Don’t you love when the right words come along and succinctly sum up what you’ve intuitively known?

I only recently found the words to describe something that I’ve always felt, but could only describe with extraneously-worded sentences, kind of like this one. The words are ‘limbic resonance’.

Forgive me, if you already know about this, but finding these words was a eureka moment.

Limbic resonance is that animal ‘knowing’; that identifying with our peeps, that deep empathetic connection whereby we find ourselves crying because our friend is hurting, crabby because the store clerk was rude, unexpectedly giddy because we saw the random embrace of a child and her father…you know what I’m talking about?

It seems that from the time when we were all hanging out in caves, we survived by absorbing and being aware of the tenor of the people around us. In short, we absorb emotions we come in contact with, and because of the evolutionary survival this is based on, we do it every second of every day.

We share our moods.

Conversely, others absorb our frame of mind. You ever notice that when you’re in a crappy mood, everyone is? Hmm… guess what we’re putting out there. Crazy huh?

And when I am feeling energetic and filled with light? I bet you know what I find.

In a world where social media is anything but, we know that real face-to-face connection is key. And this is why I am careful who I hang with.  I have a little litmus test, a little check-in procedure after I’ve been with someone.

I ask myself, do I feel better or worse? If I find myself feeling drained, tired and worn out after being with someone, well, it just might be time to revisit how often that happens.

More importantly, I ask myself what am I putting out in the world? 

So when someone tells me that the pursuit of my own happiness is a trivial and selfish endeavour?

I might have to remind them, in the nicest possible way, that in fact, I am embarking on this quest for the betterment of not only myself, but for everyone that happens to come across my path.

Trust me. It’ll be better this way.

For all of us.