining member of her family except for one distant cousin. She lost her only child, her son, 5 years ago and she's taken it very hard but I try to listen to her, which is a better gift in talking for the beautiful woman. She needs to talk and I'm a good listener. She's delightful and I love her dearly and I knows she treasures me. So many of her friends are gone or find it difficult to be around her and she doesn't want to be around her because they don't understand and think she should snap out of it so it makes her feel uncomfortable. I understand her feelings and can share thus it's easy for me to be around her besides she always brings me or serves me the best chocolate homade cookies. I "found" her three years ago and she's a treasure in my life. I hope she lives for a long time though the rest of her family haven't.

Enjoy this day and all the joys around us with friends and nature,

m

[sweetgreensnowpea]

05:02 PM on 03/04/2011

perhaps the most powerful thing about friends...you can't treat them/they can't treat you
like family.

[Dr. Cara Barker]

10:35 PM on 03/04/2011

I love what you've written here, sweetgreensnowpea. Still waiting for what I wrote you earlier to show up. Meanwhile, know that your friendship is powerful beyond what can be imagined, even by those of us meeting you on'line. Your genuine regard is palpable.

Great things your way, which includes gratitude,
Cara

[MerrieWay]

04:08 PM on 03/04/2011

Cara, your heart pierces to the truth...You are a BF here. I laugh and shed a few tears reading all of your answers, so caressingly, spending the time to care. Connection...is amazing, the unexplainable that is there with BF. Since energetically we are a different combination with various friends, I have been blessed with profound,silly,strecher's (those friends that you mentioned) that keep us reaching for the best we can be and I have a BF I can just hang out with and smell the roses. Becoming my own best friend...to respect,honor the self...is a true journey. I am grateful for those who have crossed my path, filled with love...in the end it is only that Love, that connection that counts. hugs & giggles, Merrie Lynn

[Dr. Cara Barker]

06:10 PM on 03/04/2011

Dear Merrie Lynn,

Beautiful name, Ms. Merrie. I can think of few things that could be said to me that are more precious than your generous response. In the end, what more is there than Love that matters most? I heard a woman say last week that God is beyond love, greater than love. Whatever we might hold Creative Intelligence to be, whatever we call It, her comment caused me to pause. Perhaps this is because, in my limited human experience of Love, each time 'She' opens 'Her' arms to me through a connection, like yours, or through a new bud on the tree in March, or through my grandbaby's outreach to me, like a soft warm breeze, my heart is touched, my mind cleared of cobwebs, and the Wisdom of Love, the Abundance of Love, the Way of Love shines so brightly in the Darkness of the human condition, that I cannot help but wonder, what could be beyond love? I guess you could say that for me, God is not only Love in action, but Love in Action, as through BF's, is the Divine smiling through us, nodding that 'yes,' there is more, so much more available if we would but avail ourselves to It, be it through the perfume of roses, the 'hanging out' with those we love, the hands holding hands that lead us Home to the Truth and Radiance from which we came and are.
Love be yours,
Cara

[bbertaud]

01:09 PM on 03/04/2011

The more I know my friends...the more I love my iPad2

[Dr. Cara Barker]

03:22 PM on 03/04/2011

O.K.,bbertaud, I'm game. Tell me about the connection. I'm listening. I don't have an iPad 1 or 2. What do you love about it? Tell me about the relationship to friends. I would appreciate it so much.

your willing student,
Cara

[mssreader]

01:27 AM on 03/05/2011

My dear Cara, I think men lack that bonding or close friendships that women seem to enjoy. Have there been studies that would back up what I feel in this respect. Women just seem to be more open and sensitive to feelings probably because of the nurturing we give so readily. I've known a few guys that can be this sensitive and caring real friendship with women but not men to men. So, I guess I can understand where bbertaud is coming from.

[mssreader]

09:33 PM on 03/04/2011

bber, I'm sorry for you. Life can be lonely without friends. I hope you find one or two true one before....but perhaps you need to try a bit to be a friend. Good luck!

[bbertaud]

12:19 AM on 03/05/2011

I get along with my iPad2 and my iPhone very well

[Ed and Deb Shapiro]

04:52 PM on 03/03/2011

Hi Cara - great & important post -

love your essential 16

What are you willing to share about your best friend experience?

I could write volumes - but will say loyalty is important & being able to go through good and bad times. I have been there and have the T-shirt. :-))

Ed

[Dr. Cara Barker]

03:24 PM on 03/04/2011

Hi, Ed and Lady Deb,

I'm so glad you love the 16. As for the word you add, 'loyalty,' I agree so much. My mama, Elsa, lived from honesty and Loyalty, and her life was a demonstration to me, (and many) just why these traits are such treasures when it comes to real connection.

Which reminds me, my friends, 'you've got my back' and I've got yours!

Love,
Cara

[Ed and Deb Shapiro]

03:48 PM on 03/05/2011

Hugs & kisses xo

[DARK STAR]

04:35 PM on 03/03/2011

Best friends help you to destroy fears that family helps to build! Ha!

[gypsynomad]

04:43 PM on 03/03/2011

Some friends destroy the self esteem that family helps you to build. Then they are no longer a friend....

[Dr. Cara Barker]

03:31 PM on 03/04/2011

Great play on words, and truth. Leave it to you, GN!

Love your way,
Cara

[Dr. Cara Barker]

03:26 PM on 03/04/2011

O.K., DARK STAR, you've got me rolling on the floor in laughter. I really do love your way of saying things, no joke. I do wonder who modeled such humor in your life? You are a master. Many thanks for stopping by. You add texture!

May this weekend bring you much joy and laughter,
Cara

[Primadonna]

02:17 PM on 03/03/2011

Beautiful, timely and with gratitude that you wrote and shared this. I'm busy searching for employment so I can't take as much time to share back, but your language from your heart is so moving and uplifting, Cara ... a gracious thank you. I'm learning, an up-leveling if you will, of an old lesson, or nuance thereof, and its about forgiveness and loving even more ... and in this time of searching for work, school is definitely in session on becoming my own best friend. I can only imagine so many others in our country who are in the same space ... and being kind and loving to ourselves - being our own best friend - is certainly a testimony to our practices, but certainly challenges of another level. Were you a nurse in Viet Nam? "The unspeakable chambers of your heart" ... you know the depths of these lessons and with my gratitude for your words each week that illuminate these passages within the depths.
L & L,
Donna

[Dr. Cara Barker]

03:30 PM on 03/04/2011

Dear, dear Donna,
I want you to know that I am holding you in the heart of my meditation and prayers, and sensing that there is the perfect, perfect place searching for someone as gifted and skilled as are you, to complete their service and offering to the world. What you bring, to any setting, and this includes career, defies compare. Honestly, I just know this to be so. Of course, the process takes the time the process takes for the match. Yes, to answer your question, my army nursing stint was with V.N., and the fall-out of it. Our human story is rich with challenge, and the opportunity for friendship inside and out, no matter what. Keep the faith.

Love your way, Donna,
Cara

[gypsynomad]

10:55 AM on 03/03/2011

Another very powerful article Cara , worth reading over and over again.... I am not a superstitous person, if you allow yourself to be , then there is no end to it,.Yet ~Carl Jung would refer us to an unconscious level of exchange that's ongoing beneath our radar~ is it true ? Or perhaps we do not know who we are ? A couple of friend here , I care deeply about, hardly around, when I fell like I am being pulled down deep in swamps in online trickery, they show up unexpectedly to pull me out to breathe again..is it circunstances ? I do not know, but forever grateful nonetheless..
In real world there are friends and there are ~fair weather friends~, they say if you have five you have more than enough and consider yourseld be fortunate. I have a close friend in Music City, we had tea together, talk about what not and then when circumstances brought upon meI needed to move, about three years ago. We both were devastated, she said to me , I thought we would get old together. Even now we talk to each other on a daily basis, and we made plans to see each other once a year. Now, she kept her end of the bargain...next week going to stop by just for a day, it is going to be a splendid one..

[Dr. Cara Barker]

11:07 AM on 03/03/2011

gypsynomad, leave it to you to be so wise. I will be thinking of you when the two of you get together. The fact is, if you look at it a certain way, the two of you are 'growing old together,' for you are living a devotion in your frequent contact, that most 'let go' in the day to day of a closer geography. On the other hand, since I've said to my own BF many times, ("I wish you lived next door!") I understand the longing for that, too. None the less, we have made the commitment to see each other several times a year, despite the miles challenge, and it is one of the most precious experiences of my life. What this has taught me, again and again, is that there is local love and what I'll call 'non-local' love.

You, my friend, are an aspect of each for my heart. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you've wandered onto this site, and we are in such lovely harmony. You demonstrate serious BF Wisdom as love in action in the world.

Have a beautiful and blessed day, gypsynomad. The beneath the radar world is at work on your behalf.

Cara

[gypsynomad]

04:41 PM on 03/03/2011

And there is Cara Barker...online friendship can`t be that bad to find you in here...
In all seriousness, I have read the intense lonliness and loss of human contact one goes through in this day and age for various reasons, moving, job searching, unable to find a partner, the insecurity from such is severe ..I have made suggestions to find you as I did and hope they would...it concerns me a great deal, any of us could be a victim of such.
Life is so fragile,and delicate ...XO

[Anne Naylor]

02:01 AM on 03/03/2011

Hello Dearest Cara,

Two of my BF's turned up during the stormy days of going through my divorce when I was at my most low. They are anchored there within me although I do not see them very often these days. I do see one of them tomorrow and I am excited for that!

I have a gathering of warm spots within me of friends whom I may contact not so frequently but the feeling has not changed and when we are in touch, and it is as though we were speaking only yesterday.

To show up as a BF for someone going through a crisis is also a joy. Mrs Life shows us all kinds of ways to be here for each other.

Warmed and wondering, your post has made me reflective - thank you!

Love, joy and giggles to you,
Anne

[Dr. Cara Barker]

10:55 AM on 03/03/2011

Good morning, Anne,

There's nothing like stormy times to reveal the depth of BF-ship, and the treasure they are. One of the qualities I notice is that when someone is a true BF, the time and distance do not seem to interfere with a sense of connection, and when we get together again, it is as if we are simply continuing where we 'just left off.' Amazing. So, as you can see, I relate completely to your description. Including the conversion of sharing crisis into joy.

Hugs your way, Anne, and so much gratitude,
Cara

[P3]

11:31 PM on 03/02/2011

Hello Cara,
Thanks for another wonderful article, I thought the list is helpful for a guide to people, it is about being a positive affect on another, my best friend, now going on 25 years, has stayed the same over the years in such views as politics and religion, while I have seemed more interested into checking into it and growing, since there are now more differences we accept and respect each other and tread lightly on those things, no loss of caring, we wish the best for each other, which is building up not tearing down. A minor side note is that we all need a little connection to our "past" though we are in the present.

[Dr. Cara Barker]

11:00 AM on 03/03/2011

Dear P3,

First, sorry about the delay in getting back to you. The truth is that I was so 'wiped' from a long clinical day that I fell asleep still with my clothes on. Ever done that one?

Anyway, the important thing is what you wrote, and have experienced, so well shared here. It sounds like you and yours are very wise, for you let go of the differences, dwell in appreciation and respect, and support one another to be fully who you are. A long-term BF-ship gives an amazing gift of holding one another's history, without a price tag or restricting strings. You've put it so well, P3. In fact, I'm going to call my own BF, (for nearly 40 years) and thank her once again.

None of us are in this 'puppy' alone. I'm so glad you are in this Village. Do stay in touch, won't you? I love your voice and heart.

Cara

May this day bless you in endless ways.

[phnxrth]

09:50 PM on 03/02/2011

Don't let anybody mess with you, Dr. Please just keep being you.

I imagine what you describe will one day be possible between any two people, probably larger groups also.

I've had a few best friends, usually someone who comes along and we manage to be on the same wavelength for a while. I've been especially lucky with my husband. We've had a few rough patches but have mostly been on the same wavelength for many years.

I've had a number of those "unusual" experiences as you've described as well. It really is wonderful what can be learned through our relationships with one another. The point about each of us being very multi-faceted is really important.

[Dr. Cara Barker]

10:01 PM on 03/02/2011

phnxrth, thank you. One favor: I'm curious about your first line. Can you clarify?

Let me just say up front that I appreciate your voice, your style, your truth so much. You have a way of expressing a grateful heart that is a teaching to the rest of us, believe me. AS for the rough patches, they are part of the journey, aren't they? Not necessarily easy, but surely enriching in the long run. I'm glad you've known the 'unusual' experiences, too, for they have a way of stretching our way of framing what we are doing here, and our own unique path. You are an absolute gem.

May all that inspires you, renews you, and nourishes you be yours,
Cara

[phnxrth]

08:29 AM on 03/03/2011

Thank you for the kind words. I didn't word it well. It was my weird way of trying to say you are an absolute gem.

[Roseberry]

08:42 PM on 03/02/2011

There is such a beautiful, effortless melding when I get with my best friend. Like I am slipping into my favorite pair of pajamas. Comfortable, In spite of it, probably the hardest thing I've had to do for the last 14 years with her is to not say certain things. I have waited out her husband's inane controlling behavior, and simply watched and waited. Now she is finally 'allowed' to come on a vacation with me. I still am waiting for her to stop being so codependent with him. If I thought for a minute it would help, I would speak up. But there's some deep knowing inside me that it's just not time yet.
Maybe not sharing some things, sometimes, is more loving than always being open. And harder!

[Dr. Cara Barker]

09:13 PM on 03/02/2011

Roseberry, it is so clear that your BF is mighty fortunate. It must have taken a great deal of impulse control for you to withhold your perspective. Your inner knowing is Wisdom, itself. You are a smart cookie to follow it. Until we are ready for our own 'wake-up' calls, we are not ready. How challenging it is to witness someone you adore living too small by undervaluing themselves, as is your friend. Frankly, it sounds like, at a minimum, emotional abuse.

The key is discernment, of which you are well fortified. Bravo. I'm off to fan you, and thank you. Come by again. I value who you are.

Blessings your way,
Cara

[MerhabaAbi]

07:57 PM on 03/02/2011

Hi Sis,

It's been quite a while since I had a "best friend". Pushing 2o years actually. Raising my kids as a single Dad and keeping up with my career obligations took most of my energy. I did re-marry and had what I felt to be a strong bond with my wife. I guess I put all of my eggs into one basket. I can't even say that I learned my lesson. I think that my nature is to be in a relationship where my significant other is my best friend.

As for those mysterious connections that eerily interrupt the commonplace, who knows? Maybe in ten to a thousand generations we may have an answer. In the meantime, to paraphrase The Bard, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Cara, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Whole Lotta Love,
little brother

[Dr. Cara Barker]

09:16 PM on 03/02/2011

'Whole Lotta Love' right back 'at cha', Little Brother! I can relate, in many ways, to what you write here, and how you live. One thought, however, is that perhaps, during this past 20 years you were building a best friendship with yourself? If so, this is a mighty fine foundation for all else, be it with your kids, with your spouse, with anyone, including those of us here who just adore you. Naturally, we have excellent taste!

Hugs your way,
Cara

[eugenemyst]

07:12 PM on 03/02/2011

These connections do pop up in the most unexpected ways. It's not always best friends, as my most recent experience tells me. My brother's been facing some chest pains in recent months. Out of the four of us, he's my last remaining sibling.

He's been vigilant in going to the right doctors and following orders as best he can. We have heart failure in both sides of the family as well as a couple other common killers. But heart failure took my father in '92 (at age 62), and my older sister in '99 (at age 44). My brother is 48.

The past few days I've been feeling a dread. When the phone rings I expect bad news. Now this is not a new sensation to me: The worse dread I experienced was a total and depressing dread for a full two weeks before my partner of 16 years died. With my brother it's only been a couple days of wariness.

Yesterday he casually called Mom and mentioned an angiogram scheduled for this morning. After the procedure, he called to say he's fine but the doctor placed two stints in him. Mom called me with the news.

Is this sense of dread I experience tapping into the morphogenetic field? Or Jung's collective consciousness? Or what? I have no idea why I get the sense that a big change is coming, and I'm not sure it helps me in a tangible manner. But it's fascinating to look back at.

[Dr. Cara Barker]

09:27 PM on 03/02/2011

Dear eugenemyst,

First, I am reminding myself to breathe as I read your story of your family. We, too, have similar family history in the cardiac department. So, I've counteracted it, as best I can, through a 40+ history with meditation, and other such things. Take good care of you. The anxiety takes its toll on the heart and the psyche.

I'm so glad that your brother went in for that check, and got the two stints. Flow is where 'it's at.' We cannot live fully without it.

For the record, I, too, have felt that 'dread' experience, (as has my daughter and son) before big life change events, including earthquakes. So do animals, as with their hyperalert state before such a shift in the earth's plates. What is it? Who really knows. Jung would say that there is a resonance at the unconscious level. I think the important thing is to take it as incoming info, and when I receive it, I ask myself: Is there any unfinished business that needs to be communicated? Is there any acknowledgment or gratitude that needs expression?

As a clinician, I should add that if that sense of dread feels like a heavy weight in your chest, get checked out. We want you well and thriving! I know that I do!

My best goes out our way and to your family, as well,
Cara

It is haunting, isn't it, to see our families shrinking? sobering............

[eugenemyst]

10:23 PM on 03/02/2011

With enough of these experiences over a lifetime, I wonder for a fleeting second, "Is there unfinished business?" It's only a fleeting second of wonder at this point in my life due to a lifetime of learning how to deal with losses and to deal with feeling this sense of dread. I’ve accepted some of the unfinished business in lost relationships as part of the human condition.

In these dreaded moments, if I feel an urgent need to call someone whom I love, for my own piece of mind, and for my own need for sharing and expressing love toward a particular person who is in my awareness as potentially being in harms way, then by all means I do. But I have been through many losses and I know that when a loss comes, often the relationship is exactly where it made the most sense; exactly where I will learn the most. It can't stop the hurt if the worst happens. It doesn't stop a death. It's reaching an understanding inside myself.

So it may be that my brother and I will only go so far at being closer and I’m ok with that. Things have been good lately. Or it may mean my partner will continue a self-destructive behavior that accumulates toward his death. I cannot prevent his choices. So the fleeting moment arises, "what to do?" and in that second I find a sense of balance, peace and acceptance. I hope that makes sense.