Attunement

I was reading the book, "When the Body Says 'No'," by Gabor Mate, and it was showing the connection between stress and diseases. People who don't have a handle on their stress tend to have diseases. This book states that a lack of attunement between people, in particular the parent-child relationship, can lead to stress. That can lead to diseases if the situation is not healed in some manner.

Attunement is when people in a relationship connect harmoniously, and when they respond to one another in the way that the other person can accept. When people are not in attunement with each other, it can be as harmful as abuse. The tricky part is, not being attuned to one another looks like living the daily grind.

Being in relationships is a full-time job. I come home from work, and I would rather not think or interact anymore. I've got relationships to keep up, though. I've got my husband, and we have to make sure to put in the work to stay attuned, because I'd hate to see the day when it's just he and I living in our home, and we're no longer each other's peace. I have children, and it's not their responsibility to be attuned to me. It's my responsibility to be attuned to them, and, eventually, they will learn how to express that attunement in their other relationships.

Really, attunement should be happening in all of our relationships to create a sense of peace. I think it's a never-ending awareness of how I connect with people in my life. Even when I get it wrong, I think people recognize when I'm trying to to treat them in a way they can accept as respect, and that creates and responsiveness, which leads to attunement.

Of all the people I want to be attuned with, I really want it to be with my precious children. I think of all the parent-child relationships where the parents didn't put in the work to respect and connect with their children in a way that the child could accept, and the idea of a lack of attunement makes me think that that was the something that went wrong in their lives. My children will never be able to walk away from their connection with me, and I dearly want to make sure that I am laying the foundation for peace and a life with very little disease in it.