Staying With a Connection Before It Has a Name
In my previous article about my experiences with somatic intelligence, I wrote about a connection that was present in my body before it had any name. It did not arrive as emotion, intuition, or insight, and it did not point toward action or meaning. There was no urgency in it and no internal narrative asking to be followed or resolved. It was simply there — steady, grounded, and available regardless of circumstance.
The quality of this connection did not change with engagement or withdrawal. It did not intensify when life felt open, and it did not fade when things became quiet. It felt oriented without being directed, coherent without being defined. At the time, I deliberately chose not to name it. That choice was not philosophical. It was practical. I could feel that defining it too early would pull attention away from the experience itself and into interpretation.
From experience, I have learned that when something somatic is named prematurely, it often becomes thinner than what is actually being felt. Attention shifts from the body into explanation, and what was alive begins to flatten into a concept. So I stayed with the experience as it was, without trying to resolve it.
What I did not yet recognise was that nothing about the connection itself was unclear. The body was precise from the beginning. What was unclear was the reference point I was using to understand it. I was still orienting outward, quietly assuming that something meaningful must be forming between myself and the world, or between myself and another person.
Nothing in the body was doing that. Nothing was developing, strengthening, or moving toward completion. The connection was already whole. What needed to shift was not the experience itself, but my orientation toward it.
PLEASE NOTE: This article is not part of my research with over 100 CEOs on Decision-Making, Daily Execution, and Recovery & Rest. It stands outside that body of work. What you will read here is a personal exploration — a subjective reflection shaped by my own experiences, patterns, assumptions, and interpretations. It is not intended to represent universal truth, clinical accuracy, or objective reality. The ideas expressed reflect my current understanding. As my experience evolves, my perspective may shift, and I may change, rewrite, or replace any part of this article — or the entire piece — at any time. If you disagree with anything shared here, I genuinely welcome your thoughts and perspectives in the comments below. Dialogue is part of the value.
Years of Deliberate Solitude
For several years, I lived in deliberate solitude. This was not isolation born of fear or withdrawal, but a conscious choice to stabilise myself internally. That period was focused on regulation, rebuilding self-trust, embodying my values, and developing a secure attachment to myself rather than seeking it externally.
During those years, I changed almost everything: my environment, my work, my relationship to money, and the way I related to my own inner states. Much of that time was spent turning inward, learning to rely on myself, and allowing my nervous system to settle into something more stable and predictable. Gradually, a sense of internal security took shape — felt primarily as steadiness rather than something I needed to think or convince myself of.
By the time that period came to a natural close, something important was already in place. I was no longer organising my life around the need for reassurance or validation. There was a centre that held, even when things were uncertain.
Related Article: When the Body Knows First: Somatic Intelligence in Real Experience
Returning to People From a Different Place
In the past couple of months, I began opening myself again to people, this time intentionally building relationships outside of my professional world. This was a different kind of exposure. Less structured, less role-defined, and more emotionally revealing.
As I did, familiar patterns briefly resurfaced. I noticed old impulses to adapt, to anticipate, to lean forward emotionally before my body had fully settled. Questions appeared quietly in the background: whether I was truly ready, whether old relational dynamics might return, and whether I could remain grounded while engaging again.
What stood out was not the presence of these impulses, but their lack of authority. Even when I felt activated, I did not lose myself. The centre remained. I could feel activation without being consumed by it. I could notice impulses forming without having to act on them. I could slow down, feel what was happening in my body, and choose not to continue engaging when something no longer felt aligned.
Stepping back did not feel like withdrawal or self-protection. It felt clean and neutral. There was no internal argument to resolve and no justification required. Something in me was already holding.
Contexts That Reinforced What Was Already True
Around this same period — while I was noticing this undefined sense of connection inside me — I continued placing myself in environments that supported bodily awareness rather than cognitive dominance. I participated in Ancient Sound Healing sessions, Scalar Healing Energy work, Light Sound Vibration experiences, Sacred Solstice Celebrations, and Cacao Ceremonies.
These were not used to seek answers, breakthroughs, or transformation. I did not approach them with goals or expectations. They were simply contexts that made it easier to remain open while staying grounded, allowing the body to remain primary and the mind to soften its habitual control.
Each time, they reinforced something that was already present. The same sense of coherence appeared consistently, unaffected by context, intention, or outcome. Rather than changing anything, these experiences confirmed stability. They made it increasingly difficult to ignore that the connection I had been sensing was not fragile, conditional, or dependent on circumstance.
It was already established.
How the Misattribution Appeared
Despite this stability, there were moments, particularly in relational settings, when the internal sense of connection seemed to organise itself around another person. The sensation itself did not change, but the mind instinctively gave it an external reference.
This happened quietly and automatically, not as confusion but as habit. The body was registering alignment, coherence, and safety. Because so much of human experience is relational, the mind did what it had always done. It assumed the source must be interpersonal and reached for familiar interpretive frameworks.
What became increasingly clear was something subtle but consistent. When I stepped closer to someone, the felt sense remained. When I stepped back, it remained. When contact continued, it remained. When contact ended, it remained. Nothing essential shifted.
When I stayed close to the bodily experience rather than the story forming around it, the quality of the connection did not intensify or diminish. It did not ask to be secured or clarified. The connection was not being created through interaction.
It was already there.
What was shifting was not the sensation itself, but where I was attributing its source.
Recognising the Internal Source
At a certain point, this became impossible to ignore. The connection I had been holding without definition was not forming between me and anything external. It was alignment with my own centre — not as an idea or belief, but as a lived, bodily reality.
The recognition did not arrive as insight or emotional release. It arrived quietly, with accuracy, as though something that had been assumed incorrectly simply stopped being assumed. There was no breakthrough moment, only a settling.
Secure attachment to self has a specific feel. Decisions no longer generate prolonged internal negotiation. When something fits, the body settles easily. When something does not, disengagement happens naturally, without resistance or self-criticism.
Old impulses still arise. The urge to adapt or perform can still appear, especially in emotionally charged situations. But they no longer organise behaviour. They move through a system that knows where it is anchored. Nothing is being controlled or suppressed. Mind, body, and values are already oriented in the same direction.
Living From an Internal Source of Connection
Somatic intelligence did not need to learn anything new. The body registered coherence from the beginning and continued to do so even while the mind experimented with different explanations. The body does not confuse connection with attachment or alignment with attraction. It continues to signal what is real, regardless of how the experience is interpreted.
Once the source was recognised as internal, nothing needed to be managed. Engagement became simpler. Disengagement became cleaner. Stepping back from what did not align did not carry a sense of loss, because nothing essential was being taken away.
Connection is no longer something I seek or try to stabilise externally. It is the place I operate from. I remain open to people, experiences, and possibilities, but none of them define my centre. Attraction, resonance, and interest still arise, but they no longer determine direction.
Nothing has been added or achieved. There is no state to maintain. The intelligence that was always present is simply recognised for what it is. The connection I once held without definition was never incomplete and never waiting to become something else. It was in alignment with myself, available all along.
Tomasz Drybala – Author, Researcher, Coach, and Director of the Neuro-Based Leadership Centre
My work is grounded in lived experience, research, and ongoing studies with more than 100 CEOs and senior executives — examining how dopamine–cortisol dynamics influence decision-making, execution, and recovery under pressure.
My academic development now includes targeted programs at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of California, Berkeley. I am pursuing a Master’s and — fingers crossed — a PhD in Applied Neuroscience, specialising in decision-making.
I’m also the author of three forthcoming books exploring the neurochemistry of leadership, including Breaking Patterns (September 2026), Neuroscience of CEO Decision-Making (January 2027), and Choosing the Right People (March 2027).