Why I’d choose My Flock over $100,000
I saw something interesting on Facebook yesterday, perhaps you saw it too. It was a photo of a sweet little cabin in the snow in the forest somewhere. The post asked the question, “Would you stay in this cabin all alone with enough food and water without a phone, or internet, for one month if you’d be paid $100,000.00 at the end of your stay?”. My immediate response was, “NO WAY!” Now, don’t get me wrong, I like peace and quiet and alone time as much as the next guy…and $100,000.00 is a lot of dough. But we are wired for connection. Now in my 60’s, I want to be around loved ones. I know the power of connection.
I asked a few other people around me what they thought of the cabin offer. My 22 year old son answered, “Definitely.” Of course, at his age, he’d do almost anything for money. I then asked a few older friends and colleagues. People with spouses and children of their own. Not one of them thought it sounded like a good idea.
I started thinking that there’s a reason that the penal system uses solitary confinement as one of its most extreme and cruel punishments. As I said, we are wired for connection.
I could survive in isolation, but I need human connection to fully thrive. In his book, Social, Neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman tells us that our need to connect is as fundamental as our need for food and water. So something is clearly missing for me in the cabin offer and it’s not food or water.
In an interview with Amy Banks, M.D., director of Advanced Training at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women, she stated that due to a series of studies and research, neuroscience is confirming that our entire autonomic nervous system wants us to connect with other human beings.
When asked what happens when people are isolated or not connected she answered, “One of the seminal studies in Relational-Cultural Neurobiology is something called SPOT (Social Pain Overlap) Theory. A group of researchers at UCLA, looked at the overlap between social pain and physical pain. They designed a benign computerized experiment that gradually excluded people from a multi-player game. What they found was the area that lit up in the brain for that kind of social rejection, the anterior cingulate, was the exact same area that lights up for the distress of physical pain. So, the distress of social pain is biologically identical to the distress of physical pain.” Being alone in this cabin might actually hurt.
Further, we know that loss of emotional connection can have negative health ramifications. Dr. Dean Ornish, in his book entitled, Love and Survival, worries that we downplay the importance of love and connection in a culture based on the success of the “rugged individual”. For most of us, a month in the woods alone might not be ideal. Or certainly not a year, or a lifetime.
In thinking about human connection, I was reminded of a three-minute video I saw called The Lessons of the Geese. It shows the beauty of geese flying in formation and emphasizes the power of the group and their connection over the individual. I particularly like the line, “we travel on the trust of one another and lift each other up along the way.”
Watch it here. You’ll like it. Even if you, like my son, would definitely enjoy a month in a deserted cabin.
If you are inspired by the connection found in a flock of geese, choose to strengthen your bonds this year. Sign up for my upcoming Over The Bridge workshop. With the exercises and tools you’ll experience in just two-days with me, you’ll be up and flying in no time!
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