The brain has a special response to moments that are challenging, and somehow we spiral up to a state of joy. It uses those times to strongly encode that "bound-back" factor that enhances our health and happiness, and the quality of our life.
There are two parts to that, one when you were somewhat crazed, sure that you would never survive this, and someone, in all gentleness and without your request, gave you precisely what you needed.
The second part may come years later, when you reconnect with them and find that you both remember what happened, and even, you arrive in their life at just the time when you can return the favor.
Two people who were mega heroes in my life have come back around full circle. One is a woman who helped me when my daughter needed support, and, like an angel, arrived and gave me a gift that I could pass along to my daughter – no strings attached. Another was a man who joined our family briefly at a time when his kindness and gentleness were just what we needed. Now I am helping the woman, and supporting the man emotionally, and their receiving is a HUGE gift to me.
What is that? How can it be that in the semi-terror moments in life, when we are so in need, an enduring bond is formed? Even when these people are not physically in our lives, that circuit of a loving memory endures. It seems as if the "circuit" of loving connection then calls them back . . . and the fulfillment of that is like nothing else.
In EBT, we call those semi-terror times Brain State 5. Then we add to that concept, and see it as a Moment of Opportunity, because after the 5 comes the ONE, that moment that shines bright and convinces us of the grace, beauty, and MAGIC of life.
With COVID lingering and all of us having had moments of self-reflection, semi-terror, and more than a tad of confusion, perhaps we can appreciate the preciousness of those "adverse" experiences. Perhaps they become the best that life has to offer, as the magic of needing love and then getting it beyond our wildest dreams lives within us. It gives us more than hope. It gives us a deep love for the gift of life!