The Price of Disconnection

Longing for Connection is Rampant in Modern Life

I am deeply lonely.  I long to love, laugh and be held in the warm glow of intimate connection by family, friends and beloved community.  Yet something stops me. I do not reach out.  I am left alone, knowing I am not living life to the fullest. Millions of other human beings are caught in the same conundrum .

Made-Up Meanings Rule Our Lives

I have been inquiring deeply into the roots of my disconnection.  Early in my childhood, perhaps on a day when I was very stressed, I came to a conclusion that has ruled my life: “I can never have anything I want.” Given the things going on in my family at the time, this made a weird kind of sense-for a five year old. It doesn’t make sense for someone who wants more love in her life.  Or for one who wants to bring peace and joy to this planet.

I am an ordinary human being.  All of us make up interpretations, stories and beliefs in childhood about how the world is or who we are, in an effort to survive and deal with difficult circumstances. The problem is, we forget that we made up these stories and beliefs; they are unconscious and they rule our lives. And we wonder why we cannot make our lives work! 

Some Succeed at Connection, Many Fail

This is difficult enough in our private lives where we struggle to find love, to marry,  create families and lasting friendships, and to find work that sustains and enlivens us.  Most of our lives are full of dramas and conflicts with our families and neighbors and in our workplaces.   With all this it’s hard to pay attention to all those others in the world who clamor for our attention.

The killers who come out of nowhere and suddenly massacre people at schools and public places are often loners, people who never fit in.  They hovered at the edges of society and no one knew them. ( I have written about them in my blog Violence, the Gift that Goes on Giving.) They create havoc and leave a trail of grief, blood and sorrow in their wake. They are hiding in every community.

I work with psychiatric patients and my unit is full of depressed, psychotic and suicidal patients.  These are folks who shoot themselves, throw themselves off bridges, set fire to themselves, are homeless, drug addicted and miserably unhappy.  They cannot connect, they cannot love.  They are in your community as well.

Massive Cost in Lives Lost Due to Disconnection

The terrorists, plotting the next Mumbai or 9/11, crave connection too.  Notice that they don’t work alone; they are hanging out in cells and networks with others committed to the same nihilistic visions.  They don’t believe that they can have what they want in the world either. They are so enraged about it  they will kill people who look like they have something that looks like happiness. (See my blog Why Do They Kill?).

We are all paying a massive price for disconnection, our own or that of other people.

Be Love, Be Loving, Connect 

This holiday season, connect with the people you love-and even with those you don’t love.  Tell them you care. Say it from your heart. Give up your resentments.  Let them melt away into the ether.   While you’re at it, consider that people in other parts of the world with radically different points of view are longing for love and happiness too.

Only connect— you will change the world.

Transformational Resources:  Discovering the Limiting Meanings You Made up about Life

• 1. Landmark Education
• 2. Byron Katie’s The Work
• 3. Diamond Heart
• 4. Compassionate Listening Project
• 5. Non Violent Communication

We welcome your comments. If you know of other transformational approaches, we are eager to learn about them.