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I've been a Buddhist pastor for quite a while and for the bulk of the last 15 years what I do

essentially connect with people on a one-on-one basis.

The vast majority of the time in the same room with somebody or sometimes

we're looking, we sit outside and I check in with them and through the process of the beautiful process of deep honest authentic

human connection where one person listens to another with empathy and

interest and so forth that just the presence of each other can help not only regulate and soothe another person's distress, but together

we can collaborate to come up with solutions that would be helpful,

just offer tools that I think might be of help.

And those tools come about through the direct one-on-one exchange or diad. So when the pandemic

started, I had to change the way I worked with people, no longer connecting mostly in person, but actually

having to do the Buddhist pastor work, the interaction, the spiritual counseling that I do using apps like

Zoom and FaceTime and Google Hangouts and whatnot.

So this change really brought my attention to the difference is one between direct interpersonal interaction and all the ways that that meets are really deep emotional needs versus the remote mediated connection that we now have through

synchronous video communication.

And so why is that, why does that even matter?

Well, a couple of things, one, a couple of reasons one a couple of reasons if you if we understand the core needs

that human beings seek from birth until death to regulate our autonomic nervous system,

...