magic on sunday: good for your neurological wiring
it was the saturday before christmas and the power in my hotel room had just gone out. i was in for the night and my room was pitch dark, but i wasn’t ready to go to sleep. after discovering that the light from my phone wasn’t sustainable enough to read the book i had brought, i opted for plan b: opening tinder.
there was a new message from a man named adam. looking at his profile, i knew he wasn’t local to nyc, that he was one of those out of towners who visits for the holidays and is in search of a tour guide/someone to keep them company while exploring a new place.
usually, i don’t engage in these situations, but i was stuck in a dark hotel room and his opening message intrigued me:
“carrie and lowell is probably one of my favorite albums of all time.” he said, in reference to the top spotify artists listed on my profile.
if you know me, you know that my love for sufjan stevens runs absurdly deep. we ended up chatting for an hour or so about our travels, work, our upbringings, and music, among other topics. it wasn’t overly remarkable, but it wasn’t shallow either. as our conversation came to a close, adam told me to give him a shout if i make it to london, and i told him to holler my way if he needed any last minute nyc recommendations.
“will do, meghan. thanks for being real. sleep tight.”
for the next few days, the “thanks for being real” sentiment kept swirling in my head.
in the age of publishing into the void, thanks to twitter, curated instagram feeds, snapchat, etc., consciously “being real” and open to others seems easy to lose sight of. it sparked me to think about some of the walls and stories i unconsciously/consciously tend to project. sometimes life feels easier that way, and for some reason, it feels even more pronounced in the wintertime as we strive to stay bundled and protected.
in light of it, i’ve been consciously exploring what it’s like to actively and intentionally really see and engage with other people, usually strangers. this book i’m reading calls it “micro-moments of connection” and in its simplest terms, it means sharing genuine positive feelings with another person. it feels pretty ridiculous to type that previous sentence because it’s absurd that we wouldn’t do this, but life is busy, we’re distracted, we’re selfish. it’s very easy to lose sight of anyone but ourselves. the good news is that the science behind active connection says it’s good for us - that when we create these micro-moments, we actually fortify our neurological wiring.
anyways, it feels kind of hokey and sort of contrived, but i’ve legit felt a renewed sense of connection and lightness during this little behavior shift. if you’re feeling in a slump this week, give it a try, your neurological wirings will thank you.
magic on sunday: 01.07.18
leonard’s lake - lil ugly mane
sunshine - monster rally
southern nights - allen toussaint
walkaway - weaves
love grows - hala
beautiful gurrls - ricky eats acid
anytime of the year - yung heazy
until sunday,
meghan
[magic on sunday archive]
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