Connecting with…
Corporations are increasingly spending billions of dollars to capture and retain our attention. The more we give our attention to whatever it is out there, the less attention we have left to deal with our feelings, emotions, desires, beliefs, goals and dreams. When we continuously shift our attention from one person to another, from one place to another, from one thing to another, from a time in the past to a time in the future, we are actually becoming disconnected with our own present reality. And so today, we have the most means to connect with one another, yet we feel the loneliest we’ve ever felt.
Our ability to meaningfully connect with our partners, family, friends and community is predicated on being meaningfully connected with our essence. If it’s not possible to give that which we don’t have, how come we expect to connect with the external world if we aren’t connected with ourselves to begin with? Some might not have realised, but by doing something consistently for a significant period of time, we become habituated to doing that thing. If we reach for our phones and check social media right after the alarm went off, this will become a habit. If we meditate every morning for 15 minutes before looking at our phones, guess what?! Meditating for 15 minutes every morning will become a habit.
The energy we start our day with is very likely to be the energy we drag along throughout the day. If the first thought we had was “FUCK, I’M LATE TO WORK”, it’s very likely we’ll feel that we don’t have enough time throughout the day. If the first thought was “FUCK YEAH, TODAY IS MY LAST DAY AT WORK BEFORE GOING ON HOLIDAYS”, we’ll most likely carry an optimistic and upbeat energy with us. If we wake up and think that we’ll meditate for 15 minutes to have a calm and productive day at work, we’re very likely to be a lot more resilient to stress and feel a sense of accomplishment in the small tasks we carry out, after all we already accomplished our first goal: to sit down and meditate for 15 minutes.
The word meditation means getting familiar with. If we meditation is getting familiar with, we become familiar with ourselves through meditation. We become familiar with our thoughts and our feelings. The goal of meditating in the morning may well be to become aware of our thoughts and the sensations in our body. If we talk with someone for 15 minutes and we learn something new about that person, we feel connected to that person somehow. Likewise, when we sit down to meditate and learn about the thoughts we think and the emotions we feel, we come out of it feeling connected with ourselves. If we can’t give that which we don’t have, we must be able to give that which we do have. If we are connected with ourselves at a deep level, we are more capable of listening to what others have to say. If we’re capable of listening with dedication and attention, we can identify the commonalities between the other person’s perspective and ours, we should therefore be able to express our perspective eloquently without butting heads.
On the other hand, if we aren’t familiar with our own thoughts and feelings, we are less likely to listen attentively to what others have to say and more likely to need to speak our truth over somebody else’s truth. Engaging in a conversation when both parties want to speak and neither want to listen is the perfect recipe for disconnection, dissatisfaction, stress and problem-creation. Ever wondered why social media is so popular? A theory of mine is that it’s because everyone has a voice and no one has to listen. Thus, we can all speak out and choose to listen only to those whose opinions match with ours. In the real world, however, not being able to listen to others’ voices and conjure up an empowering solution-driven discussion get us in trouble.
