By Mark Ebinger, author of Connect
One night while I was on the phone with a long-distance relationship, Tom said he was worried about me getting lonely because I was alone a lot. I asked Tom if he was lonely, and he said, “No,”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because we are connected.”
Our connection was strong, a tangible tether of love between us. And it had nothing to do with being close to each other, or even in the same city.
Connection is not based on proximity; it transcends time and space. Connection is ever present, available to everyone at any given moment. I believe we are born fully connected to everything and everybody who has come before us, who is here now, and who will be here after us. I believe all living things are intrinsically connected and we can all learn to feel that connection. When we do, we open ourselves to the full spectrum of love.
Once we’re returned to our innate and continuous connection, love flows easily. Connection and love are available to us all, and if we’re not receiving or giving them- if we are not letting them flow through us- then we are consciously blocking them. At the heart of connection is the desire to give and receive love. This drive is as essential to our well-being as the food we eat and the air we breath. Each of us longs for deep, satisfying connection where we are fully known and know another.
However, disconnection is rampant and long before the pandemic, loneliness has been a growing epidemic. If, fundamentally, we are all born connected with ourselves, life, and each other, how do we explain the disconnection? What causes it? Why does the experience of connection seem so elusive?
The answer, I believe, is that we have turned away from the connection that is innately present because of our hurts, fears, and wounds from past traumas. We all have perfectly valid justifications as to why we disconnect but it is always because of a wound. Our survival instinct tries to keep us from getting hurt again. The moments when we turn away from our own pain, not wanting to face it and heal it, are when we discounted our own uniqueness. At those times, we reached to circumstances and chose to disconnect.
Yes I believe we choose to disconnect- sometimes consciously and sometimes without even realizing it; if connection is always present, then to not be connected is something we decide to experience. The good news is that we can always choose to reconnect, and the more we practice doing that, the easier it becomes. While we are physically distancing from one another, we can experience even greater connection with ourselves and others. We can become more introspective and examine where we have disconnected from what is really important to us. This time in our history has been a forced slow down that can be uncomfortable when we can no longer busy ourselves with distractions. I’m using this period to experience connection with myself and the people that are important to me like never before. I’m reaching out to people through emails, facetime, texts, phone calls and energetically sending love to those I care about and who have touched my life. I’m spending more time still, with my thoughts and connected to myself and my own inner wisdom. At times I feel angry at the “set-backs and disruption” but once I accept what is so and stop fighting what is, I once again enter the flow of life and experience fulfillment, joy, purpose…and Connection!