The medicinal effect of connection is real

Being at peace in the body

July 13, 2025

intuition is really an immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, the histories of all people are connected……Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

There is a saying. Everything can be medicine and everything can be poison. There’s also a middle ground, an in between, and that is neutrality. This is a simplification, a process of stripping down to the most obvious effect. Yet nevertheless, it is a way to consider things.

Simple. Clear. Honest.

photo©Erin Johnson Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence, France

Take the feeling of connection or the innate desire that all things have to commune (to be with so as not to be alone). There is the human element, that with my husband, my most intimate circle of friends, family, etc. Then there’s my home, the garden, my cats, the food, and activities I do in a day. Imagine it like a bullseye; a field of concentric circles that radiate out from the center, only it's on a multidimensional plane.

Each one of these interactions is an opportunity for connection—for relationship, for being at peace within the body or with our surroundings. When we interact with one another we can either leave each other the same, better, or worse. Which means we all have the capacity to either act as medicine, have a neutral effect on each other, or have a poisonous/adversarial effect. Consider this. Then think how this ripples and expands beyond just human to human connection. It’s not remarkable, it’s truly special, in really, all ways. Because the medicinal effect is real!

The medicinal effect of connection, either with one another…or my cat snuggled up right next to a stack of books upon which this computer sits, or eating a fresh garden salad, or catching the flight of the dragonfly, or arranging flowers in a jar, indeed are real.

It may be sitting on a beach, connecting with the mountains or clouds in the distance, listening to the rain or Steven Stills on the record player. Consider your next meal or better yet, your next breath, as an opportunity for communion, and how it can give you peace in the body.

This medicine of connection, we all need it. And we all have it. Because as you may or may not know, through these experiences, oxytocin surges. And when oxytocin increases, there’s an antidotal effect: high adrenaline and cortisol levels tank.

What is the medicine that you are most connected to? Pay attention to it. It is likely already present in your surroundings.

Yours, Erin