THE BOND OF LOVE by Chloe Faith Wordsworth

Parts of this article are reprinted or adapted from Energetics of Relationship by Chloe Faith Wordsworth

The most significant relationship in our life is with our mother: we are made from her bones and blood; her every response is recorded at a cellular level not only within her own body, emotions and mind, but also in the body, emotions and mind of her prenate in the first nine months of life in the womb. It’s no wonder that soldiers dying on the field of battle call for their mother. She is associated with life, and longed for in death.

Bonding

But in our western world, something goes wrong in this relationship. In tribal societies women know instinctively that their baby needs to be in almost continuous contact with them for at least the first nine months of the baby’s life. This connection reinforces the PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) response that is associated with bonding, love, nurturance from food, sexual connection and relaxation. The pain of not having this need for bonding, love and connection met impacts how we relate to all others for the rest of our life.

Separation

Our second innate need is for separation. After about nine months of age, the child initiates separation from the mother, impelled by a desire to explore their world. Unnatural or forced separation from the mother’s energy field through physical separation or disconnection from her emotional and mental energy field causes the baby to respond with an SNS (sympathetic nervous system) fight/flight reaction.

When these early needs for bonding and natural separation are not met, we tend to ‘survive’ by needing constant attention to avoid an intense feeling of abandonment or we compensate by becoming self-sufficient and denying our need for bonding. Either of these responses cause intimacy and bonding to be associated with stress rather than pleasure and relaxation.

Healthy balance

When there is a healthy balance between the PNS and SNS, the child explores a little and soon returns to the mother for bonding or to make sure she is still there, and then leaves to explore once more. In this way the child learns to move out into the world with curiosity and a sense of adventure, balanced by a return for bonding and protection whenever the child feels the need. Exploration is now associated with a sense of safety, because trust that the mother is predictably available for bonding whenever she is needed is maintained. When our survival reptilian brain knows that both separation and bonding are safe and predictable, growth, maximum learning, vitality and health are the result.

Vulnerable and violated

Because of our early bonding-separation stresses, the capacity to bond and separate in a balanced, harmonious, life-enhancing way is a rarity rather than the norm. When our PNS (parasympathetic nervous system) is underactive because of early bonding stress, we feel vulnerable, which often causes us to feel violated by others and their demands. Isolation then becomes the only way to feel safe; or we may strictly control how much bonding we allow – avoiding what feels like too much closeness. Underneath these responses is a feeling of abandonment by the mother.

Agitation and discharge

When our SNS (sympathetic nervous system) is overactive because of early separation stress, we may feel agitated and unable to relax. The force of our hyperactive energy often pushes people away, and the need to discharge the build-up of energy in overwork, excessive exercise, numerous projects, sexual activity, constant talking and even in quarrels and fighting are some of the consequences. These activities may bring a little temporary relief, but our inherent need for relaxation and bonding is never addressed.

Increase our capacity for love

We want bonding; we are hard-wired for bonding. For our natural expression of health and vitality, we need to not only maintain the bond of love but also increase our capacity for love. Instead, we tend to build walls and in our self-sufficiency avoid our most basic need.

We don’t do well with disharmony, conflict, quarrels and violence. These non-coherent ways of being are a shock to our system because we dread anything that potentially could destroy the bond of love between us and all others. Why we don’t do well with separation is because we are all one: energetically, the whole universe is a web of interconnected relationships held together by the force of love. Separation simply reinforces the illusion that we have lost our connection to the oneness of life.  We pay a heavy price for this disconnect: we don’t feel loved, which leads us to feel betrayed, abandoned and rejected; we then stop loving, which leads to feelings of anger, hurt and withdrawal; we feel cut off from the web of life, which leads to a loss of meaning, purpose, joy, trust and contentment.

Resonance Repatterning

In many ways we could say that in Resonance Repatterning everything we do, every session, is to change our resonance with the illusion of separation, so once more we experience the love that is within ourselves that connects us with all others and the web of life. Often we need to heal our relationship with our mother so we once more resonate with letting go of the pain associated with our neglect/abuse issues that bind us to the stress responses, negative feelings and non-coherent beliefs of our infancy and childhood. Whether we want to regain our health, enjoy our work, expand ourselves successfully into the world or have positive relationships with all those we know and meet, everything depends on reconnecting to the bond of love within, to the ideal mother within, to our parasympathetic nervous system’s inherent need to bond that in turn allows us to initiate natural separation: the space and optimism to enjoy the adventure of life!

Author: Chloe Wordsworth

Founder and developer of Resonance Repatterning and author of Quantum Change Made Easy, Spiral Up! and all the RRI seminar books View all posts by Chloe Wordsworth