Why Do I Feel A Strong Connection With Someone?

As humans, we are predominately social beings. But with over seven billion people on the planet, only a few will make a lasting impression.

You might feel that you only authentically connect with very few people who enter your life.

If you are lucky, you may feel effortlessly understood by one person. Together you connect more deeply than anyone else.

But why do I feel such a strong connection with this one special person?

Signs You Have Met Someone Extremely Special

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.”

– Rumi

When you bond with someone special, it can feel like nothing else. Even from the first conversation, there is something different that you experience.

Your heart beats a little faster, your eyes get wider and your eyebrows perk up. You feel like you connect and can interact with this special person.

When we can become uniquely connected to another’s presence, intelligence, and heart, we have the chance to grow.

We can feel the joy of a new possibility, deeply assured of any risk and even completely dissolved in the love of another. It can feel like one of our happiest and elated moments.

There are some major telltale signs to look out to understand if a strong and intimate connection can develop between you both:

1) Have you ever spoken with someone and they immediately feel familiar?

“And you and I know that we were lovers since the beginning of time!”

– Avijeet Das

Perhaps you share similar upbringings? Or both take the same daring decision to leave home to explore overseas? Or you both feel at ease when walking on long treks in the mountains.

The chances that you share multiple facets of your life passions with one another and deep-rooted beliefs will make you feel like you’ve known each other a long time.

Make sure to take your time to test this hypothesis. To really know someone and feel understood takes a great deal of communication and clarity.

2) You talk for hours without noticing time passing

As you start to talk more, it feels like your conversations get deeper and more meaningful.

You can also switch topics easily and they feel full of enthusiasm and interest. A lot of the time our conversations can fade into mediocrity after a few minutes.

But with the right person, you can speak for hours at length and the conversation feels effortless.

You don’t feel restrained in any way and you can both let your ideas out, even the ones you don’t talk to many people about, like your secret business plans and bucket list.

3) You have an enjoyable rapport and feel intrinsically respected

When you speak with this special person, your level of respect is high.

When two people in a meaningful relationship respect each other, they are able to open up and feel extremely comfortable in each other’s company.

They are someone with whom you share the same values. You admire their goals and the way that they conduct themselves.

On the same token, when you talk about your career, interactions and daily happenings, you have the feeling that this person also values what you put your time and energy into.

You don’t talk each other down or criticize one another’s decisions.

You are both curious about what will happen next in each other’s lives and have a similar inner compass that guides you.

4) You have fun together and can laugh together

Laughter helps us bond quickly in a relationship. It stimulates your physiology and increases the release of endorphins, which relieve your body of stress and pain and help produce a feeling of euphoria.

Laughter helps you to go into serious topics with care. It can help you to share stories that are embarrassing or absurd that you normally keep secret.

People always remember how others made them feel. If you can both cut tension in stressful situations with a good laugh, or work through conflict and come out feeling better and closer, then you truly share a gift.

Sharing a laugh with someone creates a great deal of bonding.

5) You share meaningful conversations

It takes a unique person to be able to break down our walls and dive into the important conversations that mean something to us.

Meaningful conversations can lead to a happier life. It’s important to discuss the things that touch us deeply. To voice our opinion. To think about a life well-lived.

But that doesn’t mean we can open up to anyone. We need to feel safe and secure around them. We need to trust them with our innermost thoughts and feelings.

You find that your goals and values align perfectly.

If you both value and respect each other’s opinions, you are both open to learning and sharing new perspectives on life issues.

It shows you both value each other’s role in this.

They help you rediscover yourself and remind you of what is important to you without being intrusive

6) Your eyes lock and you feel drawn to them

Making eye contact ignites a powerful spark between you.

You gaze into each other’s eyes, you can hold the contact. You instantly feel connected and like you’ve known this person your whole life.

When you speak, you don’t even notice anyone else. It’s just you and this person in the room.

You feel drawn to their body. When you speak you both sit close. Your body language
is open.

When you are with them, there’s an instinctive pull. And when you are apart, this feeling stays with you, no matter how long you go until seeing them again.

“He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.”

– Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

7) The attraction is multi-leveled

There is something in this person’s face and body that you are drawn to, of course. But even aspects that they might consider flaws, are characteristics that charm and captivate you. A space between the teeth. A dimple. A scar from a childhood bicycle fall.

You are also aware that your attraction for them goes far beyond physical attraction.

They bring about positive changes in your life and mindset and make you smile.

There’s something in the way they move. Something in how they speak to you. A warmth. A loveliness that feels electric and you enjoy being around them.

They make you feel good and you don’t even know how they do it.

You feel like you are inspired to achieve something great with them

Has this person inspired you in a way like no one else has ever before?

Have they discovered a hidden skill you never knew existed within you?

When we form deep bonds with someone, they are able to see what is important to us
and keep us accountable for that passion. They can help you discover who you are and exactly what life is all about. Cherish it!

Perhaps you are also able to see the same in them? Have you encouraged a talent in them and helped it surface?

Remember, these relationships are two-way, so it’s that you both fuel and ignite each other’s fire.

8) You support each other no matter what

“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

– Maya Angelou

Have you ever felt a connection so strong you would go out of your way to help this person, no matter the time of day?

You know that you want this person in your life and you feel the same in return.

If they need you, you’ll show up, no matter what.

The bond between you is so strong that this special person helps you face your fears, pains, and problems with love and compassion.

There is no judgment, resentment, or neediness.

You feel accepted for who you are. You can show up as your authentic self, without any fear.

You also are both so honest with each other that you wouldn’t ask for more than you need or take advantage of the strong bond that you have with one another.

Yet, there is a strong pull to make sure this person feels incredibly safe and happy.

You don’t need them to be happy, but when they are, they light up your world.

Your lives are deeply intertwined and supported.

How Do I Foster A Strong Emotional Connection?

“When you meet that person. a person. one of your soul mates. let the connection. relationship. be what it is. it may be five mins. five hours. five days. five months. five years. a lifetime. five lifetimes. let it manifest itself the way it is meant to. it has an organic destiny. this way if it stays or if it leaves, you will be softer. from having been loved this authentically. souls come into. return. open. and sweep through your life for a myriad of reasons. let them be who. and what they are meant.”

– Nayyirah Waheed

When you are in a relationship and feel a strong emotional connection, the feelings between you and your love can be openly explored and freely reciprocated.

It can feel like giving is an unending currency and you never “go broke”.

Some relationships are short-lived. Some last longer than expected. No matter the length of time, that special person can teach us profound lessons, new perspectives, and insights and show us other ways of being.

You get the sense that not only do you feel special with them, but they feel the same gratitude for you as well.

This connection may come in quick and turn our lives upside down. Or, it may last longer than expected. Others may build a deeply rooted, long-lasting bond that grows into a seemingly unending relationship, unlike any other.

But building a strong emotional bond is rare. It takes the right timing, a sense of openness, personality matching, and life circumstances. Quality and genuine connections are hard to come by.

If you haven’t experienced this yet, don’t feel disillusioned. If these connections were easy to forge, everyone would have one.

Why Does it Feel So Hard to Bond With Others?

Bonding in the modern era has its set of unusual challenges. Especially with the recent level of increased isolation that many of us have experienced worldwide with lockdowns, travel restrictions, and more time alone. It can be harder to feel authentically connected for reasons like:

1) Living in a more digitalized world

Especially during the pandemic, so many of us have been relating through our computers and phones, and digital personas. These screens and devices can be a lifeline to our friends and loved ones. But these devices are also a boon for marketers and advertisers and a portal into consumer manipulation.

2) Stress & anxiety

Many of us worry about the future and what is to come. It can feel overwhelming to manage and problem-solve everything coming at us.

The pandemic has increased our level of stress to an existential level. When we are preoccupied with our thoughts and fears it makes it very difficult to relate with one another and care for someone else.

3) Being more self-centered

When we are focused on ourselves and our own lives, especially in isolation and quarantine, it makes it difficult to consider the well-being of others. “When there is an emotional connection with someone, you want them to be happy,” therapist Tracie Pinnock, LMFT, tells us.

“The fulfillment of one’s desire is a major part of being happy. Therefore, an emotional connection to someone naturally results in you wanting them to get the things they want in life.”

4) Negative past experiences

We’ve all been hurt by others. But with each new person and even with each new conversation with someone we know, we have to go in with fresh eyes and ears. We all change and we have to be in the present moment with one another to truly relate.

Otherwise we are fixated on the past one who we thought that person was. And we can always be proved wrong.

How Can I Feel More Connected with Others?

“I love your feet because they have wandered over the earth and through the wind and water until they brought you to me.”

– Pablo Neruda

Attunement is the key for strengthening our connections. When we are face to face, calling or video conferencing with someone, we can work on the almost lost art of tuning in to each other.

The key to this is “attunement”, which is the ability to be aware of our state of mind and body while also reading and connecting with another person.

Attunement is the ability to connect with someone’s thoughts and emotions. It’s longer than a single moment of empathy. It lasts over time, during the unpredictable twists and turns of interaction.

Attunement can happen when:

• Two friends are in a conversation that’s flowing well, without any talking over one another, and both friends feel heard and understood.
• Two musicians improvise or harmonize, listening to each other attentively, moving together, emotionally in sync to create a synchronized song
• Two football teammates on a fast break down the field, always aware of each other and the opposing players in this rapidly changing situation, can make a well-timed pass and score

Attunement allows us to genuinely feel connected and chemistry with someone and makes a relationship feel alive.

Attunement Research Studies

“…and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment…”

– Plato

Neuroscience research is starting to show us some insights. When two people are highly attuned during a real-time, face-to-face interaction, the rhythms of their brain waves synchronize. At the level of their brain physiology, they are literally in sync with each other.

A study published this year found that the more degree of mutual attention and interaction felt, the more synchronous the pair’s brain activity.

But the more distracted that people were from each other, the less synchronous their brain activity. In addition to distraction, there’s evidence from other studies that stress can disrupt brain synchrony too.

So what does this mean? If we want to bond more strongly with others, we can actively work on our level of attunement, and help form the lasting connections that we need. Ramping up our attunement could help us feel more meaningfully connected to the people in our lives.

How Can I Increase My Level of Attunement?

“What’s the difference?” I asked him. “Between the love of your life, and your soul mate?”
“One is a choice, and one is not.”

– Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher

Here are some ways you can try to increase your attunement in your next conversation with someone:

• Be relaxed and aware. Just before you interact with someone, tilt your chin downwards. Try to feel as if your head is gently suspended from above. Relax your shoulders and arms and fingers. Try to slow down your breathing. Feel your belly expand when you inhale and relax as you exhale. Feel your feet connect with the ground. Relax your jaw, your tongue, your cheeks.
• Listen. Look into someone’s eyes when they are speaking. Also observe the other person’s physical cues. Are their hands clenched tight? Is their posture compromised? Are they breathing heavy? Try to consider what they are expressing to be the most important matter in your conversation.
• Understand. Consider what the other person’s experience or perspective might be. What are they going through at this moment? How does it differ from yours? Try to be tolerant that their experience can be very different from yours. Remember they don’t need advice, but want to feel heard.
• Wait before you respond. Sometimes we have our response to someone’s thoughts or points made even before they have finished speaking. Try to let the person in front of you finish their sentence before you think of what you would like to say. Give the conversation some space and time to organically develop. You can even take a full breath in and out before you speak to give some help with the timing.
• Respond well. Keep your responses connected in some way to what the other person just said or did. Stay with them in the flow of the interaction. Listen to what they say and don’t go off topic. You can mirror back words and phrases that they use so that they know you were listening to them.

Feeling More Connected with More People Equals Happiness

“Have you ever felt really close to someone? So close that you can’t understand why you and the other person have two separate bodies, two separate skins?”

– Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

Nothing feels better than when our relationships are going well. The more we can connect with one another, either on a romantic, friendly or neighbourly vibe, the more alive and vibrant we feel.

Feeling connected with a special someone can make us feel truly seen and heard. But imagine if that quality could transfer over to our other relationships as well.

As you strengthen your bonds and level of connections you might start to feel that the world is not such a lonely and isolated place. There are so many people going through very much the same experience on this journey called life. And there are great lessons of wisdom and inspiration to bear witness to.

The more we can tune in and bond with one another, the easier it becomes to understand how to navigate and feel at ease on this journey of life together.