Connections

Have you ever thought about how we are connected to everything around us? Flora and fauna of nature. All the animals that populate the Earth. The stars in the sky. The oceans, lakes, and rivers. Humans in our lives—friends, family, foes, teachers, bosses, and even strangers. We can mark encounters with any of them among our connections.

 

Yet, we often live as though we are separate from many elements of life. We have forgotten our connection to a living, pulsating Universe that receives our energy to preserve it and, in turn, gives energy back to us to preserve ourselves.

 

Connections create relationships and circles of belonging. But, more importantly, they create a stronger self in each of us. Look back on the connections you have made throughout your life. Does it give you a map of the direction you’ve traveled to reach today? If you reflect on your current connections, do they make you feel grounded where you are? Do they give you a sense of where you’ll go next?

 

Connections are made and broken throughout life—some for better or worse, others for gain or loss. But they all remain with us because of how they shaped who we were, who we are, and who we are still becoming. Some of the disconnections in my life have been freeing, and some have been heartbreaking. I’m sure the same is true for you.

 

Do you ever make reconnections in your life? Maybe you’ve run into an old friend you haven’t seen for years and start where you left off. You can also reconnect with passions you left behind when life got too busy to include them. Photography, skiing, gardening. Pick your passion and resurrect it or make it one of your new connections.

 

Recently, I had a haunting reconnection with a friend who died in early August. It was a heartbreaking loss for me, but a month after his death, I found an undeleted voicemail he had left me last January. The message? “Somehow, we were disconnected. But I’m still here. Give me a call.”

 

Today, consider your life’s connections, disconnections, and reconnections. Are you still making them? Do you need to connect, disconnect or reconnect where you haven’t? Or, perhaps, you can rely on happenstance or spirit to intervene.