Saturday, July 17, 2010

Click ... Connecting with the Father

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com


Click
by Ori and Rom Brafman unveils the magic of instant connections. Some
people click with others immediately. In studies, it shows when this happens many of these relationships in life and business remain enduring. They stay solid for a long time. Interviews with couples who say they clicked at the first meeting, and got married soon, had the same romantic feelings for each other years later... just like the first time. They even rated as well and in some cases higher than those with long dating or friendship times, who said they eventually fell in love later.

Why is it that we form close meaningful connections? Why does it feel
so intense and pleasurable? Defining characteristics emerge. We can know what they are and click faster with more people.

The five factors that accelerate clinking are vulnerability, proximity, resonance,
similarity and a safe place.

Vulnerability. When we willingly expose inner fears and weaknesses (being candid and real), vulnerability and self-disclosure are strengths. They accelerate our ability to connect with those around us. People trust you more and will tend to be more open and vulnerable with you. This fosters a clicking atmosphere. We make ourselves vulnerable to others when we share feeling-based perspectives, revealing our inner most emotions.

Proximity. Informal, unplanned interactions bring people closer. Like when you run into someone you know or work with at the grocery store, coffee shop, etc. When we inadvertently show up at the same place at the same time, a social glue comes in to play that begins a social bonding. This enables us to form a deeper connection. For example, you may run into a work college whose son plays for the same baseball team as yours. Your casual interactions there accelerating clicking. Without spontaneous interactions, it is hard to form relationships with others. Even seeing another person at the same place frequently (like the convenience store, book store) we are more likely to gravitate to that person.

People who live or work close to each other are likely to form relationships. Familiarity actually breeds regard.

Resonance. When we feel a strong connection to everything around us,
when we have an overwhelming sense of connection to our environment, that deepens the quality of our interactions. It's a flow. Flow comes when we have achieved mastery and we're challenged. Having a sense of presence... that's being totally in the now when with someone... increases the qualities of resonating with that person. While completely engaged, we're unaware of things and others around us. This is being in the present.

In the present we are intentional. A sense of purpose emerges in our engaging interaction. A conscious awareness exists as we are mutual, open to meet the other person where they are. Some may call this chemistry, although it's that our place in life and experiences are a similar place as the other person.

As we are authentic with genuine emotional reactions, with exclusive attentiveness, which we demonstrate with active involvement, we are present. We arrive with intention, we listen, with mutual interest, and are attentive to the environment of those around us. Presence lasts beyond the the moment of interaction. It seems like the conversation and sense of connection continues even after we leave the person's physical presence.

As we consciously make ourselves more present with others, we achieve a sense of flow, inducing a sense of resonance. We resonate with the person we click with.

Similarity. The more we have in common, the more we feel in the same group. It can be a physical similarity, an intellectual similarity or a personality similarity. We seem to love the same things. The longer the length of time we have known the same people, the more similarity enters into the clicking factor. Common ground in similarity is a powerful attractor. It accelerates the intensity of the click.

Safe place. When a safe place, a neutral place exists, we let our guard down more and click. Wherever two people are and they both feel comfortable and safe there, without the need for pretense, we click more easily. We embrace each other and the same members of the tribe. Feeling safe together, and embracing a similar adversity together, makes a person more open and willing to be vulnerable.

We bond in shared adversity(i.e., military people who were in combat together). When in safe environments (without formal presentations, charts, artificially-designed structures) we will share stories of our lives. We are authentic. A deeper sense of community grows. Bonding is deeper and stronger. When in safe environments, where we feel safe and can be just ourselves with openness and acceptance, we accelerate clicking.

Clicking is when you have a magical moment and you quickly connect, with a greater sense of intimacy than normal. It is like you become close friends in a moment. To summarize, the key aspects of clicking are...
1. It has a magical quality.

2. There's power in vulnerability.

3. The closer, physical proximity, we are to someone, we hit it off faster.

4. Resonance begets resonance... when fully present.

5. Similarity counts; quantity trumps quality. Finding more that's
similar contributes to clicking.
6. Be part of a shared community.

7. High self-monitors click faster, i.e., being aware of the other
person's mindset, attitude, emotions.
8. When we click with others, we perform at our best.


Visit:

http://brafmanbrothers.com/

When Jesus talked about prayer, He emphatically stated that
we are to be prayer. In the Gospel of Matthew (21:12,13), as He became quite indigent over how the Temple was being used that He said "my house is to be a house of prayer and you have made it into a marketplace." He was referring to what was to become His Temple, that is us. He also said in John (2:19) that if you destroy this temple I will raise it up.

We sometimes think we must go somewhere to pray. Jesus
was trying to redirect our thinking while letting us in on this new phenomenon that was about to come over mankind. We (our bodies) will be the new house for the Spirit of God. Where we go the Spirit goes. And also, we (as united believers), when we come together, are a house of prayer.

The Spirit lives in us and we have access to the most Holy place of God
that has created all the universe and every item of physics, biology, life, vegetation, and atmospheric system of the world we live in.

The Spirit intercedes continually on our behalf. We then are prayer... it is not so much what we do but what we are. So, we should be careful not to corrupt the vessel God has established for prayer. That is, being too pre-occupied with things of the world, in the marketplace... making money, having things, indulging in what our society indulges in and craves.

This is the first part of prayer... to recognize we are prayer. The more we allow the Spirit of God to live in all parts of our lives, the more the Power of Spirit will operate in all its potential through us.

Where does prayer begin? Jesus said to pray like this. (Matthew 6: 9...)
Our Father, who is in heaven, how Holy, unique you are, and we honor that. What you want done in Heaven, we stand ready to be part of that and do our part on earth.

As we look at what Jesus said on how to pray, consider the use
of the word Father. In the Gospel of John, God was referred to as Father over a hundred times. Jesus repeatedly referred to God as Father. This was an unprecedented choice of words. The Jewish leaders of the day, never used the word Father.

Over and over again, Jesus referred to God as His Father, and He said we should also. He pointed
out that the Father lived in Him, and He lived in the Father. He did nothing outside the Father's direction. He depended on the Father's power to do everything He was asked to do. What is remarkable about this is that Jesus said we are in Him and He is in us. In the same way Jesus is in the Father, we now are in the Father. All we see Jesus doing, we can and are to do. We have the same relationship with the Father as Jesus had, and has.

Take a moment and read John 5. Consider how Jesus refers to the
Father, the nature of the relationship He has... we have.

Jesus did only what the Father did. What the Father does, Jesus does.
The Father Shows Him what He is doing and what Jesus is to do. The Father comes up with even greater things that will be done through Jesus. Every miracle keeps increasing in magnitude. Everyone who Honors the Son, Jesus, honors the Father. He will speak to us, and those who listen to the Voice of the Father and Son will live. The Father has life in Himself, and He has granted the same life giving power to the Son.

And as Jesus said, we will be in Jesus, Jesus in us, which means we also share
in the Power of the Father. Now God is like a Father of the most ideal level we can imagine.

Our Father in Heaven connects with us on earth to bring Heaven to earth through us.

It's up to us to join Him.

No comments: