What is true connection?

Connection is such an important word to me.  It’s in the name of my business, Creative Connection, as well as the name of my  classes-Live Connected, Connected Parenting and Connected Mastermind.  It’s a core need of mine and all of ours as human beings.  But what does true connection really mean?  In order to share my thoughts on connection I want to go back to early childhood development.  When we were young we didn’t feel separate from our parents, siblings or others.  We felt at one with life and nature. We didn’t evaluate or judge ourselves or others beyond what was happening in the moment. If we were happy we laughed, sad we cried, and we never judged any feeling or ourselves as good or bad.  We were in flow with life and basically trusted that our needs would be met.

Around the age of 6 or 7 we started realizing we were individuals, separate from our parents and others around us.  During this time fear and judgement started to creep in.  Things became either good or bad, which led us to feel judgment and separation instead of oneness and connection. True connection is the opposite of separation.  It is a feeling of oneness. Oneness with others, with nature, with life, with the universe, with God, just like when we were children.

When we know of someone going through something difficult and we have been through the same thing, we can feel a connection.  When we see our children dealing with a challenge that we have experienced, we feel connected. As we go further on our spiritual journey, the separation between other’s challenges and our own start to melt away. We begin to see that just about everyone is going through some challenge and some joy that is like our own.  The more we see others in separation-whether it be racially, socio-economically, or culturally, the more alone we feel. When we allow these barriers to crumble, we feel linked to one another.

One way to work on bonds with family, friends or even strangers is to ask yourself this question when you witness someone experiencing happiness or joy, sorrow or discomfort: “Can I relate in some way to what that person might be feeling?” It’s likely you can come up with a familiar situation in your own life that evoked the same emotions . You can almost imagine yourself in their place and understand what they are feeling.  With only love in your heart, you will see that there is so much connectedness among us all.  Your feelings of separation and loneliness will start to dissipate and you will again feel at one with the world.